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For Immediate Release
April, 06 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Ryan Talbott, 503-329-9162, rtalbott@centerforfoodsafety.org
Jackie Filson, 860-306-0108, jfilson@fwwatch.org
New Swine Rules So Dangerous They Could Spur Another Zoonotic Pandemic
Analysis of newly released data reveals the New Swine Inspection System eliminates critical animal and carcass inspection.
WASHINGTON
Newly received data released today shows that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) new rules for swine slaughter plants, or the "New Swine Inspection System (NSIS)," dramatically curtail federal government inspection of animals and carcasses showing signs of diseases and other food safety or public health related conditions, including potentially those showing signs of diseases that can move from animals to people, such as coronaviruses.
Food & Water Watch's analysis of data obtained as a result of a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit shows that USDA veterinarians were able to evaluate 3.5 times fewer potentially diseased animals and carcasses in plants that piloted USDA's NSIS rules, compared to plants that were operating under normal inspection, during the select years in the plants for which data was available.
The newly released data contradicts USDA assurances that long-standing inspection requirements would be unaffected by the new NSIS rules, which allow slaughter plant workers to first determine which animals are fit for slaughter, which carcasses are fit for commerce, and to set their own line speeds. The Federal Meat Inspection Act, first passed in 1906, mandates that government inspectors evaluate each animal arriving at a slaughter plant and every carcass after the animal is slaughtered. If not immediately condemned, federal inspectors tag those showing signs of disease and other abnormal conditions for further evaluation by a government veterinarian before they can proceed. This protects public health.
Food & Water Watch's data and analysis show that the NSIS system dramatically limits the numbers of swine that can be inspected by trained federal veterinarians, and instead leaves this evaluation in the hands of untrained or under-trained slaughter-plant employees. Meanwhile, the NSIS system allows plant employees to ship animals that are exhibiting signs of dangerous disease elsewhere, thus allowing animals containing spreadable disease to slip through the cracks.
"Self-regulation when it comes to animal movement, slaughter, and meat inspection is bad news. This data shows just how bad it really is. While people across the country are fighting against a dangerous pandemic believed to have come first from animals, USDA is eliminating necessary safeguards against the spread of infectious diseases from swine," said Zach Corrigan, Senior Staff Attorney, Food & Water Watch. "USDA is endangering public health. They should shut down NSIS immediately."
USDA rules, finalized in October 2019, are now being implemented in slaughter plants around the country, as companies were supposed to decide whether to participate no later than last week. USDA has so far rejected requests to stop plant transitions to the dangerous new system in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"If this moment teaches us anything, it is that deregulating public health standards can have disastrous consequences. The reason we have federal regulation of meat is because the industry failed to protect public health a century ago," said Ryan Talbott, Staff Attorney, Center for Food Safety. "USDA's decision to walk away from its obligation to protect the public is shameful and will almost certainly result in more people getting sick and dying."
The new data was made public in an amended complaint, filed on Monday, April 6, 2020. The complaint added the Humane Farming Association to the Center For Food Safety and Food & Water Watch's ongoing suit challenging USDA's new rules.
"Until now, federal regulations have allowed slaughterhouses to kill as many as one pig every three seconds," said Bradley Miller, National Director, Humane Farming Association. "Apparently that's not fast enough for the pork industry. The Trump Administration has given the nation's largest hog slaughterhouses a green light to operate at unrestricted speeds, killing and inspecting pigs as fast, and as recklessly, as they want."
NSIS is the subject of three separate lawsuits filed by worker safety, animal welfare and environmental, and food safety advocates
Read the full analysis here.
Read the full amended complaint here.
Center for Food Safety's mission is to empower people, support farmers, and protect the earth from the harmful impacts of industrial agriculture. Through groundbreaking legal, scientific, and grassroots action, we protect and promote your right to safe food and the environment. CFS's successful legal cases collectively represent a landmark body of case law on food and agricultural issues.
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Amnesty Blasts Israeli Death Penalty Bill as 'Institutionalized Discrimination Against Palestinians'
A leader at the human rights group called the proposal "a dangerous and dramatic step backwards and a product of ongoing impunity for Israel’s system of apartheid and its genocide in Gaza."
Nov 11, 2025
As Israel continues its "silent genocide" in the Gaza Strip one month into a supposed ceasefire with Hamas and Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank hit a record high, Amnesty International on Tuesday ripped the advancement of a death penalty bill championed by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Israel's 120-member Knesset "on Monday evening voted 39-16 in favor of the first reading of a controversial government-backed bill sponsored by Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech," the Times of Israel reported. "Two other death penalty bills, sponsored by Likud MK Nissim Vaturi and Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer, also passed their first readings 36-15 and 37-14."
Son Har-Melech's bill—which must pass two more readings to become law—would require courts to impose the death penalty on "a person who caused the death of an Israeli citizen deliberately or through indifference, from a motive of racism or hostility against a population, and with the aim of harming the state of Israel and the national revival of the Jewish people in its land."
