Florida Ag Gag Bill Fails

Much like the proposed “ag-gag” bills that failed in 2011, Florida’s Senate Agriculture Committee and House Criminal Justice Subcommittee recently removed language from a proposed bill that would have criminalized taking both videos and photographs on factory farms without explicit permission. Florida’s animal producers have a history of violating humane-treatment standards, including a Miami-Dade slaughterhouse that was closed after the results of an undercover investigation released in November 2011 documented heinous animal cruelty and blood leaking from the plant. Workers’ rights advocates joined animal-protection advocates in praising the committee’s decision, as the removed language would have also made it illegal to document worker-safety violations, sexual harassment, or embezzlement.