Here we go again: Yet another undercover investigation by an animal welfare organization has revealed stomach-turning abuse of livestock at a supplier for a major U.S. food label. If, like me, you’re sick and tired of how commonplace these types of stories have become, you’ll be glad to hear we may very well be seeing less of them soon—but not because the animal abuse on factory farms is getting any better.

Rather, it could very well get worse. That’s because these types of investigations, in which an animal rights activist poses as a farmworker and then surreptitiously documents appalling animal abuse, are increasingly becoming illegal, thanks to the success of the livestock industry in getting a number of states to pass so-called “ag-gag” laws.

Case in point is Mercy for Animals’ most recent investigation of a North Carolina chicken farm that supplies poultry giant Perdue. The undercover footage released Thursday shows the sort of barbaric cruelty we’ve come to expect from these videos, with chickens suffering from debilitating medical conditions and being kicked, thrown, and tortured. The abuse is so bad that local authorities in Rockingham, North Carolina, have actually arrested one of the workers shown in the video, Danny Miranda, and charged him with four counts of felony animal cruelty.

Yet, this may be the last time such revolting abuse at factory farms in North Carolina is brought to light through such an investigation. Despite revealing what even the local district attorney’s office apparently believes to be illegal abuse, come Jan. 1, the state’s own ag-gag law goes into effect, which would allow businesses to turn the tables and sue whistle-blowing employees or undercover investigators who secretly record illicit activity.

In a sign of just how powerful the agriculture lobby is in states like North Carolina, lawmakers not only passed the ag-gag law, but they rallied to override a veto by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who thought the measure was too broad.

Big Ag has succeeded in having ag-gag bills introduced in more than half of all state legislatures, according to the ASPCA, and these laws intended to shield the agriculture industry from scrutiny have been passed in seven states, including Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Montana, and North Dakota in addition to North Carolina.

True to such laws’ intent, we haven’t seen much in the way of undercover animal-abuse investigations out of a state like Iowa, for example, whose own ag-gag law was passed three years ago. Thus, we are left to only imagine the type of public outcry that might have ensued if video footage had made it to YouTube of more than 1,000 pigs killed near Tracy, Iowa, because they were forced to suffocate on the toxic vapors released by the buildup of their own waste. Think about it: How bad must the place have been to allow the concentration of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide from manure to become so overwhelming as to kill more than 1,000 animals? Yet the tragedy was more or less relegated to short news items like the local tidbit that noted it took “16–17 dump trucks” to haul the carcasses to a mass grave where the dead hogs “were first covered with trash, and then with dirt.”

For its part, Perdue responded to today’s release of the Mercy for Animals footage with what has become the standard PR playbook for companies linked to such videotaped abuse. “We do take these things very serious, and we have very strict policies in terms of our farmers complying to our policies,” a Perdue spokeswoman told USA Today. How serious is Perdue? As USA Today notes, the phone number for a hotline the company provides for farmworkers to report animal abuse doesn’t actually work—it goes straight to a fax machine.