The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump’s team of cost-cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency can access Social Security systems containing the personal information of millions of Americans.
The high court’s ruling overturns a preliminary injunction issued in April by a Maryland federal judge blocking DOGE staffers attached to the Social Security Administration (SSA) from accessing non-anonymized data and making any changes to the computer code or software used by the agency.
The legal victory is a first for the Trump administration at the Supreme Court in a case involving the team formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk.
“We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” read the majority opinion.
The court noted that it considered “where the public interest lies,” as well as whether the Trump administration would be likely to succeed on the merit and be irreparably injured without a stay, and whether the plaintiffs would be substantially harmed by overturning the injunction.
The case was brought by a group of labor unions and retirees alleging that DOGE activities at SSA violated privacy laws and presented a massive information security risk.
The high court’s three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — opposed the majority ruling
“The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now — before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE’s access is lawful,” Jackson and Sotomayor wrote in dissent.
“In essence, the ‘urgency’ underlying the Government’s stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes,” they argued. “That sentiment has traditionally been insufficient to justify the kind of extraordinary intervention the Government seeks.”
The SSA houses sensitive data on virtually everyone in the United States, including Social Security numbers, medical records, banking information, income history and tax records.
The Trump administration asserts that DOGE needs access to such information to root out waste and fraud in the federal government.
Musk, who left the Trump administration last week and has since directed a torrent of criticism at the president on social media, had alleged that the Social Security program was rife with fraud.
However, Maryland District Judge Ellen Hollander described DOGE’s exploits at SSA as a “fishing expedition” based on “little more than suspicion” of fraud – and ultimately restricted the team’s activities at the agency.
Hollander’s injunction did allow DOGE staffers to access data stripped of personally identifiable information on the condition that the team at SSA undergo training and background checks.
The Trump administration countered that Hollender’s ruling limited the effectiveness of DOGE and was an example of the judiciary overstepping its authority by trying to micromanage the executive branch.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in a split ruling, previously refused to lift the Obama-appointed judge’s injunction – with conservative judges on the panel indicating that they’ve seen no evidence that DOGE has engaged in “targeted snooping” or has mishandled exposed sensitive data.
