The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press notes the case of Western Watersheds vs Bureau of Land Management, a FOIA case that hinged on the personal privacy exemption.
A U.S. District Court in Idaho ruled Monday that the public’s right to know outweighed personal privacy interests in a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought against the Bureau of Land Management by two environmental groups, according to court documents.
Their full analysis is here.
The Western Watersheds Project news release says
Conservationists have won a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) today over its refusal to disclose the names and addresses of certain grazing permittees on BLM land. Hon. Candy Dale, Chief Magistrate Judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, ruled in favor of Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians, finding that “the public interest in monitoring the BLM’s rangeland program outweighs the minimal privacy interests held by [grazing] permittees.”
Quite a bit of details of the BLM rangeland program, including the BLM Rangeland Administration System, are online and viewable with no FOIA request. This system is built upon an ESRI platform and has many layers of information, not all of which I have explored; you can generate maps with it
