Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. appellate court in San Francisco to overturn a federal district court ruling that the state’s “ag gag” law is unconstitutional. Idaho is among half a dozen states with laws intended to prevent activists from using identity fraud to get hired on farms or to make undercover videos, and it is first state to lose in court, said Food Safety News. “The impetus for the Idaho lawsuit was the arrest of a local activist who prosecutors found was actually taking pictures on public land, not private, and therefore the charges were dropped.”
U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill ruled in August that the law criminalized undercover investigations and work by whistleblowers and investigative reporters. Animal rights groups challenged the law as a violation of equal protection guarantees of the Constitution and of the First Amendment. “We urge the state to drop the appeal and move on,” said the Idaho Statesman newspaper in an editorial. “This law and those in other states are over-the-top solutions to problems that could be solved with existing trespassing law and more strict scrutiny when hiring workers.