The Trump administration has appealed a federal court decision granting former and current federal employees standing to sue the government over its inability to protect their personal information, arguing the hackers responsible for the breach want to spy on the more than 20 million impacted individuals, but not commit identity theft.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit erred when it largely sided with two federal employee unions in their lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management and a federal contractor for their roles in the hacks that led to mass disclosures of personal records, the Justice Department said in an appeal filed late Wednesday. The government is seeking a review by the entire appellate court in hopes it will kill the lawsuit.
While the appeals court panel found the plaintiffs faced a plausible risk of future harm following the breach, the Trump administration argued that risk was not substantial. Former and current federal employees caught up in the breach “could” become the victims of identity theft, the court ruled, but the government attorneys said it was “implausible” to assume they would.
The American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union are seeking lifetime credit monitoring and identity theft protection for affected individuals, and NTEU also sought to change the way OPM stores and protects personnel data. NTEU said its clients had a constitutional right to informational privacy and the government violated that right, though the appeals court panel rejected that argument. AFGE is seeking a remedy under the 1974 Privacy Act, including monetary damages from KeyPoint Government Solutions. < ..
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