BOISE (CN) - Idaho's "ag-gag" law, which criminalizes undercover investigations of agricultural operations, restricts free speech and violates the Constitution's equal protection clause, a federal judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Windmill cited Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel "The Jungle" in granting partial summary judgment to the Animal Defense Fund et al., who challenged the legislation.
Sinclair gathered material for his novel by hiding his identity and signing on as an employee at a Chicago meatpacking plant where he exposed horrendous labor conditions.
It's the same tactic used by Los Angeles-based Mercy for Animals, which exposed the "brutal abuse of cows" at Bettencourt Dairies' Dry Creek Diary in Hansen, Idaho, in 2012.
Video shows dairy employees using a tractor and chain to drag a cow by its neck, and workers beating, kicking and jumping on cows.
The video drew national attention when it was broadcast on ABC News' "Nightline." The Idaho Dairymen's Association responded by drafting and sponsoring Idaho's ag-gag law.
The law, passed as an "emergency measure," makes it illegal to secretly film "agricultural production," and punishes it by up to a $5,000 fine and a year in prison.
Supporters said the industry has a right to protect its interests.
State Sen. Jim Patrick, R-Twin Falls, last year compared animal activists and whistleblowers to "marauding invaders centuries ago who swarmed into foreign territory and destroyed crops to starve foes into submission."
He added: "Terrorism has been used by enemies for centuries to destroy the ability to produce food and the confidence in the food's safety."
Eschewing terrorism, animal rights groups filed a 52-page lawsuit against Idaho and Gov. Butch Otter in March 2014, the month after Otter signed HB 1337 into law. It was codified as Idaho law Title 18, Chapter 70, § 18-7042 .
The long list of plaintiffs includes Animal Legal Defense Fund, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Center for Food Safety, the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho and the Western Watersheds Project, news journal CounterPunch, journalist Will Potter, freelance Idaho journalist Blair Koch and agricultural investigations expert Daniel Hauff.
Mercy for Animals is not party to the lawsuit.
Judge Winmill partially denied the state's April 2014 motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, preserving the plaintiffs' First Amendment and equal protection claims in a September 2014 order.
The plaintiffs filed a motion for partial summary judgment the following November.
Winmill wrote that if Upton Sinclair used the technique he employed to write "the Jungle" in Idaho today, it "would expose him to criminal prosecution under § 18-7042."
The state claimed the law was not meant to suppress free speech but to protect private property and privacy.
Winmill rejected that, citing laws that already provide those protections.
"As the story of Upton Sinclair illustrates, an agricultural facility's operations that affect food and worker safety are not exclusively a private matter," he wrote in the 29-page order. "Food and worker safety are matters of public concern. Moreover, laws against trespass, fraud, theft and defamation already exist. These types of laws serve the property and privacy interests the State professes to protect through the passage of § 18-7042 but without infringing on free speech rights."
