As we've previously written in this space, we're not exactly certain what Hillsborough/Pasco County state Senator Jim Norman was thinking about when his very first bill he introduced in Tallahassee (SB 1246) would make it a felony to take photos of video footage of farms.
Already under a serious ethics cloud with a reported FBI investigation looking into his alliance with his former patron, the late Ralph Hughes, one would think that the former County Commissioner would want to take a rather low key approach to state lawmaking in the wake of media reports that surfaced about his Arkansas dream house in 2010 that was financed by the last concrete magnate.
But SB 1246 has gathered national attention, and now the Senior Vice President for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Dan Matthews, will be speaking about the Norman bill next Tuesday night on the USF Tampa campus.
"No one's denying that this bill is designed to keep the grotesque reality of factory farming behind closed doors," says Mathews, who will show video footage taken during previous PETA undercover investigations. "We need more cameras on factory farms and in slaughterhouses—not fewer."
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2011.