Therefore, the inquiry into whether a court may hear a qui tam relator’s claim can be divided into three parts: (1) Have the allegations made by the plaintiff been “publicly disclosed”? (2) If so, is the lawsuit “based upon” that publicly disclosed information? (3) If so, is the plaintiff an “original source” of the information? See United States v. Bank of Farmington, 166 F.3d 853, 859 (7th Cir.1999); Cooper v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Fla., Inc., 19 F.3d 562, 564 n. 4 (11th Cir.1994). The threshold inquiry is whether there has been a public disclosure. Id. Whether the plaintiff is an “original source” of the information is immaterial unless there has been such public disclosure. See United States ex rel. Aflatooni v. Kitsap Physicians Servs., 163 F.3d 516, 524 (9th Cir.1999) (<HOLDING>); Wang, 975 F.2d at 1415 (“Where there has been
holding that because the plaintiff was not disabled for the purposes of the ada this court need not to address the other elements of the prima facie case holding that in the absence of public disclosure the court need not address whether relator was original source of the information holding that the disclosure is a public disclosure within the meaning of the fca if the the prior public disclosure  contained enough information to enable the government to pursue an investigation against the defendant holding by federal district court that before a court orders disclosure of educational records the party seeking disclosure is required to demonstrate a genuine need for the information that outweighs the privacy interest of the students recognizing that information disclosed in private is not a public disclosure under the fca