By George Niemann
Daily Loaf contributor and R-LAND, UCAN, Florida Hometown Democracy believer, FSP activist
The ideas expressed are my own and not necessarily those of the organizations to which I belong
State Senator Jim Norman has just filed SB1246 and is calling it “Farms”. If this bill were to pass, anyone who takes photos or videos of a farm and/or the animal inhabitants of that farm will have committed a first degree felony if they don’t first get the property owner’s permission. If you’re like me, you’re wondering what would possess Norman to author such an onerous and restricting law with such strong penalties for simply taking pictures of beautiful countryside and/or some of our favorite farm animals. This bill, on its face, sounds crazy.
A felony in the first degree is a pretty significant crime. Why should taking a picture of a cow in an open field or a bird nesting in a tree be a crime? Norman Rockwell must be spinning in his grave. Even after I read the full text of SB1246, I was still puzzled. What is Jim’s motivation? After we dig a little deeper, it’ll all make sense, trust me.
To understand Norman’s motivation you have to look at his track record, his connections and who he aligns himself with.
First, I asked some of my Hillsborough citizen-advocate colleagues what motivations they thought might be behind this bill. After all, they know the real Jim Norman better than anybody. They’ve watched him approve more costly sprawl than any other Hillsborough County commissioner while still claiming to be a fiscal conservative. They’ve watched him bloviate about fighting for the little guy while at the same time living the high life at Raymond James Stadium as a participant in “managing” the Tampa Sports Authority. They’ve lived through the Championship Park fiasco which, if it had been approved, would have been about as profitable as high speed rail and 8 track tape players.
My colleagues offered a few guesses:
1) He’s got a bovine or other farm animal on the side and was afraid a tourist might accidentally photograph him in a compromising position while on their way to visit Disney.
2) He wants people to forget about what cows actually look like so they won’t care when the last acre in Florida gets paved over.
3) He would rather have them take pictures of subdivisions so they can have a picturesque memory of what Jim has forced them to subsidize.
4) Some of these farm cows may have direct knowledge as to how Jim got that house in Arkansas. If people are allowed to walk up to them and photograph them willy-nilly, they might end up engaging them in conversation and asking them what they know about Jim and his connections to monied powerbrokers.
Having experienced Jim’s reign of development terror for many years, I thought those suggestions are certainly plausible. But to be fair, I shouldn’t just ask colleagues because those of us sitting in traffic may have a somewhat jaded view of Jim’s intentions. So to be fair, I decided to go directly to the source and ask Jim Norman what the hell was he thinking when he filed this crazy bill.
I called his Tampa office and spoke with Dennis Cadle, his legislative aide, to get it straight from the horse’s mouth.
Mr Cadle told me that the bill is currently being rewritten. The bill has, in fact, been misinterpreted by the press and bloggers. He was nice enough to share Jim’s real motivation behind the bill.
The not-so-obvious purpose of this bill is to prevent people from obtaining employment inside a farm operation for the purpose of photographically documenting what they believe to be abuses of farm animals or violations of laws governing agricultural operations. Mr Cadle identified one of the groups they were trying to stymie as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). He said that there are many groups/individuals that try to record things and then expose them on the web.
So there you have it, the hidden motivation. Big farm money doesn’t want anyone snooping around. The internet might get flooded with pictures and videos documenting questionable farm practices. And besides, people wandering around with cameras near farm operations isn’t safe. They could step on a snake while trying to film sick cattle being dragged into the slaughter house. Look, if you don’t trust the people producing your food and fertilizer, you can bring your suspicions to Jim and he’ll ask their lobbyists about it, but you don’t have to take those annoying (and potentially incriminating) pictures.
My experience as a constituent of Jim Norman for a number of years has taught me one thing – Jim has a special interest group in mind whenever he does something. Someone is usually behind it and it’s most often not the little guy. In this case, it appears to be BIG Agriculture. Farm operations in Florida include orange juice production, fruit/vegetable harvesting, fruit/vegetable packaging, forestry production, horticultural production, meat packing, livestock production, and phosphate production. So it's not just cows that he wants to make camera-shy. It's all farm operations, from fruit packing to meat packing to phosphate digging. When BIG money speaks, Jim listens. And next thing you know, special interest laws get written and we lose a little sunshine.
I guess Jim is going to present this bill to his colleagues and tell them that we must protect the rights of agricultural business to operate without prying eyes. I can hear it now. It will have the flavor of economic development and property rights woven into it. We need to unbind our Free Marketplace of regulations and prying eyes.
As for the cow, if she’s got gripes she can hire an investigator, but definitely not a videographer. And as for the nature lover, they better save those vintage photos.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2011.