From Mary Zanoni:
This is one of the most accurate descriptions of the FOIA case early developments that I have seen. However, the title may give the mistaken impression that the early actions in the case were more broadly applicable than they actually were — all that happened at the beginning was that USDA temporarily had to forego making the premises records subject to the privacy act, and released a very very limited set of information about some requests to be removed from the database. We probably will not get a fruther decision in the case until sometime in the fall.
-Mary
USDA Ordered to Release NAIS Data
by Karen BriggsAgricultural journalist Mary-Louise Zanoni has succeeded in keeping the USDA from applying Privacy Act safeguards to information it has collected from livestock owners as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). These safeguards would have restricted access to the information by journalists as well as the livestock owners whose information might be included without their knowledge.
In a landmark ruling June 4, Federal District Judge for the District of Columbia, Emmet Sullivan, suspended indefinitely the USDA’s plans to protect the information under the 1974 Privacy Act.
The information in question is a list of farms and ranches collected through voluntary premises identification since 2004 and potentially through other means which sources say amount to data mining. In her suit, Zanoni sought a restraining order and alleged that not only has the USDA collected premises information from landowners who did not voluntarily submit that information, but it has failed to remove that information from the list when requested to do so by the landowners.
Len Brown, of the law firm Clymer & Musser of Lancaster, Pa., represented Zanoni in the case. He commented, “It boils down to a database created by the U.S. government in an inappropriate way. This created huge hurdles for journalists trying to write about NAIS.
“The rules say people being placed in a database such as this need to be notified, but the USDA has admitted to data mining from sources like state veterinarians and avian flu records, even entry lists from county fairs,” Brown stated.
-TheHorse