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

[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.