This case, started eight years ago by the Argus Leader, a South Dakotan newspaper, is another landmark in cloaking federal data from the American people.

The Court upheld keeping the data that the federal government receives secret despite there being no evidence that such disclosures would harm anyone. Argus Leader news editor Cory Myers labeled the decision "a massive blow to the public's right to know how its tax dollars are being spent, and who is benefiting." Grocery stores were not conscripted to take food stamps but they somehow have rights superior to American citizens, whose privacy continues to be ravaged by the National Security Agency.

Controversies over the food stamp program have multiplied as evidence accumulated revealing that the program is a public-health disaster. A 2017 study published in BMC Public Health found that food-stamp recipients were twice as likely to be obese as eligible non-recipients. That confirms a 2015 USDA report that revealed that food-stamp recipients are far more likely to be obese than eligible non-recipients (40 percent versus 32 percent). But the feds have consistently sought to limit public information on the program. The USDA and the Obama administration helped block a 2013 congressional proposal to disclose how recipients actually spend food stamps. Restrictions on disclosure have deterred bipartisan-supported reforms that would discontinue the use of food stamps for purchasing sugar-sweetened beverages — the item most commonly purchased with food stamps.