A Waste of Time and Money

A recent article in the New York Times highlights an issue that many of us who are animal protection advocates are familiar with; the continuing waste of time and money by the FBI in the pointless harassment of activists who are doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment Rights.

While the FBI's actions are in the most part harmless, rarely resulting in charges and prosecution, we should be working to end these abusive investigations.

The impetus for the use of the FBI to investigate animal protection advocates comes directly from the industries that abuse animals. Clearly, one of the goals of these abusive investigations is to create a climate in which innocent activists are afraid to exercise their free speech rights. The animal abuse industries do not have an argument to justify their treatment of animals. In the face of this, they have resorted to one of the oldest techniques in history; to paraphrase Cicero “When the facts and the law are against you, abuse the plaintiff.” Thus, they attempt to make innocent activists appear like demons, when all the activists are doing is telling the truth.

On another level, in an era of alleged fiscal crisis and across the board budget cuts, we should be upset as citizens that we are wasting millions of tax dollars to discover whether someone is ordering their noodles with chicken or tofu. While it may make for scintillating reading at the FBI office, I think a better idea would be to realize a huge cost savings by immediately terminating employment for all agents engaged in these pointless investigations.