Tell Congress That Exposing Animal Abuse Is Not Illegal!

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At the urging of enormously powerful animal-abusing interests—including the meat, fur, circus, and vivisection industries—a small group of politicians have introduced a bill called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. This bill would allow the government to charge animal rights activists with massive fines and jail time for using nonviolent animal protection tactics such as civil disobedience, whistle-blowing, and undercover investigations of animal abuse.

According to the language of the bill, causing any business classified as an "animal enterprise"—such as animal factories, fur farms, puppy mills, vivisection laboratories, rodeos, and circuses—to suffer a profit loss could become a crime punishable by a lengthy prison sentence, even if the company's financial decline is caused by peaceful protests, consumer boycotts, or media campaigns. No other industrial sector in U.S. history has ever been given such legal protections against people's exercising of their First Amendment free-speech rights. This bill is an attempt by corporations to manipulate people's fear of terrorism in an effort to stop the peaceful animal protection movement.

This law would likely be deemed unconstitutional by a court, but it should never get that far. Please tell your federal representative and senators that wealthy, animal-abusing corporations should not be allowed to intimidate Americans from investigating and exposing cruelty to animals.

Please call or write to your representative and ask him or her to oppose H.R. 4239. Then contact your senators and ask them to oppose S.3880. (The bill is called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act in both the House and the Senate.) To find your representative's and senators' contact information, visit Congress.org.

 

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