Idaho’s Ag-Gag Law Overturned on Free Speech Grounds

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Seven states – Iowa, Utah, Indiana, Montana, Kansas, North Dakota and Idaho – have enacted so-called ag-gag laws which make it a crime to produce undercover videos of animal abuse on factory farms. A recent Idaho district court decision from August 3rd (Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Otter, 2015 WL 4623943, available through Google Scholar) struck Idaho’s law. In this first court challenge to ag-gag laws, the judge recognized that while groups secretly recording videos of animal abuse and posting them online in order to call for boycotts may not be popular with the state of Idaho, the state “cannot deny such groups equal protection of the laws in their exercise of their right to free speech.”