In a bold legal move against the current administration, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and a coalition comprising 21 other attorneys general, alongside the state of Kentucky, have filed a lawsuit to challenge what they deem as illegal demands by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to a Mass.gov news release, the USDA's request for states to turn over sensitive personal data of millions of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients has sparked significant concern.
AG Campbell expressed the gravity of the situation: "All parents deserve to be able to feed their children without having their privacy violated, or the fear of being deported," she affirmed. Insisting on the protection of federal privacy laws, Campbell stated to Mass.gov, "I will not allow this Administration to fuel their cruel immigration agenda with information wrongfully taken from families who are just trying to make ends meet. I’m proud to stand with my colleagues in demanding federal privacy laws are upheld." The USDA has implied a threat of withholding necessary administrative funding unless states comply, creating a precarious situation in which states are caught between violating privacy laws and failing to provide essential assistance.
The lawsuit's objections are rooted in decades of SNAP administration, which have evolved robust eligibility and quality control systems without requiring such invasive data sharing. The crux of the lawsuit, as described by the Massachusetts Attorney General, revolves around the excessive nature of the federal government’s request for personal information. The federal justifications for these demands are viewed as especially flimsy when measured against the USDA's own assessment, revealing SNAP as a program with a formidable quality control system already in place.
Recent reports suggest a broader federal initiative to compile personal data on Americans — an effort that has extended to attempts to obtain private medical information and other personal details from numerous avenues, detailed Mass.gov. The lawsuit argues that not only does this demand violate several privacy laws, including federal ones, it also exceeds the USDA's authority, and undermines the Spending Clause. Furthermore, states such as Massachusetts stand to face catastrophic impacts should funding be withheld, as they rely on significant sums, like the expected $106 million this year for SNAP administration.
Standing alongside AG Campbell are the attorneys general from California, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin. Together, they seek a court declaration that the Trump Administration’s demands are unlawful and an injunction to block the administration from making SNAP funding contingent on the surrendering of private recipient data.
