Loki’s Gift

My life’s work has always been human rights, but I’m also a strong supporter of animal protection. So I was especially heartened by our recent decision to join 59 other organizations – ranging from the Humane Society to the ACLU to the Sierra Club to the United Farmworkers – to oppose what are known as “ag-gag” bills.

These bills aim to silence and thwart whistle-blowers who would expose animal cruelty, poor working conditions, food or environmental safety issues, and more by, for example, making it a crime for an investigator to get a job on a factory farm, banning taking a photo or video without permission, and requiring mandatory reporting under timelines that are so short as to make it virtually impossible to document patterns of abuse.

What at first might appear to be exclusively an animal abuse issue is, on closer inspection…