Washington — The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to let the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have access to sensitive information kept by the Social Security Administration.
The emergency appeal to the Supreme Court stems from an injunction issued by a federal district court judge in Maryland who blocked DOGE’s access to Social Security Administration system of records containing personal information.
The judge concluded in her April decision that the plaintiffs, two labor unions and an advocacy group, were likely to succeed on their claim that the Social Security Administration’s decision to give DOGE access to millions of Americans’ confidential information violated the Privacy Act and a federal law governing the agency rulemaking process.
“T]he issue here is not the work that DOGE or the agency want to do. The issue is about how they want to do the work,” U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote in her 145-page decision. “The DOGE Team seeks access to the [personally identifiable information] that millions of Americans entrusted to SSA, and the SSA defendants have agreed to provide it. For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.”
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declined a Trump administration request to halt that injunction, leading it to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
