You've probably heard of all the prohibitions against trespassing on private property or of listening to your neighbor's conversations without their consent, or of photographing someone without permission.
All those usually involve humans, right? Well, there's a law in Utah that says it means animals too.
The four are charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespassing on agricultural land and of "agricultural operations interference." That state law says you can't engage in undercover operations on a farm, and you can't secretly record any agricultural activity, even if that means just taking pictures of farm buildings or animals.
The activists are with the Farm Animal Rights Movement, and they were in Utah to track pigs going from the Utah farm to a slaughterhouse in Los Angeles. The group's lawyer says they didn't do anything wrong and weren't trespassing but rather taking pictures from the side of the road. Prosecutors on the other hand say the four were indeed trespassing, even for just a few minutes while they took pictures.
The group was detained by the local sheriff and given citations.
"All of us looked at each other and said, what is this, interfering with agriculture,” their attorney Matthew Phillips told The Salt Lake Tribune. “None of us had heard of that, their attorney Matthew Phillips told The Salt Lake Tribune.”
The group is scheduled to make a court appearance next Thursday but Phillips says they will instead mail-in not guilty pleas, and that they hope their case goes to trial so they can point out it's unconstitutional and "completely absurd." Phillips adds the group plans on filing a civil suit against the local sheriff's office for unlawful detention.
Utah isn't the only state to do this. At least seven others have those "ag-gag" laws that critics say are just an attempt by agribusiness and their allies to stop anyone from looking over their shoulder to make sure everything's on the up-and-up. Two years ago, for instance, an undercover operation on a dairy farm in Idaho led to charges of animal cruelty and fines for the farm, but it also resulted in a strict law that says anyone secretly investigating agricultural activities faces up to a year in jail and a whopping $5,000 fine.
Animal rights groups argue "ag-gag" is too tame of a name and it actually should be called an "anti-whistleblower" law. The ACLU and animal rights groups have banded together to challenge those laws. However, they are up against serious adversaries given that the Koch Brothers-bankrolled American Legislative Exchange Council spearheaded the ag-gag movement.
