A federal judge blocked the Department of Government Efficiency on Thursday from millions of records held by the Social Security Administration, suggesting the administration’s anti-fraud efforts were a mere fishing expedition.
The temporary injunction was issued by Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander, a federal district judge in Maryland.
The Obama appointee said that the federal government “does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent, and which contain sensitive, confidential, and personally identifiable information.”
Judge Hollander said in a 137-page opinion that there are privacy concerns with the DOGE team accessing the SSA records, and that the move likely runs afoul of federal law.
She temporarily blocked the team of ten from DOGE from carrying on their work, for now.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” Judge Hollander wrote.
Her order permits the DOGE team to access redacted records once its members go through proper agency training.
She said SSA gave the DOGE team “unbridled access” to personal data including “Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers’ license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses.”
President Trump created DOGE through executive order after taking office on Jan. 20. It’s been championed by billionaire Elon Musk, who has suggested the Social Security Administration is rife with fraud.
The lawsuit was brought by labor unions, retirees and an advocacy group, which argued the access to the data threatens privacy rights and could lead to personal information ending up in the hands of bad actors.
The government had argued no data was improperly shared and that the DOGE team were government employees.
DOGE, since its creation, has drawn roughly two dozen legal challenges, according to The Associated Press.
— This report is based in part on wire service reports.
