Judge to enforce pause on feds withholding funds over SNAP data

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) —  A federal judge tentatively ruled Friday to stop the government from withholding funding from states that refuse to provide personal information on food stamps recipients.

Senior U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney said that as it stands, a current injunction doesn’t cover the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s renewed demands that the states turn over data but ruled to keep it place until the USDA can provide a protocol with language that makes clear its intention and use of the data.

In October, the Bill Clinton appointee granted a preliminary injunction to halt the federal government’s efforts to obtain Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipients’ information. The injunction initially stopped the implementation of sworn declarations from USDA officials to withhold funds if it the agency was not provided with SNAP household information.

A coalition of 21 states and the District of Columbia, led by California, filed a lawsuit in June claiming President Donald Trump seeks to build a database of people’s information to target immigrants. The White House says the information is needed for transparency and to investigate fraud, but the states say the Trump administration is rewriting the rules to punish those who use SNAP.

USDA attorney Benjamin Kurland said Friday a proposed protocol, outlined by the agency, made possible the disclosure of data from the states without running up against federal and state statutes that prohibit the states from turning over the data unless the information is necessary for limited use by law enforcement.

Chesney said a protocol was necessary but intimated the one currently proposed by the defendants wasn’t ready for enactment.

“At the point, is a failure to obtain a protocol or arrive at an agreement, is it the fault of one party, or was it unreasonable to object the protocol they submitted?” Chesney questioned.

The plaintiffs said they were concerned about an overarching question of what the USDA will do with a “computer matching program” once it obtains the SNAP information, which would be based on an agreement required by the states and the USDA to give over the data.

“Our position is not the unilateral right to disagree to the protocol,” California attorney Liam O’Connor said.  “It’s that agreeing to the protocol would violate the law.”

The details under the “computer matching program” within the database the USDA plans to create with the SNAP data were unclear to Chesney.  She said it may not be “any of the plaintiffs’ business” what the USDA does with the data from states that complied with the demands.

“We don’t have Bartleby the scrivener here with a room full of paper,” Chesney said.  “We are going to have deal with computers eventually.”

Frequent squabbles between Kurland, O’Connor and Chesney over some of precise language in the proposed protocol lengthened the hearing.

Kurland noted the plaintiffs and the defendants were not in agreement as to what is stated in the protocol, with O’Connor questioning why the USDA doesn’t narrow the protocol’s language to ensure the data’s use would be limited with few exceptions.

“The states are quite concerned the use of the data and sharing it with the Department of Homeland Security,” O’Connor said near the end of the multi-hour hearing.  “And we impress upon the court that the USDA has intended to use the data beyond the purposes of [the statue]."