Both Hamas—which Israel considers a terrorist organization—and the Palestine Liberation Organization slammed the bill, with Palestinian National Council Speaker Rawhi Fattouh calling it "a political, legal, and humanitarian crime," according to Reuters.
Amnesty International's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, Erika Guevara Rosas, said in a statement that "there is no sugarcoating this; a majority of 39 Israeli Knesset members approved in a first reading a bill that effectively mandates courts to impose the death penalty exclusively against Palestinians."
Amnesty opposes the death penalty under all circumstances and tracks such killings annually. The international human rights group has also forcefully spoken out against Israeli abuse of Palestinians, including the genocide in Gaza that has killed over 69,182 people as of Tuesday—the official tally from local health officials that experts warn is likely a significant undercount.
"The international community must exert maximum pressure on the Israeli government to immediately scrap this bill and dismantle all laws and practices that contribute to the system of apartheid against Palestinians."
“Knesset members should be working to abolish the death penalty, not broadening its application," Guevara Rosas argued. "The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment, and an irreversible denial of the right to life. It should not be imposed in any circumstances, let alone weaponized as a blatantly discriminatory tool of state-sanctioned killing, domination, and oppression. Its mandatory imposition and retroactive application would violate clear prohibitions set out under international human rights law and standards on the use of this punishment."
"The shift towards requiring courts to impose the death penalty against Palestinians is a dangerous and dramatic step backwards and a product of ongoing impunity for Israel's system of apartheid and its genocide in Gaza," she continued. "It did not occur in a vacuum. It comes in the context of a drastic increase in the number of unlawful killings of Palestinians, including acts that amount to extrajudicial executions, over the last decade, and a horrific rise of deaths in custody of Palestinians since October 2023."
Guevara Rosas noted that "not only have such acts been greeted with near-total impunity but with legitimacy and support and, at times, glorification. It also comes amidst a climate of incitement to violence against Palestinians as evidenced by the surge in state-backed settler attacks in the occupied West Bank."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the devastating assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Since then, Israeli soldiers and settlers have also killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Netanyahu is now wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and Israel faces an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice. The ICJ separately said last year that Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end; the Israeli government has shown no sign of accepting that.
The Amnesty campaigner said Tuesday that "it is additionally concerning that the law authorizes military courts to impose death sentences on civilians, that cannot be commuted, particularly given the unfair nature of the trials held by these courts, which have a conviction rate of over 99% for Palestinian defendants."
As CNN reported Monday:
The UN has previously condemned Israel's military courts in the occupied West Bank, saying that "Palestinians' right to due process guarantees have been violated" for decades, and denounced "the lack of fair trial in the occupied West Bank."
UN experts said last year that, "in the occupied West Bank, the functions of police, investigator, prosecutor, and judge are vested in the same hierarchical institution—the Israeli military."
Pointing to the hanging of Nazi official and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann, Guevara Rosas highlighted that "on paper, Israeli law has traditionally restricted the use of the death penalty for exceptional crimes, like genocide and crimes against humanity, and the last court-ordered execution was carried out in 1962."
"The bill's stipulation that courts should impose the death penalty on individuals convicted of nationally motivated murder with the intent of 'harming the state of Israel or the rebirth of the Jewish people' is yet another blatant manifestation of Israel's institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians, a key pillar of Israel’s apartheid system, in law and in practice," she asserted.
"The international community must exert maximum pressure on the Israeli government to immediately scrap this bill and dismantle all laws and practices that contribute to the system of apartheid against Palestinians," she added. "Israeli authorities must ensure Palestinian prisoners and detainees are treated in line with international law, including the prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment, and are provided with fair trial guarantees. They must also take concrete steps towards abolishing the death penalty for all crimes and all people."
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Kansas Editor Hopes $3 Million Payout for Police Raids Stops Future Attacks on Press
"In our democracy, the press is a watchdog against abuse," said Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer. "If the watchdog itself is the target of abuse, and all it does is roll over, democracy suffers.”
Nov 11, 2025
A Kansas county has agreed to pay $3 million over 2023 police raids of a local newspaper and multiple homes—one of which belonged to its elderly publisher, whose death shortly followed—sparking nationwide alarm over increasing attacks on the free press.
Marion County agreed to pay the seven-figure settlement and issue a formal apology to the publishers of the Marion County Record admitting that wrongdoing had occurred during the August 11, 2023 raids on the paper's newsroom and two homes.
The apology states that the Marion County Sheriff's Office "wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record. This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrant."
Bernie Rhodes, an attorney for the Record, told the paper, "This is a first step—but a big step—in making sure that Joan Meyer’s death served a purpose, in making sure that the next crazed cop who thinks they can raid a newsroom understands the consequences are measured in millions of dollars."
Rhodes was referring to the 98-year-old Record co-owner, who was reportedly in good health for her age, but collapsed and died at her home in the immediate aftermath of the raid by Marion police and country sheriff's deputies.
"This is a first step—but a big step—in making sure that Joan Meyer’s death served a purpose."
