Court maintains block on DOGE Social Security data access

A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration's request to pause an order barring the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing millions of Americans’ personal data stored by the Social Security Administration (SSA) while its appeal moves forward.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a divided 9-6 vote Wednesday ruled it would not pause an injunction issued by a federal judge who sharply questioned DOGE’s unfettered access to Americans’ personally identifiable information and determined it was likely unlawful.

The decision paves the way for the administration to ask the Supreme Court to step in.

In a concurring opinion joined by six other judges, Judge Robert King, who was appointed by former President Clinton, pointed to the lower court's finding that the SSA has been caught in the Trump administration's "crosshairs" as reason to let the injunction stay in place. He called U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander's analysis "lengthy, thorough and compelling."

Earlier this month, Hollander, an appointee of former President Obama, blocked the advisory group from the SSA’s systems containing personally identifiable information and ordered the deletion of any in DOGE’s possession. The order still allows SSA to provide DOGE with access to redacted or anonymized data and records, but only if the DOGE agents have received the necessary training for those systems.

"The objective to address fraud, waste, mismanagement, and bloat is laudable, and one that the American public presumably applauds and supports," Hollander wrote in her April 17 opinion granting the preliminary injunction. "Indeed, the taxpayers have every right to expect their government to make sure that their hard earned money is not squandered."

"However, the issue here is not the work that DOGE or the Agency want to do," the judge continued. "The issue is about how they want to do the work."

DOGE's mission to slim down the federal bureaucracy has touched federal agencies across the government, cutting spending and jobs.

A coalition of government unions, backed by the left-leaning legal organization Democracy Forward, challenged DOGE’s access to Social Security, claiming it flouts privacy laws and the agency’s own rules and regulations.

The information in the SSA’s records includes Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, bank data and earnings history.