To get a broader perspective on the lawsuit, and the new law, I spoke Tuesday morning with Ken Paulson, a university professor (and dean) at Middle Tennessee State University who is a free speech/press expert and president of the vaunted First Amendment Center. He has followed statutes like these for years. Usually, he says, bills like Idaho's bill get vetoed by governors who view them both as unconstitutional and bad public policy for the ways in which they criminalize whistle-blowing.

COHEN: What do you make of this law and this complaint?

PAULSON: Well, it is clearly designed to head off YouTube videos because there is no prohibition against taking photographs. Is that an oversight?... Whatever the justification [for the law] is how do you possibly distinguish between capturing images on video and capturing them on a still camera? It would have the same level of intrusion, the same level of interference.

COHEN: Does that omission factor into the constitutional analysis going forward?

PAULSON: One of the things the Court would do is to assess whether there was a legitimate reason for this legislation beyond preventing the dissemination of information to the public and whatever ostensible motive there might be for preventing videotaping would apply to other media as well, you would think. At the very least it underscores that there is a specific form of communication that this bill is targeting. It isn't about trespass. It isn't about privacy. It isn't about proprietary methods. It's about limiting the public's understanding of what's going on these farms and preventing people from documenting it.

COHEN: What else strikes you about this?

PAULSON: There is a certain redundancy to all the ag-gag bills. They invariably try to limit investigative work by criminalizing things that already are criminal. You look on the face on this [law]. You violate the law if you enter a farm by "force, threat, misrepresentation or trespass." Each and every one of those is already prohibited by multiple statutes. If you were trying to eliminate coercion and fraud and trespass you would not need to pass this bill. If you were trying to limit the scrutiny of the agriculture industry you would need to pass this bill.

It is not only constitutionally suspect it's terrible public policy on the part of the legislature. Give me the very best argument for why this needs to be in place and then tell me why you wouldn't then pass similar legislation for day-care centers. Would anyone suggest that you would send someone to prison for documenting child abuse? Is there anyone who is going to run on that platform? Why in the world do we have a lesser standard for animal abuse? The answer is that animals are not people—but the broader point is that the health of animals affects the health of people.

I think an important point to be made is that the first amendment role that a press plays in keeping a watchdog on society is not limited to members of the press. It is important to remember that activist organizations, private citizens and others play similar valuable roles in democracy. It is wrong to suggest that they are intruders or troublemakers. We actually owe a debt to those who blow whistles.