Indiana Bill Would Make It Illegal to Expose Factory Farms, Clearcutting and Fracking
Indiana lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it illegal to photograph or videotape things like factory farming, clear-cutting forests, mining, and fracking.
You read that correctly. Under Indiana’s SB 0373, anyone who sets foot on corporate property in order to document environmental, animal welfare, and health violations of these industries would face criminal penalties.
The bill has already passed the Senate, and is on track to pass the full House. It is part of a wave of similar legislation introduced across the country that have been dubbed “ag-gag” bills. [Here's a detailed look at ag-gag efforts nationally.] But Indiana is poised to become the first state to pass an ag-gag bill this year.
This ag-gag trend is the brainchild of the Big Ag industry, working with the American Legislative Exchange Council. What’s especially troubling about Indiana’s bill, though, is that it extends far beyond factory farms to the timber, mining, and manufacturing industries.
The text of the bill lists “agricultural operations” such as “crops,” “livestock,” “poultry,” horticultural products,” and “growing timber.” It also lists “industrial operations,” which is pretty much everything connected to industry: the “manufacture of a product from other products, “transformation of a material from one form to another,” “mining of a material and related mine activities,” or “storage or disposition of a product or material.”
Read More: http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/indiana-ag-gag-factory-farms-fracking/6825/