Judge: OPM Can Keep Salary Data Private

The Associated Press reports that a federal judge has ruled that the Defense Department and other federal agencies can keep information -- including names, salaries and positions -- about more than 900,000 employees from being placed in a publicly accessible database.

Here's the backstory: In April 2004, Government Executive reported that Defense Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness David Chu had asked the Office of Personnel Management not to make public lists of names and related information about Defense employees, citing national security concerns in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. OPM complied, and also stopped sending out information about certain other federal employees in jobs deemed sensitive.

In late 2005, the The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse -- a Syracuse University-based organization that compiles data on federal staffing and spending -- sued OPM, saying that withholding the data constituted a violation of the Freedom of Information Act.

But now Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue has ruled that OPM doesn't have to put out the information. He said its release could infringe on the privacy rights of the employees in question, in addition to compromising national security.

TRAC is weighing an appeal of the decision, and notes that the government has been making data about the federal workforce public since 1816.