PA Senator Makes Changes to Proposed Ag-Gag Bill

Amid the ag-gag legislation controversy, Pennsylvania Senator Mike Brubaker has altered a bill that criminalized undercover factory farm investigations. The revamped statute will not penalize investigators, but prohibit them from releasing the footage to the public and force them to hand the video over to authorities. Brubaker notes that the bill would protect farmers from public persecution without due process of law, but animal-welfare advocates argue that consumers have a right to know where their food comes from and that the proposed legislation does a disservice to industry transparency. “It still seeks to cover up the public from knowing what is going on behind closed doors at the facilities that produce our food,” says Sarah Speed, the Pennsylvania state director of The Humane Society of the United States.