You call that "Throwing the book at 'em"? I call it pathetic...

Case 1: On June 17, 2010, Bobby Elliott of Merritt, British Columbia, tied his Golden Lab mix named April Rain to the back of his truck and dragged her around. He claimed he was giving her "exercise." A kind bystander find April Rain badly injured and took her to a vet. Elliot's punishment?

He was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest and another 60 days of arrest with certain conditions.He is required to pay $2100 in restitution to Angel's Animal Rescue, the organization that rehabilitated the dog. Elliott is banned from owning a dog for the next five years. (Source)

Case 2: Kisha Curtis, age 28, employee at Klimaaxxpromos Girls, an adult entertainment agency in Newark, N.J., starved her pit bull and then tossed the emaciated dog down a garbage chute on March 16, where the poor, whimpering animal was left to die. Once again, a kind soul found the dog and saved him by taking him to the vet. The pit bull was named Patrick (pictured above) and he has become a Facebook celebrity. Legions of wonderful folks from around the world have donated to help this beautiful dog (Source) Meantime, latest reports indicate that Curtis is out of jail and her $10,000 bail has been dismissed. (Source)

Case 3: In Rhode Island, State Rep. David Bennett is fed up. And with good reason. He was outraged when he heard that local authorities fined a Providence woman $50 for "mistreating" her Labrador retriever mix after the starving animal was found suffering from dehydration and hypothermia. Bennett decided the animal protection laws weren't strong enough. He has co-sponsored a bill that will fine animal abusers $1,000 and prohibit them from owning an animal for five years. The bill awaits a vote in Rhode Island's General Assembly. (Source)

The common thread running through these cases is obvious. Across North America, anti-abuse laws are not strict enough. Too many sadists, sociopaths and thugs are able to adopt animals. And when they harm those animals, laws do not serve as deterrents to prevent them from engaging in these types of abuse in the future. If anything, the laws in place in most parts of the United States and Canada encourage abusers and fail to protect the abused.

Good for Representative Bennett and others like him who are out there fighting the good fight on behalf of animals. More people are needed in the trenches. Our anti-abuse laws don't go far enough. The time to toughen those is long overdue.

Look at the lines of pain etched into Patrick's face (above). He makes a beautiful "poster dog" on behalf of the need to clamp down and hit animal abusers hard.

1984 May've Been 27 Years Ago, But We Still Have to Beware of Big Brother

In Iowa, the Republican-dominated state House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday making it a criminal offense to apply for a job on a farm with the intention of videotaping and exposing acts of farm animal abuse

The bill passed 66-27. Next the bill goes to the Senate for final approval, then to the desk of the Iowa's governor, Terry Branstad, to be signed into law. (Source) According to the Iowa Independent, the bill

would specifically target individuals who approach crop or animal facilities — excluding animal shelters, pet shops and commercial kennels — for the purpose of making audio or visual recordings. An individual found guilty of creating such a record, or of distributing such a record, could face felony charges and be subject to civil proceedings.

Sadly, Iowa is not alone. Other states are passing legislation imposing stiff penalties on videotaping whistleblowers. In Florida, a similarly draconian piece of legislation was introduced in the state senate. The author of SB 1246, Senator Jim Norman, proposed in his bill

[a] person who photographs, video records, or otherwise produces images or pictorial records, digital or otherwise, at or of a farm or other property where legitimate agriculture operations are being conducted without the written consent of the owner, or an authorized representative of the owner, commits a felony of the first degree. (Source)

There is no question that these bills being introduced across the United States are aimed at scaring away animal rights activists who have gone into factory farms to film the often horrendous treatment of animals in these massive and impersonal facilities. Thanks to developments in digital technology over the past decade, it is easier than ever to smuggle cameras - which are now cheaper than ever - into these massive death houses where the violence and mayhem are occurring.

It is not surprising that elected officials in states heavily dependent on agriculture - backed by powerful factory farming interests - are scrambling to pass laws forbidding undercover video filming. In recent years, documentaries such as Death on a Factory Farm and Earthlings have converted countless individuals over to veganism. In fact, one could argue - as I often have - that these kinds of films are the best recruiting tools out there.

Film footage doesn't lie. Paul McCartney was right when he said remarked that everybody (or damn near everybody) would be vegetarians if slaughterhouses had glass walls. Somebody very close to me, who was writing an article about a pig slaughtering facility, told me the first question the owners asked her was whether she was a vegetarian or vegan. At the time, she wasn't. Had she said yes, the alarm bells would've gone off and she never would've gotten inside.

That's what makes these anti-whistleblower laws now being introduced before state legislatures so sinister. Take away the right of the people to discover the truth and you've nudged the nation closer to the nightmarish society envisioned by George Orwell in his novel 1984. Orwell understood that the most profound and meaningful power of the state was its ability to sever access to the truth. Joseph Stalin understood this when he airbrushed his opponents out of photographs after he had them murdered. The Nazis understood this when they kept their conference on the "final solution" a secret at Wannsee in January 1942. And those who wish to slaughter animals by the billions, with impunity, also fully grasp this principle.