Eric Meyer, Joan Meyer's son and the current publisher of the Record, said: “The admission of wrongdoing is the most important part. In our democracy, the press is a watchdog against abuse. If the watchdog itself is the target of abuse, and all it does is roll over, democracy suffers.”
According to the Record, awards include:
- $200,000 to Eric Meyer, whose home was raided and two computers and a cellphone seized;
- $250,000 to reporter Deb Gruver, whose cell phone was seized;
- $300,000 to the Record;
- $600,000 to reporter Phyllis Zorn, whose cell phone was seized;
- $650,000 to former vice mayor Ruth Herbel, whose computer and cell phone were seized, and her husband, Ron, whose dementia was aggravated by the raid on their home; and
- $1 million to the estate of Joan Meyer.
Record business manager Cheri Bentz—who suffered aggravation of health conditions following one of the raids—previously settled with the county for $50,000.
Katherine Jacobsen, the US, Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, hailed the settlement as "an important win for press freedom amid a growing trend of hostility toward those who hold power to account."
"Journalists must be able to work freely and without fear of having their homes raided and equipment seized due to the overreach of authorities," she added.
The raids—during which police seized the Record‘s electronic equipment, work product, and documentary materials—were conducted with search warrants related to an alleged identity theft investigation.
However, critics—who have called the warrants falsified and invalid—noted that the raids came as the Record investigated sexual misconduct allegations against then-Marion Police Chief Police Gideon Cody. The raids, they say, were motivated by Cody's desire to silence the paper's unfavorable reporting about him.
State District Judge Ryan Rosauer ruled last month that Cody likely committed a felony crime when he instructed a witness with whom he allegedly had an improper romantic relationship to delete text messages they exchanged before, during, and after the raids.
While Cody will not be tried in connection with Meyer's death or the 2023 raids, Rosauer ordered him to stand trial over the deleted texts.
Meyer at the time expressed dismay that Cody wasn't being tried for his mother's death or the raids. He also worried that Cody was being made a scapegoat, as other people and law enforcement agencies were involved in the incident.
Following the announcement of the settlement, Meyer said that "this never has been about money, the key issue always has been that no one is above the law."
"No one can trample on the First and Fourth Amendments for personal or political purposes and get away with it," he continued. "When my mother warned officers that the stress they were putting her under might lead to her death, she called what they were doing Hitler tactics."
"What keeps our democracy from descending as Germany did before World War II is the courage she demonstrated—and we’ve tried to continue—in fighting back," Meyer added.
"This never has been about money, the key issue always has been that no one is above the law."
Five consolidated federal civil rights lawsuits have been filed in the US District Court for the District of Kansas, alleging wrongful death, unlawful searches, retaliation for protected speech, and other claims tied to the raids.
“It’s a shame additional criminal charges aren’t possible,” Meyer said, “but the federal civil cases will do everything they can to discourage future abuses of power.”
Although unable to savor the Record's victory, Joan Meyer presciently told the officers raiding her home, "Boy, are you going to be in trouble."
“She was so right," said Rhodes.
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GOP NYC Councilwoman Openly Dares Mamdani to Arrest Netanyahu With New Year's Invite
Despite Mamdani's campaign pledge, legal experts have consistently cast doubt on a New York City mayor's authority to order the arrest of a foreign leader.
Nov 11, 2025
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani may have a chance to fulfill one of his campaign promises on his first day of office, although legal experts have repeatedly cast doubt on his power to make it happen.
Republican New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov on Tuesday sent a formal invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in New York City on January 1, 2026, while at the same time daring Mamdani to keep his pledge to have him arrested on war crimes charges.
"On January 1, Mamdani will take office," Vernikov wrote in a post on X. "And also on January 1, I look forward to welcoming Bibi to New York City. NY will always stand with Israel, and no radical Marxists with a title can change that."
The International Criminal Court (ICC) last year issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel's war in Gaza that has killed at least 69,000 Palestinians.
During his successful mayoral campaign, Mamdani repeatedly said that he would enforce the warrant against Netanyahu should the Israeli leader set foot in his city.
Although Mamdani backed off some of his most strident past statements during the campaign, particularly when it comes to the New York Police Department (NYPD), he doubled down on arresting Netanyahu during a September interview with The New York Times.
"This is a moment where we cannot look to the federal government for leadership," Mamdani told the paper. "This is a moment when cities and states will have to demonstrate what it actually looks like to stand up for our own values, our own people."
However, legal experts who spoke with the Times cast doubt on Mamdani's authority as the mayor of a major American city to arrest a foreign head of government, even if the person in question has been indicted by the ICC.
Among other things, experts said that the NYPD does not have jurisdiction to arrest Netanyahu on international war crimes charges, and the Israeli leader would have to commit some crime in violation of local state or city laws to justify such an action.
Additionally, the US has never been party to the ICC and does not recognize its legal authority.
Matthew Waxman, a professor at Columbia Law School, told the Times that Mamdani's stated determination to arrest Netanyahu was "more a political stunt than a serious law-enforcement policy."
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