The EPA releases Personal Information on Ranchers and Farmers putting them at risk of Eco-Terrorist Attacks

The Environmental Protection Agency has told farmers and ranchers it is sorry for handing private information about them over to environmental groups, but agriculture advocates who fear attacks from eco-terrorists say it's like closing the barn door after the horses escaped.

The eco-terroist group Animal Liberation Front claimed
credit for setting fires that caused $2 million worth of damage
at a California cattle ranch. ((KMPH FOX 26))

In response to Freedom of Information Requests, the federal agency released information on up to 100,000 agriculture industry workers, including their home address and phone numbers, GPS coordinates and even personal medical histories. The agency later acknowledged much of the information should never have been provided, and even asked the recipients to give it back.

“If someone is setting out to create mischief at these locations, basically the government gave them a road map,” Mace Thornton, spokesman for the American Farm Bureau Federation, which is participating in a joint lawsuit against the EPA, told FoxNews.com. “It is very clearly an unjustified intrusion into citizens’ private lives by the government. And it is a betrayal of trust.” 

The EPA said it collected all the erroneous disclosures, released in July of 2012, and sent out new documents with sensitive personal information redacted, an EPA spokeswoman told FoxNews.com. 

“ … EPA determined that some personal information that could have been protected under FOIA was inadvertently released,” agency spokeswoman Caroline Behringer said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “EPA redacted that information and asked the FOIA requesters to return the information. All requestors have returned the original data.”

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