Like other Ag Gag laws, the Kansas law made it a crime to expose the horrific cruelty at factory farms and other animal agricultural facilities. It criminalized making any recording on a factory farm without the consent of the owner or being on the property without the consent of the owner. Obtaining a job under false pretenses (i.e., as an investigator for an animal rights organization) counted as being on the property without effective consent of the owner.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order finding the law was unconstitutional. In a split 2-1 decision, the majority of the Tenth Circuit found that the law was viewpoint discriminatory because whether lies were prohibited depended on the intent of the speaker. Because only people who sought to criticize the animal facility (or, in the words of the statute, had the “intent to damage the enterprise conducted at the animal facility”) were criminalized, and not those who wished to write a puff piece or were just curious about the operations were not, the statute was unconstitutionally viewpoint discriminatory and thus violated the First Amendment.
This ruling follows victories (or partial victories) in challenges to similar laws in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Iowa.