Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Vaught. In this case, plaintiffs ALDF and three other groups challenge the constitutionality of Arkansas’s ag-gag statute. The statute creates a civil cause of action against a person who enters a “nonpublic area of a commercial property” and engages in acts including removing documents and making sound or video recordings. The district court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing. This amicus brief supports the plaintiffs’ argument that journalists depend on sources within agricultural facilities to report on matters of public concern; that the Arkansas statute chills the flow of information; and that many other courts have found that similar plaintiffs have standing. [2020]
