Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act →
Basically, this act protects industry chicken farmers from PETA activists. Also, have you noticed the quality of Wikipedia articles has increased lately??
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) is a United States federal law (Pub.L. 109-374; 18 U.S.C. § 43) that prohibits any person from engaging in certain conduct “for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise.”[1] The statute covers any act that either “damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property” or “places a person in reasonable fear” of injury. The law contains a savings clause that indicates it should not be construed to “prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment to the Constitution.” [1] However, by its own terms, the statute criminalizes acts such as “intimidation.” And prosecutions under AETA require using evidence of otherwise lawful free speech in order to demonstrate a “course of conduct” as proof of purpose or possible conspiracy. [2]
The law amends the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992 (Pub.L. 102-346) and gives the U.S. Department of Justice greater authority to target animal rights activists.
