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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Supreme Court restores DOGE’s access to sensitive Social Security | |
data and says it doesn’t have to turn over documents | |
By John Fritze, Tierney Sneed and Tami Luhby, CNN | |
Updated: | |
9:24 PM EDT, Fri June 6, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
The Supreme Court handed the Department of Government Efficiency a pair | |
of significant wins on Friday, allowing the entity to access sensitive | |
Social Security data for millions of Americans while simultaneously | |
pausing an effort to look into whether it is subject to a key | |
transparency law. | |
In the first and perhaps more important decision, a majority of the | |
court allowed DOGE to review data at the Social Security Administration | |
in an ostensible effort to rout out fraud and “modernize outdated | |
systems.” Critics and lower courts suggested DOGE was engaged in a | |
fishing expedition through highly sensitive data. | |
“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 court | |
wrote in an unsigned order. | |
The conservative Supreme Court minutes later a lower court’s order | |
that required DOGE to turn over documents as part of a lawsuit claiming | |
the entity, like other government agencies, should be subject to | |
federal records requests. While the Supreme Court left open the | |
possibility that some of that information could ultimately be provided, | |
it asked lower courts to “narrow” its scope. | |
The court’s three liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan | |
and Ketanji Brown Jackson — also dissented from that decision. | |
Together, the court’s orders marked important wins for DOGE amid a | |
public feud between President Donald , the tech billionaire who once | |
led the entity as the key tool the White House was using to shrink and | |
reshape the federal government. | |
The decision in the Social Security case will “hand DOGE staffers the | |
highly sensitive data of millions of Americans,” Jackson wrote in her | |
dissent. She warned of “grave privacy risks for millions of | |
Americans.” | |
The emergency appeal from the Trump administration was the first that | |
put DOGE front and center before the high court. US Solicitor General | |
D. John Sauer argued in court filings that the lower court did not have | |
the power to “micromanage” DOGE’s ability to access data for the | |
purpose of addressing government waste, fraud and abuse. The | |
administration’s victory in this dispute will likely have | |
repercussions for the other cases concerning DOGE’s ability to access | |
government data systems. | |
Americans should be concerned about how DOGE has handled highly | |
sensitive data so far, said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security | |
and disability policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy | |
Priorities. | |
Romig, who worked as a senior adviser at the agency during the Biden | |
administration, pointed to sworn statements in the case that indicate | |
DOGE representatives accessed data from non-secure locations. | |
“While the appeals court considers whether DOGE is violating the law, | |
its operatives will have ‘God-level’ access to Social Security | |
numbers, earnings records, bank routing numbers, mental and | |
reproductive health records and much more,” Romig told CNN. | |
The trial judge in the Social Security case had ruled that the | |
challengers were likely to succeed on their arguments that the | |
administration had violated the Privacy Act by giving DOGE the keys to | |
the closely guarded data systems – which contain Americans’ | |
financial records, medical information and sensitive information | |
related to children – without clearly articulating why DOGE needed | |
that access. | |
The Social Security Administration case stood out for the robust | |
evidentiary record the trial judge relied on in issuing her preliminary | |
injunction. Key to findings of US District Judge Ellen Hollander was | |
that the administration hadn’t showed why DOGE needed sweeping access | |
to personal information of Americans that was held by agency. She | |
concluded that the projects the administration said DOGE was working on | |
could be done largely using anonymized data. | |
The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals kept Hollander’s preliminary | |
injunction in place. | |
Nearly a dozen DOGE affiliates have been installed at the agency, | |
according to court filings, and a mid-level career official who | |
facilitated the DOGE team view into the data, over the objections of | |
Social Security Administration leadership, was put on administrative | |
leave. The Trump administration that official, Leland Dudek, to acting | |
commissioner. The Senate confirmed as commissioner in early May. | |
DOGE’s data access was first put on hold with a temporary restraining | |
order in March. | |
The Trump administration has pointed to three specific projects that | |
justified granting DOGE access to the systems: a project, known as | |
“Are You Alive?” scrutinizing whether payments are improperly going | |
to deceased individuals; a scrub of agency data, known as the Death | |
Data Clean Up Project, to update records of people the government | |
believes to be deceased; and the Fraud Detention Project, which is | |
looking at potential fraud in changes people make to their records, | |
including with wage reporting and direct deposit information. | |
Bisignano called the ruling a “major victory for American | |
taxpayers.” | |
“The Social Security Administration will continue driving forward | |
modernization efforts, streamlining government systems, and ensuring | |
improved service and outcomes for our beneficiaries,” he on X. | |
The suit was filed by a coalition of labor and advocacy groups, which | |
were represented by Democracy Forward. In response to the decision, the | |
coalition said it was a “scary day for millions of people” and | |
warned that the decision would allow the administration to “steal | |
Americans’ private and personal data.” | |
What is DOGE? | |
Though technical, the separate case involving DOGE records has raised | |
fundamental questions about the power and transparency of an entity | |
that has slashed agency budgets with unusual speed. A left-leaning | |
watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, sued to | |
gain access to documents that would shed light on the entity’s | |
operation. | |
Trump’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court requested that the | |
justices halt a lower court order that would allow CREW to depose DOGE | |
leadership and review documents to better understand the entity’s | |
role within the federal government. The Supreme Court granted that | |
request but said a more limited discovery might be permitted. | |
“While we’re obviously disappointed that the Supreme Court chose to | |
revise aspects of our discovery requests,” said Jordan Libowitz, a | |
CREW spokesperson, “we’re pleased that the court allowed discovery | |
to proceed, including depositions.” | |
The underlying question in the case is whether that, like most other | |
parts of the federal government, is subject to public review. If it is, | |
that could serve as a check on what DOGE can accomplish both by | |
allowing the public to see what’s happening behind the scenes, and by | |
giving legal challengers information they could use in court to | |
potentially reverse some of its most drastic actions. | |
The Trump administration, which the president has repeatedly claimed is | |
the most transparent in history, has aggressively fought the case, | |
describing DOGE as a “presidential advisory body” within the White | |
House that is tasked “with providing recommendations” rather than | |
making decisions. Given those advisory functions, the Department of | |
Justice argued, DOGE is exempt from FOIA requirements. | |
US District Judge Casey Cooper, nominated to the bench by President | |
Barack Obama, had ordered that DOGE turn over documents in the case and | |
also approved a deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason. A | |
federal appeals court in Washington, DC, declined to reverse the | |
discovery decision. Cooper ruled that DOGE is likely covered by FOIA, | |
which allows public interest groups and the media to obtain internal | |
government records detailing agency conduct. | |
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments. | |
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