After a federal district court dismissed a case filed against the EPA, thereby upholding the validity of the EPA's public release of personal information about farmers and their families, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), along with the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, calling the release unlawful and asking the Court of Appeals to reverse the district court's decision.

The court case came about after the EPA released a database containing personal information about tens of thousands of livestock and poultry farmers, ranchers, and their families in 2013. The released information included the names, home addresses, GPS coordinates of both homes and farms, home telephone numbers, and personal email addresses of these farmers, ranchers, and some of their family members.

The brief argues that the district court's ruling failed to address key privacy issues because this disclosure of personally identifying information creates a palpable threat to privacy. The brief also emphasizes that farms and ranches are different from typical businesses because the information about these businesses also contains information about the residences of farming and ranching families.

This article was written by Erin Buerger, a summer associate at Varnum in 2015. Erin is currently a student at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.