{"id":178306,"date":"2019-01-10T19:08:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T00:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/01\/10\/freedom-of-the-press-1-iowa-farmers-0\/"},"modified":"2019-01-10T19:08:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T00:08:00","slug":"freedom-of-the-press-1-iowa-farmers-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/01\/10\/freedom-of-the-press-1-iowa-farmers-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of the Press: 1 \u2014 Iowa Farmers: 0"},"content":{"rendered":"
Iowa’s “Ag Gag” law was just ruled unconstitutional<\/a>:<\/div>\n

A federal judge has ruled that Iowa’s “ag gag” law is unconstitutional, saying the industry-backed statute violates the First Amendment’s free-speech protections.<\/p>\n

Senior Judge James Gritzner granted summary judgment Wednesday to a group that sued over the law.<\/p>\n

“Today’s decision is an important victory for free speech in Iowa,\u201d said Rita Bettis Austen, ACLU of Iowa legal director.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The ACLU challenged the law, along with Bailing Out Benji,<\/a> Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the national Animal Legal Defense Fund and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, among others.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The 2012 Agricultural Production Facility Fraud law made it a crime for journalists and advocacy groups to go undercover at meatpacking plants, livestock confinements, puppy mills and other ag-related operations to investigate working conditions, animal welfare, food safety and environmental hazards, among other practices.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Federal courts have struck down similar laws in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Litigation is ongoing in North Carolina.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Corporate interests are to free speech as Ebola is to French Kissing, and politicians are too busy taking campaign donations to give a sh%$ about free speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iowa’s “Ag Gag” law was just ruled unconstitutional: A federal judge has ruled that Iowa’s “ag gag” law is unconstitutional, saying the industry-backed statute violates the First Amendment’s free-speech protections. Senior Judge James Gritzner granted summary judgment Wednesday to a group that sued over the law. “Today’s decision is an important victory for free speech …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[525,413,364,407,374],"class_list":["post-178306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-civil-rights","tag-evil","tag-justice","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}