Posted August 20, 2014
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released farmers’ and ranchers’ personal data to the public violating basic principles of federal law, according to an article on Ohio’s Country Ag Journal available here. Sierra Sun Times also published the article here.
In 2013, the EPA publicly released a massive database of personal information about livestock and poultry farmers and ranchers in 29 states. The information was distributed to three environmental groups that had filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The database included the names of farmers, ranchers and possibly other family members, home addresses, GPS coordinates, telephone numbers, and emails.
Last July, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) was joined by the National Pork Producers Council and filed the lawsuit to stop the EPA from responding to new FOIA requests seeking information about farmers and ranchers in six additional states.
“The EPA is displaying a callous disregard for basic privacy rights,” Bob Stallman, AFBF President, said. “EPA believes that if information about you can be found somewhere on the Internet, or if you own a closely held family corporation, you have no interest in protecting your personal information. All citizens should be worried about that, not just farmers and ranchers.”
EPA has agreed not to release any further information pending the court’s decision in this lawsuit. AFBF’s latest filing asks the court for a permanent order preventing future disclosures of farmers’ and ranchers’ personal information in response to similar requests.
For more information, a copy of the filing is available here.
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