This week the South Australian Legislative Council will vote on a bill that bans the installation and use of surveillance devices and makes it illegal to use, communicate or publicise any information or images gathered through surveillance.
What this means is that any activist, journalist or whistleblower who gathers footage undercover on a factory farm could face a $15,000 fine or three years jail while it would cost an organisation $75,000 to make the footage public.
Images like these are the only window we have into the treatment of animals on factory farms and it should not be a crime to publicise them.
These surveillance bills also apply to places like nursing homes, so even if you don't care about animals/animal activists... care about the fact the elderly could be abused and it's illegal for you to film it.
This is protecting abusers and not the victims.
Below is a sample letter, and a link that leads you to email addresses/names, please please email them it only takes a few seconds and could stop this law from being passed!
Hello, I am writing to you in regards to the Surveillance Devices Bill 2014 (the Bill) that has been reintroduced by SA Labor Minister Gail Gago MLC on the 5th of June 2014. The Bill repeals the Listening and Surveillance Devices Act 1972 (SA) and makes provisions relating to the use of surveillance devices, among other things.
Although, the Bill does not specifically mention agricultural facilities or factory farming, the legislation is consistent with US style ag-gag laws – draconian laws that seek to “gag” animal advocates, the media and agriculture workers from making public the often horrific truths behind factory farming. If implemented, the Bill will criminalise the release of information derived from unlawful surveillance to the public.
This trend of laws to prohibit filming of our food industry and other potential animal welfare conditions to be honest I find deeply concerning. I have an interest in animal welfare and also think it should be a right of consumers to have information about what happens in the industries that produce their food available to them, other than information offered by those industries themselves. To pass any laws that prohibit out siders from gathering knowledge about inside such industries would allow for a dangerous bias of information available to the community. Privacy of people is something I think is very important when it is regarding private activities and lives. Animal agriculture however involves more than just the farm owners and workers, but also the animals involved, the people who eat the animals and environment that the farming affects. This is an industry that is crucial to be as transparent as possible for humans and animals alike.
The resistance to this bill is something I believe to be of great importance to the freedom of information and therefore the right for civilians to make informed decisions. I urge you to be a part of this resisting this bill and any bill of it's kind.
Thank you,
(insert your name)
http://www.tammyfranks.org.au/take-action/mlc-contact-information/ 
