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(Arkansas News Service) Legislatures in states such as Arkansas and others are passing legislation, known as "ag-gag laws," to stop undercover reporting of the often gruesome goings-on in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants.

Backed by the agriculture industry, lawmakers have made it illegal to film or copy documents inside of factory farms and slaughterhouses without the owner's permission. Animal rights activists are fighting back in the courts.

Matthew Strugar, a First Amendment attorney in Los Angeles, said many of the ag-gag laws violate freedom of speech.

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"Agriculture wants to criminalize undercover investigations of animal agriculture because undercover investigations have been some of the most effective ways of documenting and exposing what goes on in places like slaughterhouses and factory farms," Strugar pointed out.

In Arkansas, the State Legislature passed a law in 2017 directly targeting "whistleblowers" in a civil statute allowing companies to sue anyone using documents or images from a company for damages. A challenge to the law was dismissed in 2023 when the court ruled the Animal League Defense Fund and other groups who brought the case were told they did not have legal standing.

Congress passed a law in 2013 protecting the rights of whistleblowers in meat and poultry production but employers found loopholes using state statutes and began prosecuting them. After several federal investigations, several ag-gag laws were proposed in the 1990s and some were passed. Strugar noted it became clear companies did not want their workplace practices exposed to the public.

"Many other investigations of factory farms have shown cruelty and brought it to the public in a way that word just can't always express when people can actually see a video of some of the practices and some of the terrible things that happen in these facilities," Strugar observed.

In addition to Arkansas, ag-gag laws are in place in Alabama, Montana, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, North Dakota and Idaho. Strugar emphasized agricultural industry lobbyists are persistent and keep coming back, even when they lose.

"In Iowa, we knocked down one of these laws," Strugar explained. "They passed another one, we knocked it down, they passed the third one. Legislative appetite still runs very strong in the most animal agriculture-heavy states."

This story is based on original reporting by Seth Millstein at Sentient.