By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced executive action and proposed legislation to address threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party and other hostile foreign powers in collecting data from Americans, buying property near military bases in Florida, and purchasing agricultural property in the state

            “These measures will curtail the nefarious intentions of all seven countries on Florida’s list of countries of concern, making it more difficult for China, Cuba, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Syria, or Venezuela to engage in espionage or influence operations within Florida’s border and preventing purchases of agricultural land and lands surrounding military bases by these governments or their agents,” DeSantis said.

            DeSantis is proposing legislation for the spring session of the Florida Legislature to prohibit the purchase of agricultural land and land surrounding military bases by foreign countries of concern. He said there have already been instances of Chinese Communist Party-affiliated companies purchasing land near military basis in other states including the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. Florida is home to 21 military bases. The state has allocated money to purchase land nearest to some of these bases but DeSantis said more needs to be done.

            Monkey Lab Property

            As of 2019, the governor said foreign investors held an interest in 5.8 percent of Florida’s privately held agricultural lands. This ranks Florida as the state with the fifth highest percentage of reported foreign-owned land. Thirty-one states have regulations in place for foreign ownership of land. In Iowa and Minnesota, no alien – someone who isn’t a United States Citizen — is allowed to acquire any interest in agricultural land.

            DeSantis’s announcement of protecting Florida agricultural land from purchase by foreign dictatorships comes on the heels of a China-backed company from San Francisco purchasing 1,400 acres of agricultural land in Gulf Hammock for a monkey quarantine area. The purchase alarmed neighbors of the property and people throughout Levy County and beyond.

            Monkeys can transmit diseases to human beings. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has expressed strong opposition to the Gulf Hammock property being purchased for the purpose of creating a factory monkey farm. The organization is concerned about the inhumane treatment of monkeys as research animals but also about germs being transmitted from monkeys to human beings living in Levy County and beyond.

            Monkey-Borne Diseases

            PETA’s senior science advisor, Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, a primate scientist for 40 years who specialized in the study of the transmission of infectious diseases from primates to humans, and humans to primates, wrote a July 6, 2022 letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that controls the flow of primates into the United States, urging an immediate halt to the importation of wild-caught and farmed monkeys due to the threat of monkey-borne diseases being transmitted to human beings.

            “The CDC controls the flow of primates into the U.S., and as gatekeepers, you have the life-changing ability to mitigate primate-borne disease introduction and transmission. The tens of thousands of primates who are now annually captured in their natural homes or intensively bred in factory farming operations for exportation to laboratories are typically stressed, immunocompromised, injured, and diseased,” said Jones-Engel. “We urge CDC to acknowledge the public health risks that wild-caught and farmed monkeys present and immediately end all importation of monkeys destined for biomedical research.

            CDC Shrugs Off Concerns

The letter was written to Christopher Braden, M.D., acting director for the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Zoonotic diseases are caused by germs that spread between animals and people. Jones-Engel said Braden basically shrugged off her letter.

            Jones-Engel said the CDC website acknowledges that primates may carry infectious diseases that are dangerous and sometimes fatal to humans. These infections include those caused by Shigella, Salmonella, Ebola virus, herpes B virus, the tuberculosis virus, yellow fever, and many others. People working in temporary or long-term monkey-holding facilities or involved in transporting monkeys (cargo holders or inspectors) are especially at risk of infection.

            Brooks Says Federal Legislation Pending

            Levy County Commissioner Matt Brooks said U.S. Senators Tom Cotton and Tommy Tuberville are also trying to introduce legislation at the federal level to oppose efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to purchase American farmland and land around American military bases.

“I don’t think a lot of local people locally know how much it was being worked on. Of course, when it hits in our own backyard it becomes a reality,” Brooks said. “It’s taken everybody back. Everybody is shocked. Everybody is concerned.”

            Brooks said that type of thing is difficult to deal with in a capitalistic society that encourages property investment, “so they’ve got to be careful to balance it out.”

            “We are for small government. How deep do you want the government involved in your finances? Anything they do they will have to thread the needle because it’s going to catch a lot of other investors in the same net and it could have a negative impact. You can’t do everything in the name of national security. Sometimes you get bad legislation and it just becomes a burden or causes inconvenience for Americans. But the governor has a very important issue. Obviously, he thinks it’s important enough to take it up in this upcoming legislative session and he thought it was important enough to do that executive order.”

            Brooks was asked about the fact that it seemed coincidental that the governor issued the executive order and proposed legislation to protect Floridians from purchases of land by foreign dictatorships about the same time the monkey lab purchase publicly surfaced.

            “If you think about it, we’re coming out of the Pandemic so everybody has a heightened sense of awareness for any sort of laboratory-type operation especially with ties to China because all of that is still under consideration and investigation,” Brooks said. “Everybody has a heightened sense of awareness as far that goes, so when it pops up in your state, your backyard, I think that throws a flag up. I think it did for the governor and obviously does for our residents.”

            “Hundreds of emails and lots of text messages, social media messages, and the sheer amount of interest in it is pretty obvious,” Brooks added. “We’re getting a pile of emails. We’re getting emails from people who aren’t even in this state, people who are very concerned. It’s worrisome to them, a Chinese-backed laboratory is supposedly considering coming to this area. It’s an unknown, a big unknown, how to respond, react, and protect. I think we’re seeing now more than ever that zoning, codes, ordinances, and special exceptions are very important in the local protection process.”

            Governor Protecting Citizen Data

            Brooks said the governor’s executive order, which was announced at the same time as proposed legislation to protect farms and military basis from the influences of hostile foreign powers, is aimed at protecting Americans from collection of their personal data.

            “When you sign up for some of these things, some platforms you have to give financial information or personal information. You’ve got countries like China that’s amassing all this data against our citizens and it could be a natural security risk. The governor’s been against that for a while,” Brooks said. “I think the farmland thing is a little more prevalent. China, definitely in the past few years has acquired more land in the United States than they had previously and of course, when a country is gaining in economic strength they can invest in foreign countries more. The governor wants to protect farmland but also land close to military bases strategically.”

—————————-

Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt September 24, 2022; Posted September 24, 2022