Farmers Must Fight for Privacy Rights
Ashley Stinnett
Privacy and property rights have been at
the cornerstone of American freedom since our
nation’s inception. Our founding fathers witnessed
firsthand a desperate attempt to undo basic human
sovereignty by a tyrannical government across the
Atlantic Ocean. The framers of the Constitution
recognized civil liberties would be part of the
nucleus of a free country so they inserted language
into our governing documents that made sure these
rights would be protected.
Flash forward nearly 240 years into the present
and America is experiencing rapid erosion of these
rights; particularly within the agriculture community.
Back in June of 2007 the American Farm Bureau
Federation (AFBF) filed a brief in the Supreme Court
saying that a government should not be allowed
to condemn private property for “‘open space’
preservation without going through a public and
deliberative process.” In that particular case farmers
were fighting against unwarranted government
condemnation of property, a violation of basic private
property rights. Back then the government believed it
had unfettered access to a person’s private property.
Guess what? The government still believes that
today. And it is using its usual go-to intrusive agency
to push this radical agenda – the Environmental
Protection Agency.
In fact, the same arguments are being heard in
court in 2015. In April a lower court ruling upheld
EPA’s ability to release personal details about
home locations and contact information of tens of
thousands of farmers to environmental groups. AFBF
filed an appeal; a decision that is duly warranted.
According to AFBF’s brief, EPA’s disclosure
of private information is intended to create an
atmosphere of harassment and intimidation. The
biggest concern regarding this case is the fact
that farmers overwhelmingly live on or near their
agriculture site, unlike business owners who typically
don’t. According to the brief, “Most businesses’
mailing addresses lead to offices or factories;
their telephones are answered by receptionists and
secretaries; and their GPS coordinates point to
parking lots or security-guard booths. But family
farms are fundamentally different—or the great
majority of them, their businesses are their homes.
Their driveways lead