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PETA asserts First Amendment right to receive communications from NIH monkeys

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 10, 2025, 8:57 am CDT

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is asserting a First Amendment right to receive communications from macaque monkeys held in a government research lab.

The group’s March 6 lawsuit says the captive rhesus macaques—including Beamish, Sam Smith, Nick Nack, Guinness and Cersei—regularly communicate about their physical and psychological pain through vocalizations, facial expressions, head and limb movements, body posture and abnormal behavior.

PETA filed the suit in Maryland federal court after government agencies refused its request for access to a livestreamed audiovisual feed of the monkeys.

“No lawsuit has ever tried to enforce the constitutional right to receive communications from animals who are undoubtedly willing speakers,” PETA said in a March 6 press release.

The group is represented by the PETA Foundation and Davis Wright Tremaine.

Defendants in the suit include the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health.

The suit says PETA employs and has relationships with primate experts who can better understand the macaques’ communications.

The suit describes alleged “torturous and useless experiments” that include surgeries to inflict brain damage, the insertion of metal chambers in the animals’ skulls for brain access, and deprivation of food and water to induce the animals to cooperate.

The animals’ “gestures and body language communicate intelligible messages about their torment,” the suit says.

The suit alleges that the government’s failure to provide livestream access to the animals violates the First Amendment and the refusal to provide an explanation or appeal of its denial violates the Fifth Amendment.

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