State Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, has reintroduced legislation to stop animal rights activists from obtaining photographic records of farming operations in Florida.
While Sen. Jim Norman’s controversial farm-photo bill may have died in the Florida Legislature, animal rights advocates are cautiously acknowledging the victory is a temporary one whose significance may ultimately be thwarted by laws currently pending in Iowa and Minnesota.
The bill, which would have created penalties for taking pictures on farms, drew a firestorm of opposition from animal rights groups who felt it would hamper whistleblowers’ efforts to expose inhumane farming conditions.
Pending legislation in several states — including Florida — that would criminalize the act of filming agricultural operations without the consent of the farm owner came up last week on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, with one analyst making the claim that conditions animals are subjected to by American industrial agriculture operations amount to “institutionalized torture.”
As state Sen. Jim Norman’s farm-photo bill heads to its second committee stop later this month, animal-advocacy groups continue to lambast the legislation, which they see as an attempt to further conceal the inhumane treatment of animals. They argue that their work is focused on protecting consumers and animals alike from an industry that is notorious for hiding from the public the harsh realities of modern industrial agriculture.
“If they don’t have anything to hide, what are they worrying about?”
According to the Florida Farm Bureau, state Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, drafted his controversial “Farms” bill at the behest of Wilton Simpson of Pasco County, whose Simpson Farms produces 21 million eggs annually for Florida’s second-largest egg seller, Tampa Farm Service, Inc. As currently written, Senate Bill 1246 would make photography “at or of a farm” a first-degree felony.
A controversial Senate bill currently under review in Tallahassee will be revised, according to a spokesman for the Florida Farm Bureau.
A bill filed by state Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, would make photographing farms without the written consent of the owner a first-degree felony in Florida. Senate Bill 1246, simply titled “Farms,” has caused a stir among animal-advocacy groups for comparing a potential whistleblower who might expose the realities of factory farming — or even a tourist snapping a photograph of cows grazing in a field — with those who commit murder or armed robbery.
A provocative television commercial produced by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has been denied access to Miami television stations, according to a press release by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
The ad, which features a woman crying over…
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