US Supreme Court allows Doge broad access to Social Security data

Straits Times

06-06-2025

Two labour unions and an advocacy group sued to stop Doge from accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration. PHOTO: REUTERS
WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court on June 6 permitted the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), a key player in President Donald Trump's drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to personal information on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out.
At the request of the Justice Department, the justices put on hold Maryland-based US District Judge Ellen Hollander's order that had largely blocked Doge's access to 'personally identifiable information' in data such as medical and financial records while litigation proceeds in a lower court.
Ms Hollander found that allowing Doge unfettered access likely would violate a federal privacy law.
The court's brief, unsigned order did not provide a rationale for siding with Doge.
The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from the order.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent that was joined by fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, criticised the court's majority for granting Doge 'unfettered data access' despite the administration's 'failure to show any need or any interest in complying with existing privacy safeguards.'
In a separate order on June 6, the Supreme Court extended its block on judicial orders requiring Doge to turn over records to a government watchdog group that sought details on the entity established by Mr Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.
Doge swept through federal agencies as part of the Republican president's effort, spearheaded by Mr Musk, to eliminate federal jobs, downsize and reshape the US government and root out what they see as wasteful spending.
Mr Musk formally ended his government work on May 30.
Two labour unions and an advocacy group sued to stop Doge from accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration, or SSA, including Social Security numbers, bank account data, tax information, earnings history and immigration records.
The agency is a major provider of government benefits, sending cheques each month to more than 70 million recipients including retirees and disabled Americans.
Democracy Forward, a liberal legal group that represented the plaintiffs, said June 6's order would put millions of Americans' data at risk.
'Elon Musk may have left Washington DC but his impact continues to harm millions of people,' the group said in a statement. 'We will continue to use every legal tool at our disposal to keep unelected bureaucrats from misusing the public's most sensitive data as this case moves forward.'
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the Social Security Administration had been 'ransacked' and that Doge members had been installed without proper vetting or training and demanded access to some of the agency's most sensitive data systems.
Ms Hollander in an April 17 ruling found that DogeOGE had failed to explain why its stated mission required 'unprecedented, unfettered access to virtually SSA's entire data systems.'
'For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records,' Ms Hollander wrote. 'This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.'
Ms Hollander issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited Doge staffers and anyone working with them from accessing data containing personal information, with only narrow exceptions.
The judge's ruling did allow Doge affiliates to access data that had been stripped of private information, as long as those seeking access had gone through the proper training and passed background checks.
Ms Hollander also ordered Doge affiliates to 'disgorge and delete' any personal information already in their possession.
The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a 9-6 vote declined on April 30 to pause ms Hollander's block on Doge's unlimited access to Social Security Administration records.
Justice Department lawyers in their Supreme Court filing characterised Hollander's order as judicial overreach.
'The district court is forcing the executive branch to stop employees charged with modernising government information systems from accessing the data in those systems because, in the court's judgment, those employees do not 'need' such access,' they wrote.
The six dissenting judges wrote that the case should have been treated the same as one in which 4th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 to allow Doge to access data at the US Treasury and Education Departments and the Office of Personnel Management.
In a concurring opinion, seven judges who ruled against Doge wrote that the case involving Social Security data was 'substantially stronger' with 'vastly greater stakes,' citing 'detailed and profoundly sensitive Social Security records,' such as family court and school records of children, mental health treatment records and credit card information. REUTERS
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