Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

[softwareNerd]

Recently, I received an email from an Objectivist friend suggesting a letter to Congress in support of the "Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act". This activism was at the suggestion of the "National Association for Biomedical Research". Since I've decided to write to Congressmen on issues where I want to show my "vote" for or against a position, I looked at the bill. Essentially, what the law would do is:

• define an "animal enterprise" (as an enterprise that uses animals in various ways)
  
• make it illegal to violate the rights of the people running such enterprises
  

As much as I dislike animal-rights activists, I do not understand why any rights-violations cannot be addressed by existing laws.

Does anyone know of a reason to support this bill?

[IAmMetaphysical]

Yeah, the bill kinda suggests that it isn't already illegal to violate the rights of those that run "animal enterprises."

[softwareNerd]

Yes, the bill strikes me as somewhat analogous to "hate crimes" legislation, in that ii is aimed at the criminal's reasons rather than his actual intent and actions.

[DavidOdden]

Does anyone know of a reason to support this bill?

The bill extends an existing law which already defines "animal enterprise". Under the old law, you cannot prosecute a person for burning down the house of a person doing research on animals, or threatens them or their family. You cannot prosecute a person for beating the animal researcher, unless they do so in the course of destroying property. That is, the "offense" section is broken and needs fixing. What this bill does is extend legal protection so that targetting the researcher (or those connected to the researcher) is not allowed. It also increases the penalties for violating rights.

The actions being outlawed are already crimes in every state in the union, so this makes it a federal crime. This is basically part of the grand enterprise of creating federal analogs for all state crimes. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is hard to say. At the moment, it seems like a good thing since it creates a new avenue of rights protection. The problem is that if you only have the state law, then the state can decide to not prosecute, so this may leave a person unprotected. The main problem that I see is that (as far as I know) there is no coherent set of federal rights violations and penalties, so it totally disintegrates the concept of "rights violation", making each case seem like a completely arbitrary fact unrelated to any other fact. Well, in fact, the program has been so successful that each case is a completely arbitrary fact unrelated to any other fact.

[Qwertz]

This might be an opportune time for a thread on federalism and the separation of powers. I don't know if there has yet been such a thread - I can't find one.

As for this type of law, I think the federal government is trying to say to states, "if you aren't going to enforce these rights, we will," but the law isn't written that way. It will result in the federal government stomping on state government's toes, regardless of the states' willingness to prosecute.

Also, is there a disparity between sentances? If I'm prosecuted under state assault charges versus federal assault charges, and the only thing that moves me from one to the other is the occupation of my victim, doesn't that create a specially protected class of people?

-Q

[softwareNerd]

Since this "National Association for Biomedical Research" is lobbying for it, I assume they think a Federal law will be more effective in some way. I wonder if states really aren;t trying, or if it's a matter of the industry association saying: "The FBI can tackle this more effectively".

While thinking about this, it struck me that there is no Interpol type of agency to aid states enforce state-laws when a criminal leaves the state or when the criminal is operating from another state. Or is there?

[DavidOdden]

Also, is there a disparity between sentances? If I'm prosecuted under state assault charges versus federal assault charges, and the only thing that moves me from one to the other is the occupation of my victim, doesn't that create a specially protected class of people?

There is such a disparity even at the state level. Your favorite assault statute ORC 2903.13 sez "( A ) No person shall knowingly cause or attempt to cause physical harm to another or to another's unborn. ( B ) No person shall recklessly cause serious physical harm to another or to another's unborn. ( C ) Whoever violates this section is guilty of assault. Except as otherwise provided in division ( C ) (1), (2), (3), (4), or (5) of this section, assault is a misdemeanor of the first degree" and the alternative is a felony of the fourth or fifth degree. What are those conditions leading to a higher penalty? They include convict - guard assaults (convict assaults guard), teachers (in performance of their duty), cop, EMT or fireman in the line of duty, etc. Specially protected classes of people abound, even without this law.

In the ordinary case, beating a researcher is thus a 1st degree misdemeanor. It's a matter of public record what that entails in terms of prison time. (That is a roundabout way of saying "good luck finding the penalty in the statute"). In contrast, the federal statute integrates crime and punishment in the code so that the punishment is mentioned in the law. The law distinguishes significant injury, serious injury, and death, and you may be imprisoned for up to 5 years (plus possible fine... I don't know what the upper limit on fines might be).

The thing is, I just don't know for certain if this law is necessary, since I don't know how often terrorists are actually getting away, given just state prosecution. Because federal pockets tend to be a bit deeper (by orders of magnitude), I suspect that they can invest more time in pursuing such cases, but I really don't know if that's the case. One basic fact that suggests to me that this is necessary is the fact that federal investigators have power to investigate anywhere in the US, whereas an Ohio judge cannot issue a subpoena to someone in Florida, and that has to go through the Florida courts. Because this kind of terrorism is not a local, spur of the moment act of rage by a neighbor but is part of a national, secretive terrorist conspiracy, it is important that state lines not be any kind of barrier to pursuing these bastards.

[Qwertz]

While thinking about this, it struck me that there is no Interpol type of agency to aid states enforce state-laws when a criminal leaves the state or when the criminal is operating from another state. Or is there?

The Full Faith and Credit clause of the US Constitution (Art IV §1) tends to have this effect. Other states are required to enforce the lawful orders of another state's judiciary. So a warrant issued by a California judge must (so long as the warrant is valid) must be enforced by the courts in Ohio. If the Ohio courts refused to honor a proper California warrant, the state of California (in the person of the governor or state's attorney) could sue the state of Ohio (specifically the court refusing to enforce the warrant) in federal court for violating the FF&C clause. But it is true that there is no one agency for facilitating the enforcement of interstate warrants. Such an entity would run contrary to our 'longstanding tradition of federalism' and the separation of powers between the federal government and state governments.

Maybe later this evening I'll start a thread on federalism and separation of powers. Unless someone else wants to in the meanwhile.

-Q