By John M. Simpson. In Iowa, it is a crime to trespass on private property. Given recent actions by animal rights activists invading private farm land to film what is claimed to be animal mistreatment, Iowa amended the criminal trespass statute to prohibit use of a camera during a trespass. The law was originally sustained against a facial First Amendment challenge. Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and another organization then brought an as-applied challenge arguing that the statute violated the First Amendment if it prevented them from recording on private property that is otherwise open to the public after being asked to leave by the owner but not asked to stop recording. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit disagreed and affirmed dismissal of the case. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Reynolds, No. 25-1750 (8th Cir. Apr. 23, 2026).
The court assumed that a trespasser has “general rights of free speech on property privately owned and used nondiscriminatory for private purposes” – an issue that the Supreme Court has yet to decide. Slip. op. at 8. Even so, the challenge to the statute failed because the application of the statute at issue survived intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment. The law promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the statute, and it did not burden speech more than is necessary to further the interest.
The court rejected appellants’ arguments that the statute is not narrowly tailored.
First, appellants’ assertion that privacy and property rights are not furthered if the owner objects to the trespasser’s presence but not to the recording “is nonsensical. When a property owner uses his ‘power to exclude’ by ejecting a trespasser — ‘one of the most treasured strands in [his] bundle of property rights’ — he necessarily exercises his lesser right to stop the trespasser from unlawfully recording on his property.” Slip op. at 11.
Second, Iowa’ interests in protecting privacy and property rights are implicated even if the locations at issue are otherwise open to the public: “[P]roperty owners forfeit neither their right to exclude nor to control their property by opening it to the public for a certain purpose.” Slip op. at 11.
Third, the assertion that the state failed to produce evidence that “Iowa needed to proscribe all the speech covered by the statute to achieve its interests . . . lacks merit because § 727.8A is subject to intermediate rather than strict scrutiny.” Slip op.at 12.
So in Iowa, pig farm trespassers with cameras beware. The first offense is an aggravated misdemeanor with a fine between $855 and $8,540 and up to two years of imprisonment. The second offense is a class D felony with a fine between $1,025 and $10,245 and up to five years of imprisonment.