PETA sues over Mass. wiretap laws, saying they impede animal cruelty investigations

Local News

In Massachusetts, people cannot record conversations unless they get the consent of everyone involved.

The animal rights group PETA filed a lawsuit this week challenging the Massachusetts law that makes it illegal to record a conversation without the other person’s consent. 

The law is overly broad, PETA argues, as it applies to conversations regardless of whether or not they pertain to matters of “public concern.” The group says that the law is preventing it from investigating and documenting animal abuse. 

“PETA Foundation lawyers are seeking an exemption to the law so that we can continue conducting vital undercover investigations that protect both animals and consumers, hold perpetrators accountable, and keep the public informed about crimes committed out of sight,” the group said in a statement. 

It filed a lawsuit in federal district court Monday, naming Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni as defendants. PETA has “imminent plans” to conduct undercover investigations in Hampden County, according to the lawsuit, but is fearful of prosecution under the state’s wiretapping laws. 

Massachusetts is one of just 11 states with “two-party” or “all-party” consent laws, meaning that every person that is part of a conversation must consent to it being recorded. In the other 39 states, only one person needs to consent, meaning that conversations can generally be recorded secretly by a participant. 

A 2020 court ruling carved out an exception for the recording of “police officers discharging their official duties in public space.” 

In 2021, the state’s highest court ruled that former WEEI radio host Kirk Minihane did not violate the law when he recorded a conversation with former Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone while pretending to be someone else. 

In a release, PETA cited a number of previous high-profile investigations that required the use of secret recordings. Without the ability to take these recordings, the group says it would not have been able to expose the mistreatment of pigs at an Iowa farm, the abuse of dogs at a breeding factory in Virginia, and animal cruelty at a Canadian zoo. 

The “incredible sweep” of the wiretapping law in Massachusetts has a chilling effect on PETA’s undercover investigators, the group argues in the lawsuit. For example, they are not inclined to record the sounds that animals make whenever any other humans are present because inadvertently capturing “a single human utterance” would expose PETA to criminal liability.

Recording the sounds that animals make is important in these investigations, since vocalizations and labored breathing can be signs of distress in many species. Absent audio, video recordings are “prone to distortion or mischaracterization,” the group says. 

PETA is arguing that Massachusetts should allow exceptions to the wiretapping law for whistleblowers who work to “expose cruelty.” In its release, the group references pending legislation that would create a carveout for recordings of threats, abuse, and harassment in domestic cases. 

“Laws should protect vulnerable individuals, not safeguard violent ones — but that’s exactly what Massachusetts’ anti-wiretapping law does,” PETA said. “Animal-exploiting industries thrive on laws like Massachusetts’ anti-wiretapping statute, because the last thing they want is the public knowing the truth.”