Supreme Court hears pilot’s privacy case

Private pilot Stanmore Cooper and the federal government each did something wrong. Cooper, who lied on his medical, pleaded guilty for his actions and paid a $1,000 fine. Now he wants the government to pay. According to a Washington Times report, an attorney for Cooper, a pilot who is HIV-positive, conceded to the Supreme Court on Wednesday that Cooper lied on official forms from 1994 until 2005 about his medical condition and the medication he was taking. But San Francisco lawyer Raymond Cardozo said the way federal officials discovered Cooper’s omission — the FAA cross-checked records with the Social Security Administration, discovering that Cooper was receiving disability benefits — violated the provisions of the 1974 Privacy Act. Read the full report here.