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AFBF secures stay in EPA privacy suit

A federal district court in Minnesota has ordered the EPA not to release farmers’ and ranchers’ personal information while the American Farm Bureau Federation and co-plaintiff National Pork Producers Council appeal the court’s decision dismissing their lawsuit.

By dismissing the suit, the court ruled that farmers are not harmed when the government compiles and releases a storehouse of personal information, so long as individual bits of that information are somehow publicly accessible, such as through an Internet search or on a Facebook page.

The suit concerns personal information, such as names, home addresses, telephone numbers and GPS locations, of tens of thousands of livestock and poultry farmers compiled by EPA and requested by environmental groups through Freedom of Information Act requests. AFBF and NPPC appealed the dismissal on January 29.