Justices open up Social Security data to DOGE 

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court**** tore down roadblocks protecting sensitive data for millions of Americans on Friday, clearing the way for DOGE’s access to the Social Security Administration systems.

Splitting along ideological lines in the apparent 6-3 ruling, the three liberal justices dissented. The majority said that Trump was likely to succeed in the litigation and would be injured if the justices didn’t intervene.

“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,” the majority wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t see a real emergency for the court to act on. She said Trump wanted to give DOGE unfettered access to Americans’ sensitive data before the courts had time to decide whether that access was lawful.

“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,” Jackson wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The Joe Biden appointee said the court had “truly lost its moorings,” interfering in lower court litigation without any showing that the government would suffer harm. Jackson expressed a similar sentiment in other emergency appeals where the conservative majority sided with Trump, suggesting that the current president was treated differently than his predecessor.

“Once again, this court dons its emergency-responder gear, rushes to the scene and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them,” Jackson wrote. “Once again, respectfully, I dissent.”

Jackson accused her colleagues of allowing the government to abide by different standards than other litigants, conveying preferential treatment for the government and a willingness to undercut lower court judgments.

“The court is thereby, unfortunately, suggesting that what would be an extraordinary request for everyone else is nothing more than an ordinary day on the docket for this administration,” Jackson wrote.

Jackson said she would have proceeded “without fear or favor to require DOGE and the government to do what all other litigants must do to secure a stay from this court.”

“The court opts instead to relieve the government of the standard obligations, jettisoning careful judicial decisionmaking and creating grave privacy risks for millions of Americans in the process,” Jackson wrote.

A federal judge blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the systems in March, questioning why officials needed large quantities of sensitive information on Social Security recipients. President Donald Trump framed the ruling as another instance of judicial overreach interfering with the White House’s governing ability.

DOGE officials want to modernize the federal government’s technology infrastructure and audit databases to identify waste, fraud and abuse. The Trump administration said to carry out that plan, officials would need access to the systems’ sensitive information.

“To assess the propriety of any payment, an analyst needs to know the details surrounding that payment, including information about the recipient of that payment, the amount of the payment, the payment’s purpose, and so forth,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote. “It is hard to fathom how such investigative work could be performed without access to the relevant payment records.”

The Social Security Administration stores names, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers, employment and wage histories, financial data, marriage certificates, school records, family court records, citizenship and naturalization records, and medical records.

Labor unions sued to block DOGE’s access, arguing that officials wanted to open up data systems to unauthorized and often unvetted personnel with no demonstrated need for the personally identifiable information they seek.

“​​The American people who ‘handed over’ their sensitive, personal information to SSA had ‘every reason to believe that the information would be fiercely protected’ due to the agency’s longstanding commitment to data privacy and security,” the unions wrote.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander ruled that the Trump administration failed to justify why the entire DOGE team needed full access to data within the Social Security systems, noting that officials had run roughshod over the agency’s protocols for hiring, training and access limitations.

Hollander, a Barack Obama appointee, blocked officials’ access to identifiable information in the systems but permitted the agency to disclose anonymized and some non-anonymized data to DOGE.

The labor unions said the narrow ruling maintains the status quo while the case is litigated.

“The government’s application is, at bottom, a premature and unwarranted request for correction of nonexistent errors,” the unions wrote. “There is no emergency meriting intervention by the court at this early stage, and the district court’s injunction is both narrow in scope and necessary to protect respondents from irreparable harm while the legality of the agency’s actions is assessed.”

Democracy Forward, which represents a coalition of unions in this case, called Friday “a sad day for our democracy and a scary day for millions of people.”

“This ruling will enable President Trump and DOGE’s affiliates to steal Americans’ private and personal data," the group said in a statement. “Elon Musk may have left Washington, D.C., but his impact continues to harm millions of people. 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.”

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