Imagine if, while no one was looking, the federal government erased the records of child abusers and pedophiles. What if, in an attempt to overwhelm the opposition, they jammed the channel with so much detritus that no one noticed a couple really bad policies…like, for example, the USDA purging its records of the inspection reports on thousands of research laboratories, zoos, and puppy mills. Did you hear about that? Probably not, the news didn’t even bother to talk about it!
On Friday the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suddenly removed inspection reports and other information, from their website, about the treatment of animals in research labs, zoos, dog breeding operations, and other facilities. As you can imagine, animal rights activists and other decent humans were shocked.

The USDA responded by citing court rulings and privacy laws that evidently were the result of what they called a year long “comprehensive review.” From now on the documents that were removed (records of enforcement actions against violators of the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act) will only be accessible via the Freedom of Information Act. (If you’ve ever needed info from the government you know that machine moves slowly.)

Previously, the department’s online database was used by various members of the public, including animal welfare organizations, to search for information. In fact, there are seven states who currently require pet stores to buy puppies from breeders that have clean USDA inspection reports. And now that all looks like it might be in jeopardy. This means that animal abuse will go unchecked.

From the article:

“’The USDA action cloaks even the worst puppy mills in secrecy and allows abusers of Tennessee walking horses, zoo animals and lab animals to hide even the worst track records in animal welfare,’ said John Goodwin, senior director of the Humane Society’s Stop Puppy Mills Campaign, which uses the federal records, as well as state inspection reports, to publish its annual ‘Horrible Hundred’ dog breeding operations that have been cited for welfare violations.”

The truth is that many facilities in this country have a terrible, truly despicable, record of violations against animals and now the public will be prevented from knowing who those groups are. While we aren’t sure if the missing information is permanent, we hope the situation is taken care of soon for the sake of the animals.

Source: The Washington Post