The Supreme Court, on Friday, for now gave the DOGE team launched by Elon Musk unfettered access to information collected by the Social Security Administration, data that includes Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, and family court information.
In an unsigned order, the court, acting at the request of the Trump administration, temporarily overturned actions by two lower courts that had limited the DOGE team’s access to sensitive private information at the Social Security Administration. The high court sent the case back to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., to rule on the merits.
The vote was 6 to 3, with the conservative super majority ruling in favor of the DOGE team.
The challengers [Labor unions and a grassroots advocacy organization] argued that by providing confidential Social Security information to DOGE, SSA violated the federal Fair Privacy Act [sic].
The 1974 federal law created a code for the “collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination” of personal records and information stored by the federal government. Among other things, the law requires that individuals provide consent before their personal records are shared.
The government contends that disclosing secure Social Security documents is permitted through one of the Privacy Act’s 12 exceptions: agencies can share information internally when doing so is essential to performing “official duties.” Without access to the secure records, the administration argues, DOGE would be unable to “moderniz[e] the federal government’s technology infrastructure” and “detect systemic fraud.”
In a second case Friday, the court similarly unblocked DOGE’s access under the Freedom of Information Act, ruling that DOGE is not required to provide internal documents to a Washington watchdog group [CREW] in advance of larger proceedings regarding a FOIA request.
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