You win some, you lose some. In the case of five Maine lobstermen suing the US state over electronic boat tracking requirements, it was a sobering loss as federal judge John Woodcock for the US District Court of Maine dismissed their lawsuit on Thursday (Nov. 21), the news service Maine Public reports. 

The lawsuit stemmed from a 2022 monitoring rule announced by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. At the time the commission said it was looking to gather critical data to aid in the protection of endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The new rule, which was put into effect by the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) on Dec. 15, 2023, required harvesters with federal lobster fishing permits to install a 24-hour electronic tracking device on their boats. A group of lobstermen sued DMR, which manages Maine's commercial fisheries, challenging the rule as unconstitutional. They argued that the tracking system is an invasion of privacy in that they don't solely use their lobster boats for harvesting.

Woodcock said that the good of the rule outweighs the bad.

"The court must instead conclude that [DMR's] collection system cannot be designed without the overaccumulation of both relevant and irrelevant data," the decision reads.

"Furthermore, the [DMR] commissioner has represented that the current level of data accumulation is scientifically inadequate to the task of lobster preservation," he added. "As the lobstermen work in a closely regulated industry, the court concludes that given the choice between the overaccumulation of data and the accumulation of inadequate data, the law favors preservation of the resource over the lobstermen’s rights of privacy."