House Passes Peters' Legislation to Stop Animal Torture

Press Release

Legislation Peters coauthored would restore law banning "Crush Videos"--pornographic videos involving animal torture--after April Supreme Court decision

The U.S. House of Representatives today passed legislation coauthored by Representative Gary Peters to outlaw videos depicting animal torture. The bill, the Prevention of Interstate Commerce in Animal Crush Videos Act of 2010, will restore the federal prohibition on videos depicting animal torture, including so-called "crush videos," following a recent Supreme Court decision that overturned the original law outlawing the videos.

Crush videos are a type of sexual fetish production that show small animals--guinea pigs, rabbits, even kittens or puppies--being intentionally burned, drowned, suffocated and impaled, or show them being crushed to death by women wearing stiletto heels. This legislation would ban the creation, sale or distribution of videos depicting animal torture including crush videos.

"Animal torture videos are barbaric and completely unacceptable and we're going to stop them once and for all," said Peters. "This behavior has absolutely no place in a civilized society. Those who make these disgusting videos shouldn't be profiting from them, they should be in prison."

"Congress should act swiftly to make sure the First Amendment is not used as a shield for those committing barbaric acts of cruelty, and then peddling their videos on the Internet," said Michael Markarian, chief operating officer of The Humane Society of the United States. "We are grateful to Congressman Peters for working to protect animals from malicious acts of cruelty."

The creation and sale of crush videos was banned by a federal law in 1999. However, the Supreme Court struck down the law in the case United States v. Stevens on April 20, 2010, saying the law was too broad and could infringed on First Amendment free speech rights. Peters' legislation is carefully drafted to avoid the issues in the original law that the court found unconstitutional in order to once again prohibit people from profiting off of animal torture.

Estimates suggest that approximately 3,000 crush videos were in circulation, some selling for as much as $400, at the time the original law was established in 1999. The original law was considered to be generally effective at stopping crush videos. More than a decade later, with far more Internet users than there were during the 1990s, it is feared that the videos could become even more widespread than before if a new law is not soon enacted. The bill now heads to the Senate.

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