QuaeVide wrote:
Don't miss the first section of the bill:

Merely entering onto a farm to ask for directions would be a felony.

True enough, possibly, but what about tele lenses, or aerial photography?

QuaeVide wrote:

If that's the case, put a wall around it.

Actually, a number of agribusinesses are extremely secretive about equipment, workers, plants, processing, and products.  And people don't get how much influence agribusiness has in Florida.  This is less about photography than it is about corporate espionage.  That's not trying to rationalize the bill or argue it's right, only to explain why this is happening and about corporate farming.

This corporate businesses (the really big ones) are perfectly willing to fence/wall their properties (and some do).  They have private security and are perfectly willing to roust anyone they see who "doesn't belong."  The parts of the bill about venturing onto property are just as critical as the photography ones...this is a bill about trade secrets and corporate espionage....not someone came up with a nice design for a barn or an interesting shade of paint.  Monsanto and US Sugar and Florida Crystals don't want competitors or small farmers or animal rights people or FDA inspectors to be able to survey or document stuff without checking in first (and giving people time to prepare/hide/destroy or delay the visit).

--Ed

afplcc wrote:
Actually, a number of agribusinesses are extremely secretive about equipment, workers, plants, processing, and products.

There is nothing in the bill to stop competitors studying anything that is in sight and making copious notes. This is about the power of images in public relations, not about hiding trade secrets.

afplcc wrote:
This is less about photography than it is about corporate espionage.  That's not trying to rationalize the bill or argue it's right, only to explain why this is happening and about corporate farming.

Your aluminum foil hat is on way too tightly.

Carlos Occidental wrote:
Man, I really wish you southerners won that damn war so we'd be done with you.

LOL! Me TOO!

BUT this has NOTHING to do with the North, the South, the Left Coast or the War of Northern Aggression. Everyone who has stated corporate reasons is dead on. Here's most likely how this goes...

Company XYZ has come up with some super new crop or means to maximize yields and has contracted Bob's Farm to handle putting it into practice. Now Bob can't so much as say who the guys in lab coats showing up weekly and measuring all the crop progress are working for, much less what they are doing. Unfortunately for XYZ corp Bob's Farm is right photogenic and near a relatively major road, oh, say I-5 up through the San Joaquin Valley, and every few days photographers are stopping by and shooting images that show clearly the new process.

Well it just so happens that one time when the corporate meter checkers are there, they see a photographer shooting from the roadside above the farm. They immediately rip Bob a new one and he sadly informs them that there's nothing he can do since they are actually on public property. When the "meter men" return to the mother ship, they report the event. That goes up the chain.  Ideas are thrown around regarding building huge fences and what not but those all cost XYZ Corp money. Shareholders like it when companies get spending not increase spending. A way that won't cost XYZ money has to be found. At some point it gets to the legal department.  The XYZ Corp makes political donations at the state level. They get one of their attorneys to draft 'legislation' that would serve their needs and it gets delivered to that state level politician via a lobbyist. The state legislator has an underling 'fluff it' and introduces the bill that serves the complete and total interests of XYZ Corp and stomps civil liberties and individual freedoms in the process... All the while costing XYZ Corp no additional funds...

robert christopher wrote:

It is a crime to photograph a policeman in Maryland.

Yeah, they don't want to get caught commiting crimes anymore than the criminals do.

QuaeVide wrote:

There is nothing in the bill to stop competitors studying anything that is in sight and making copious notes. This is about the power of images in public relations, not about hiding trade secrets.

Agreed.  You miss my point.  Stuff gets labeled as "trade secrets" protection.  And it's really an amalgam of issues:  trying to avoid immigration issues (photographs of workers who may be undocumented), limiting scrutiny by animal rights activists, making it harder for state inspectors (difficult for citizens to turn in a picture saying "see, the manure runs off directly into the stream" and thus provide cause for a cease and desist order or full inspection).

And for most large agribusinesses, the "interesting stuff" isn't right by the side of the road.  Most of us think "farm" and we think bucolic little spread with a couple of cows, corn field, barn, rustic farm house, old tractor and a winding driveway...all visible from the main road.  Agribusinesses in Florida (or Iowa or California) cover hundreds or thousands of acres.  Some are indeed fenced/walled off in parts.  If this was only about photography, why would the bill also make it a felony to "venture" onto the property?

I'm not arguing the bill is justified or that it doesn't unfairly restrict photographer's rights.  But I am arguing that it's not motivated by an effort to control photographers, it's motivated by larger agriculture productions wanting to control who sees what, who has access to their production and increase the freedom those businesses have to operate.  Most of us when we think of Florida, we think of Disney and Miami nightlife.  But sugar production is a big industry with a lot of clout in that state.  Ditto with citrus.  Ditto with cattle (yes, cattle--nearly 1/2 of Florida's agricultural land is devoted to raising cattle).

Agribusiness is the explanation for why this bill exists and why it has a decent chance of passing the legislature.

--Ed

Carlos Occidental wrote:

Your aluminum foil hat is on way too tightly.

ummm....just a little bit of research will show that some of the people trying to justify this stupid legislation talk about "people posing as farm workers to then photograph the operations" and "protect the intellectual capital" and also avoid "abuses by PETA.'

Florida has almost no legislation regarding how animals are "managed."  Anyone who thinks that this bill is aimed at us photographers is wearing a foil hat.  It would potentially affect us.  But it's about keeping people from snooping into an agribusiness or slaughterhouse (like a chicken producing plant).

Clarence Zimmerman wrote:
Do Google and others or even the government get an exception for their satellite imaging or do they get busted right along with the rest of us???


That's gonna make for some hellish lawsuits!

Most of the time farmers pay them for some prints of the photographs!

Eloi Images wrote:
I believe it's okay if you get a moo-del release.

I think that might be the worst joke ever.

joshlanzara wrote:
http://www.normanforsenate.com/index.ph … &Itemid=77

is the link to the state senator's contact page. Tell him he's an idiot, as I did. He has the plump face of a career politician who will blow whichever way the people tell him to.

If you Google his name in conjunction with the word "ethics" you will see that his career advancement is probably limited.  He has to milk his current job for all he can because he'll never hold a higher office.

RayH Photography wrote:

I think that might be the worst joke ever.

Oh, pull the udder one

Mike Kirwan Photography wrote:

Oh, pull the udder one

hahaha

Eloi Images wrote:
I believe it's okay if you get a moo-del release.

Well, I thought it was funny.