They want to take away your basic freedoms...AND they are morons!!!!
Florida and Iowa have passed the bills which make it a felony-meaning they take your guns away and no longer let you vote-because you are such a horrible rotten and untrustworthy person-to take photos of farm operations without consent of the owner.
The Florida bill is sponsored by Senator Jim Norman (R). I would like to take this opportunity to add this to the Google search engine. I am a conservative farmer and Republican Senator Jim Norman is an Idiot! Click here to be amazed at what the idiots in your legislatures come up with.
I am in favor of strict anti-trespassing laws but this is insane.
And I quote from the bill, written by Senator Jim Norman (R) Florida who is an idiot...
Section 1. (1) A person who enters onto a farm or other
property where legitimate agriculture operations are being
conducted without the written consent of the owner, or an
authorized representative of the owner, commits a felony of the
first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083,
or s. 775.084, Florida Statutes.
I think as a landowner you should be able to shoot the person, but it should not be a felony to either be the trespasser or to shoot the trespasser. (so I'm a little kooky-I am not a state senator)
It is insane to be able to convict someone of a felony if they stand outside your fence and take a photo.
I may go over to NewAgTalk and troll this one. I bet there are more than a few tight-underweared farmers in support of this one!
I thank MuddyValley for sending me a link to this story and I would like to point out that should he post of photo of me stuck to the axles in his hay field I am going to sue his sharp-shooting bottom all the way to Monroe! I read the legislation story and it applies to any fields that I farm. So that includes his soggy hay field!
Anyway, I've got work to do. Here is a link to the story from Food Safety News.com
I see it became law in Iowa, I wonder if there is an exception for banjo music wafting on a summer breeze. That could be considered trespassing.
Here is a link to a protest of some sorts from Oregon Live news site. But then you could be in bed with Peta which would be kind of like.... um, That was a bad word... and I better leave that one alone.
Note: While I am opposed to the propaganda videos such as Farm Inc. (although I would like to thank the producers for putting me in the chicken feed business) the response is just plain wrong. The landowners must be able to prosecute you for trespassing if you go on someone's land without permission but a felony on the first offense is way out of line. Likewise taking photos, especially from off the property. What happened to Republicans wanting government out of our lives? Oh right, they don't want their form of government out of your lives because they know what is best for you. I don't like it when the democrats say that, and I like it even less when (what should be) my party (it isn't) says that...
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Just more of the same. Corporations can sue you if their genetics travel in the wind and show up in seed you've saved from your own production; if you hit an Angus cow that got out and wandered the highway on a moonless night, the owner can sue you for damages to his cow. Now they can fine and jail you for free speech if you see something that oughtn't to be and you take photos and tell someone other than a fence post. Can they send me up for taking pictures from the road of piles of dead swine overflowing the dumpsters that obviously have been ripening for many days? Or the shoddy fence repair that followed an incident when my mother and a friend narrowly escaped the graveyard after a cow the color of midnight walked in front of their car in a 55 zone on a very dark night? Guess I've just been legislated a criminal.
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna keep playing the banjo, fiddle and dijeridu on the wide open Iowa breeze and let them come and get me when my Brandywine tomatoes wake up Roundup-Ready, thump their chest and beat the tar out of any weeds that come around here.
I posted it on NAT and it looks like I'm going to bring out the law and order folks. I think it is BS. I think trespassing laws that are already on the books should be enforced. No need for new legislation. Although I am starting to change my mind if it keeps me off Google Earth and keeps people from flying over and looking for code violations and snooping for stuff like that.
ReplyDeletefirst of all i agree on the need for greater enforcement of the trespassing laws. i think if there was, laws like this one would be unnecessary. and i think the trespasser needs to accept the consequences of his own actions when he does trespass.
ReplyDeleteand that, in essense, is what laws just as these are, trespassing laws with a singular intent. and laws like these will not be any more enforced than the trespassing laws already in place.
besides, these laws will have no affect on the behavior of those groups like peta because they have no compunction about breaking laws now in order achieve their ends.
what effect laws like these may have tho is that any pictures or film gotten by these methods will not be admissable as evidence in a law suit of some kind. and this might be considered as a double edged sword on the issue involved.
At least I know what a didge is now.
ReplyDeleteThese are stupid bills. Don't they have better things to do, like balancing state budgets and creating jobs? These laws just protect the torturers. Kinda like the Patriot Act.
Hard to believe my country has sunk to this level.
God help us all.
I WOULD like legislation that protects me from my own government trespassing on my place. Maybe require something like a warrant and a 90 day advance notice? Not that I have anything to hide!
ReplyDeleteI'd heard of this but had no idea that it had any chance of becoming reality. What a joke.
I went over and found your thread on NAT. I'm actually impressed that most of your respondents aren't in favor of the bill. There were a few.
ReplyDeleteYeah, let's all farm in Area 51-like compounds and see how the general public trusts us then.
Orin, I have mixed feelings. But, I think it is one of those situations where you say, "there outta be a law," but you can't have a law without causing more problems.
ReplyDeleteWhen Norpac was targeted by the farmworker's union all sorts of dirty tricks were played out on member farms. The way I heard it.
Still I don't think you can legislate against that sort of thing.
I think Mallories Dairy got a raw deal but that law would not have saved them.
There were some folks on NAT that were saying how activists had targeted what had to be pretty big farms. It will happen. Somehow you have to take care of yourself.
AND there are people who are not using good farming practices.
Collieguy makes a very good and valid points.
And furthermore...The people who founded this country were much better educated than us. There are no new issues of privacy or private property rights. We pretend things are different with the digital age but I wonder. If you are standing on someone's property taking a photo/video you are trespassing.
ReplyDeleteIf you use false pretenses to get onto someone's property to do the same thing then you were not really given consent. I don't like the airplane photos but unfortantly you can't claim airspace over your house.
There should be a lot more farmers with smaller farms. It would help the economy. I'm not talking 50 acres, more 2,000 acre farms would be better than one 10,000 acre operation.