Isn't this a privacy issue? Going in to someone's private property and filming/recording them without their knowledge doesn't seem like it would have anything to do with the first amendment.
Hey a dead cactus, in a minuscule pot... call the FBI!
For that matter, feel free to report plant abuse even if there are not laws against it, just don't expect anyone to care.
And this the sad fact that I want to stress.
Most people see only an invented and small part of the reality. Plants are much more important to the humans that animals.
To classify a living organism as good because it has neurons and can emit noises (like a clam?) or bad because it has chloroplasts instead and can not move quickly (like a Mimosa?) is a real nonsense. Inherited stupidity.
Same as to protect common animals with four legs but to crush rare animals with six legs. Same as to call the police because we can not stand that somebody kills a chicken and feeling soo virtuous eating soy that was cultivated killing thousands of animals and plants. Same as to ignore that we, humans, are omnivores, and our gut is neither a moral nor amoral structure.
Plants provide the 99% of the energy that moves the chain food and that permits the human life on this planet. Plants provide water, and we, the people, are made of more than 60% of pure water. We should be grateful to those magnificient creatures... Yes, we can argue that plants can not cry... and what's the big fuss? We don't expect a lattice singing opera. We are just scratching the surface about the complex plant communication (chemical, electrical)... So we chomp, ignore, cut down and poison the plants, and protect the animals that are plant eaters until the exhaustion of the resources... yep, human moral.
To be clear, my classification is tuned very far to one extreme. That is to say, I would eat anything given the opportunity (in some cases necessity comes into play).
So say an employee that's not an animal rights activist sees something deplorable and records it as evidence. Only then are they considered to have trespassed - flying in the face of whistle-blower protections that have been in-place in countless other industries for decades.
If what's happening is a crime - and I believe animal cruelty still qualifies (even if it occurs on a farm) - at what point does someone that chooses to look the other way become a co-conspirator?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Protection_Act
which only applies to Federal agency employees.
To the best of my knowledge, individuals who are not Federal employees that engage in whistleblowing do so with the very real possibility that there will be permanent professional retribution.
professional retribution is fine. That is like getting fired.
Going to jail and being labelled a terrorist is not professional retribution.
For one, there is no such thing as unified "whistleblower laws." There are whistleblower laws in various states covering various domains, forming a legal morass that is near impossible for a human to navigate unaided.
But more importantly, abiding by every one of these laws still results in years of legal limbo under attack from the superhumanly powerful entity that you as a moral person managed to piss off, bankrupting you, ending your marriage, and making you a damaged, nervous wreck. No whistleblower says they'd do it again if they had the choice.
This is the protection your laws provide.
I sadly can't yet link to a source, and am not sure how much I can say about how I know this, but I will say there'll be a great article out in a month or so on this topic in a major print publication.
This takes away the "trespassing" thing that's getting bandied about ... there are certainly whistleblower protections for regular employees, are those out the window?
This position is indefensible, I think. By the same token any institution that produces a product that somehow impacts customers should have no right to privacy. Having corporate privacy and being regulated are related but different things.
The bottom line is that the prosecution processes aided by whistle-blower testimony is broken, requiring long investigations and, to play devil's advocate, wrongful accusations and financial harm to a business.