Shockingly even to me, I find myself in agreement with Wesley Smith on this post on PETA and other animal-extremist groups:

PETA has settled a lawsuit (perhaps to avoid discovery where its files would have been thrown open to lawyers), and agreed to a court order not to infiltrate a medical testing company it had been seeking to harm. The order lasts for five years. Suing animal liberationist harassers–but only when the suit is justified–could be an effective tool to keep the movement within proper parameters. . . . Hopefully, spankings by the law–civil in the case of PETA, criminal against terrorists like SHAC and the ALF–will convince animal liberationists to stay within proper legal parameters.

This is certainly correct.

What catches my attention about this, though, is the statement that the non-infiltration agreement lasts for five years. A court actually accepted a settlement whereby they would agree to obey the law temporarily? That stipulation should be made permanent - with strong action in the form of contempt-of-court arrests upon any violation.

I may be misreading this - it is possible that “infiltration” means things like taking jobs there under false pretenses in order to gain access to files or information, rather than actual trespassing or vandalism. Such things, however, are also illegal - recall the network news-magazine show that was fined for sending a reporter into a dirty meat-processing plant posing as an employee. Though that is a tort rather than a crime, it is still prohibited, and it is still outrageous that a judge would actually allow a settlement of one tort suit with what amounts to a promise to commit more torts after a specified waiting period. A court judgment is not a penalty time out like in a hockey game - it is a finding of legal guilt. No such judgment should be entered that does not plausibly seek to put an end to the prohibited behavior - not simply regulate it. (And, as Smith points out, the last time PETA entered into such an agreement, the harassment activity was immediately taken up in physically violent form by the parallel organization SHAC, with PETA’s explicit endorsement. Promises from this crowd are of no value.)

For that matter, I wish the plaintiffs had pursued the case to trial, whether or not they thought they could get a better judgment. Putting PETA’s files in the public record would be a step toward ending their nonsense.