RALEIGH
A North Carolina law passed in 2015 in an attempt to stop animal-rights activists from posing as farm workers to secretly document conditions on farms has been ruled unconstitutional.
The law, called an “ag-gag law” by critics, didn’t just deal with activists who went undercover as farm workers as part of efforts to expose animal abuse. It also created broader concerns — including that it would let people get away with committing crimes at work, or that it would stop journalists from holding powerful people and companies accountable.
The law allowed allowed any business — not limited to farms — to sue employees who recorded meetings or publicized internal documents. More than 20 media organizations, including companies like the now-merged Gannett and GateHouse chains that own many newspapers across North Carolina, filed a legal brief calling for the law to be overturned.
“If whistleblowers (and other would-be sources) are punished for documenting evidence of dangerous, illegal, or unethical activity that they encounter, journalists will not be able to do their jobs effectively,” their brief said.
The groups that led the lawsuit included People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, or the ALDF. Both said they have done undercover animal rights videos in the past in North Carolina, and had plans to do more, but had to stop because of this law.
The federal district court judge who ruled in their favor, Thomas Schroeder, noted their argument that the law didn’t just ban such undercover animal rights videos but also banned other activities, “such as the reporting of crimes. They further argue that there is a realistic danger that the Act will compromise the First Amendment rights of parties not before the court.”
The ruling was issued Friday and first reported on Monday by N.C. Policy Watch.
‘Ag gag’ bill passed over veto
Even though the Republican-controlled state legislature wrote and passed the law in 2015, former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory vetoed it.
McCrory said the bill would punish legitimate whistle-blowers, even if he agreed with the goal of stopping undercover investigations by activists that he called “unethical and unfair to employers.”
“While I support the purpose of this bill, I believe it does not adequately protect or give clear guidance to honest employees who uncover criminal activity,” McCrory wrote in his veto message.
McCrory offered to work on a compromise, but instead, legislative leaders quickly called a vote to override his veto. There was enough support that the bill became law just a few days later, with members of both parties voting for and against it.
PETA wanted to target UNC Chapel Hill
Fighting against the lawsuit for the state were North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and UNC-Chapel Hill’s interim chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, as well as the North Carolina Farm Bureau.
UNC-Chapel Hill was named in the lawsuit due to its animal testing facilities that PETA said it wanted to target with an undercover investigation but couldn’t, because of the law.
In a court filing last year, lawyers for Stein, Guskiewicz and the Farm Bureau argued for the case to be thrown out. They said anyone taking such videos would likely be committing crimes, and therefore their actions shouldn’t be protected.
”The First Amendment does not license an individual seeking to gather information to violate generally applicable laws such as those against trespass, invasion of privacy, and breach of duty of loyalty,” they wrote.
North Carolina is not the first state where an ag-gag law has been ruled unconstitutional. The Food and Environment Reporting Network, or FERN, reported that legislators tried to write the law differently here.
“Lawmakers crafted the measure so that it didn’t look like other states’ ag-gag bills,” FERN wrote. “Instead of imposing criminal penalties, the bill allowed employers to sue employees who plant hidden cameras, make secret recordings, capture or remove documents from their workplaces, or interfere with the ‘possession of real property.’ And it didn’t single out agriculture.”
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 4:31 PM.
