Undercover videos critical to exposing abuse: Column Hidden cruelty, wrongdoing would go unseen, unpunished without undercover video investigation

Nathan Runkle | USA TODAY

Just the sounds from an undercover video recorded at an Idaho dairy farm would give most people chills. Workers’ roars echo off the slick floors and walls, punctuated by the deafening cracks of metal poles against the animals’ skin and bones. Sick and injured cows bellow in agony as they are kicked, stomped on, dragged, beaten, and even sexually molested.

Without undercover investigations, sadistic and often criminal acts of animal cruelty on factory farms would go undetected, unaddressed, and unpunished as would major threats to public health and the environment. This is a fact to which Mercy For Animals can attest.



A recent injunction against videos by the Center for Medical Progress allegedly exposing abuses within Planned Parenthood has raised questions about undercover videos. We believe those who conduct undercover investigations have an ethical responsibility to present their findings accurately. Investigations should be used to expose cruelty and wrongdoing, not to defame or mischaracterize.

The Center for Medical Progress has been accused of heavily editing its footage, splicing clips together to bolster what some call a conspiracy theory. Any organization that conducts undercover investigations should expect this; the mere fact that such allegations are made is no surprise at all. But prosecutors, judges and juries aren’t confused by clever editing.

In our case, the facts we expose are what secure criminal prosecutions of animal abusers on factory farms. We work closely with law enforcement, making all of our raw, unedited footage available to them once an investigation is complete. There is no context in which beating, dragging, or kicking an animal is justifiable, so our videos speak for themselves. Americans know animal abuse when they see it… or hear it, if they cannot bear to watch. Recorded conversations, on the other hand, can be sliced and diced into fiction to mislead the public, but CMP has also released its full videos.

Those targeted by undercover videos have every right to pursue legal recourse if they feel they are misrepresented. That’s what anti-defamation laws are for. But the law should not be used to stifle the videos themselves.

Last week, a federal judge echoed this sentiment when he struck down Idaho’s "ag-gag" law, which legislators imposed to single out and punish whistle blowers at agricultural facilities. The law came after the release of the Idaho dairy farm investigation described above. The judge called the law “perverse” and stated that “protecting the private interests of a powerful industry, which produces the public’s food supply, against public scrutiny is not a legitimate government interest.”

Piercing the veil of secrecy is vital. Our investigation at Butterball, for instance, led to the first-ever felony cruelty conviction related to factory-farmed birds. Others have encouraged several of the world’s largest corporations, such as Nestlé, to adopt comprehensive animal welfare policies, and still others have led to stronger animal welfare laws in California and other states.

Undercover videos play an important role in a society in which greedy, cloistered corporations reign supreme. They shine a bright light on inhumane practices that most Americans find abhorrent, such as cramming animals into cages so small they cannot turn around, mutilating them without painkillers and slitting their throats while they’re still conscious. Thanks to the dedicated work of whistleblowers, millions of Americans now know what happens behind the closed doors of factory farms.

Since its launch 16 years ago, Mercy For Animals has conducted more than 40 undercover investigations at factory farms and slaughterhouses across North America. These hidden-camera exposés have resulted in nearly 50 prosecutions for animal cruelty, five raids by law enforcement and more than 13,000 days behind bars for convicted animal abusers.



Despite their proven value to the public, undercover investigations of factory farms are under threat. Corrupt state legislators in bed with the agribusiness industry are working to keep animal abuse hidden from the public. Over the past few years, they’ve introduced “ag-gag” bills, across the country. The laws criminalize undercover investigations — throwing whistleblowers in jail or slapping them with heavy fines. Dozens of organizations representing advocates of the environment, public health, animals and civil rights have contributed to successfully defeating the majority of these bills, but they have also become law in several states.



Now thanks to the actions of a federal judge, the law is again on the side of the public interest, at least in Idaho. Undercover investigations, it turns out, are not just effective tools for exposing and ending animal abuse, they fall squarely within our fundamental First Amendment rights. In the case of the videos we have produced, the only people who have a problem with that are those with something to hide.

Nathan Runkle is the founder and president of Mercy for Animals, an international non-profit organization dedicated to preventing cruelty to farmed animals and promoting compassionate food choices and policies.

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