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On May 6, 2025, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) informed state agencies of its intent to "implement President Trump’s March 20, 2025, Executive Order 14243, Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos through state data sharing to the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)."
USDA requested data for individuals who have received, are currently receiving, or have applied to receive SNAP benefits from Jan. 1, 2020, through the present date.
The data requested includes "all household group members names, dates of birth, social security numbers, residential and mailing addresses used or provided, as well as all data records used to determine eligibility or ineligibility."
“President Trump is rightfully requiring the federal government to have access to all programs it funds,” said Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins in May, “and SNAP is no exception. For years, this program has been on autopilot, with no USDA insight into real-time data. The Department is focused on appropriate and lawful participation in SNAP, and today’s request is one of many steps to ensure SNAP is preserved for only those eligible.”
USDA has suggested that it could withhold administrative funding for the program if states fail to comply with the data request.
This news didn't sit well with Connecticut Attorney General William "Lawfare" Tong and his cronies, so as part of a coalition of 22 states, they filed a lawsuit challenging the USDA's demand that states turn over data to ensure only eligible citizens received SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps).
Connecticut receives roughly $79 million a year in order to administer the program.
In the lawsuit filed today in the Northern District of California, Tong and the lawfare coalition argue that this demand violates multiple federal privacy laws and the U.S. Constitution.
“The USDA’s actions are an unprecedented, illegal threat to the privacy of families here in Connecticut and across the country,” said Tong. “By law, Connecticut cannot disclose personally identifying SNAP data unless under very specific and strict circumstances. In this instance, none of those limited circumstances exist. No one knows why this data is being collected, who would be allowed to see it, or if it would even be stored correctly. This is simply yet another attempted illegal power grab by this administration and we will not bow down to these baseless and reckless demands.”
"Access to adequate, healthy food is a basic human right," said Department of Social Services Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves. “SNAP is a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Connecticut households. For decades, we’ve administered this program with care, integrity, and respect for the confidentiality of our clients. Demanding access to sensitive personal information without transparency and safeguard is alarming.”
Tong's press release complained about how "for sixty years, Connecticut and other states have administered SNAP" and that "those systems do not, and have never, required that states turn over sensitive, personally identifying information about millions of Americans without any meaningful restrictions on how that information is used or shared with other agencies."
"Yet in May 2025, USDA made an unprecedented demand that states turn over massive amounts of personal information on all SNAP applicants and recipients, including social security numbers and home addresses, dating back five years. Even a year’s worth of SNAP recipient data contains sensitive, personal identifying information on tens of millions of individuals — including nearly 490,000 in Connecticut. The federal government’s stated justifications for its unprecedented data demands, to “prevent fraud and abuse,” are directly contradicted by its own findings," the press release continued.
The reason for the panic is that "federal officials are amassing huge databases of personal information on Americans and using that data for undisclosed purposes, including immigration enforcement."
In the lawsuit, Attorney General Tong and the coalition argue that these USDA's demands violate multiple federal privacy laws; fail to meet the public comment requirements for this type of action; exceed USDA’s statutory authority; and violate the Spending Clause. The coalition asks that the District Court declare the Trump Administration’s demands unlawful and block the Trump Administration from conditioning receipt of SNAP funding on states’ compliance with these demands.
Attorney General Tong joins the attorneys general of California, New York, Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as the State of Kentucky in filing the lawsuit.
The full lawsuit can be read here.
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