stop the animal enterprise terrorism act (USA)

[ryansmithxvx]

copied from many other sources, it applies only to USA (sorry other people):

Stop Livestock Senators' Vote Monday to Criminalize Boycotts of KFC, MCD

BREAKING NEWS
Action Alert -- House Vote on AETA this Monday!

This is your ONLY chance to defeat the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (HR 4239, S3880)!

Comments

[ryansmithxvx]

actually, AETA will further restrain all legal animal rights protests in the name of protecting america's vital interests. if you really think AETA isn't setting new grounds for criminalizing the AR movement, you should look into what's going on (and i mean that in the nicest way possible). the SHAC7 is a perfect example.

it will criminalize boycotts. any undertaking to cause financial loss to a company which results in losses of over $10,000 will become a felony. what do you think the purpose of a boycott is? to get a company to either change or go bankrupt by loss of business.

the undercover investigations you asked about are those where AR advocates get jobs at a company to see what really goes on there. it has been one of the most effective means of exposing the horrors of animal treatment in america. this elevates it to a first-degree felony (if i remember right).

the AEPA (protection act) is already being used in the name of raiding those who speak out in support of political prisoners, etc.

the AEPA is already a very scary piece of legislation, and the AETA will only make the climate of standing up for animals even worse.

[j_maehemah]

It's bad, but it's just not the case that this law would criminalize boycotts. It's very explicit in this bill that it would not apply to otherwise-legal activities that cause financial damage:

"`(4) the term `economic disruption'--
`(A) means losses and increased costs that individually or collectively exceed $10,000, including losses and increased costs resulting from threats, acts or vandalism, property damage, trespass, harassment or intimidation taken against a person or entity on account of that person's or entity's connection to, relationship with, or transactions with the animal enterprise; and
`(B) does not include any lawful economic disruption that results from lawful public, governmental, or business reaction to the disclosure of information about an animal enterprise;"

Lawful demonstrations are, therefore, not criminalized under this AETA.

[savagefreedom]

Regardless of what the technicalities of this bill are, as you've already states, it labels "nonviolent animal protection advocates" as terrorists and "invokes excessively harsh penalties for comparable offenses." Whether or not it creates any new criminalization (though even if the bill itself doesn't, the bill could likely be USED to), it is clearly a step in a worrisome direction, a step away from civil rights in general, as well as a step away from progress towards animal welfare specifically.

People often forget that no significant change will come overnight. That is to say, though this bill specifically may not criminalize our right to protest against animal rights abuse, it is clearly setting the stage for it by labelling those who do anything deemed "unlawful" against the industry "terrorists." Why do they have to do this, when there are already laws against and punishments for the same offenses? Why do they need to be harsher? It's clear that the use of the word "terrorist" will be very helpful for the animal industry, it will be another effective tool to destroy the reputation of AR as a whole in the public eye. They can very well (and do) blur the line between peaceful protest and forms of "unlawful" civil disobedience.

Article 4.B of the bill you posted says that it "does not include any LAWFUL economic disruption that results from LAWFUL public, governmental..." etc. All it would take would be a modification of what is and isn't LAWFUL to include anyone they wanted into article 4 (economic disruption.) This is what I mean by "setting the stage." With a bill like this in place, it would be VERY easy for the terminology of it to be interpereted differently to the favor of the animal industry.

Why couldn't they just have specified which actions were lawful? That way, the bill would actually protect protesters. Instead, they didn't explain what was lawful, only what wasn't, leaving the definition of lawful open for interperetation. That is the main reason why I am opposed to this bill.

[ryansmithxvx]

however, many misconstrue nonviolent protests as threatening, harassing, etc. there's all kinds of ways to make this apply. the AEPA is being used against some friends in the LA area who were simply doing peaceful protests, saying they were threatening and harassing. no they weren't; i've seen the video footage of the protests.
yet, their houses were all raided and they're being served subpoenas.