Activists Challenge Law Criminalizing Animal Rights Protests

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to consider whether the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act chills animals rights demonstrations, writes Jamie Schuman of Supreme Court Brief (the federal law prohibits anyone from intentionally causing the loss of money or property to an institution using animals). While the court ruled in Clapper v. Amnesty International that harm must be "certainly impending" for plaintiffs to get standing, the Center for Constitutional Rights, counsel for the five animal-rights activists bringing the challenge, argues the activists have standing because they have an objectively reasonable fear that the government will use the law to punish their speech, Schuman further reports. CCR wants the Supreme Court to grant certiorari, vacate the lower court opinion and remand the case without oral argument as the high court did in another pre-enforcement challenge to a criminal statute. The justices declined to apply Clapper in the case, Schuman also reports.