The EPA in the news

Talk about operating outside the bounds of the law -- from National Review Online:

The EPA�s Privacy Problem
The fire at San Joaquin Valley�s Harris Farms burst out suddenly and rapidly, consuming 14 trailer trucks in the dawn of January 8, 2012. Wreaking more than $2 million in damage, it constituted one of the biggest acts of agro-terrorism in American history.

An anonymous news release issued by the Animal Liberation Front, a radical animal-rights group, explained that unnamed activists had placed containers of kerosene and digital timers beneath the trucks, linking them with kerosene-soaked rope to carry the fire down the row, �a tactic adapted from Home Alone 2.� The statement concludes threateningly: �until next time.� The perpetrators remain uncaught.

Two years later, farmers and ranchers in 29 states worry they�ll be similarly attacked; last year, the Environmental Protection Agency released to environmental groups extensive personal information about 80,000 to 100,000 agricultural operations.

The data released included names of owners, addresses, global-positioning-system coordinates, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and, in some instances, notes on medical conditions and inheritances. Though environmental groups had requested information about �concentrated animal feeding operations� � �CAFOs� in the bureaucratic lingo, and �feedlots� in the vernacular � some of the information released clumped in data about crop farms, too.

They pull crap like this and still get funding? Unreal... There is a lot more at the site -- the article goes into quite a good bit of detail.