(CNN) – A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Social Security Administration from providing government-efficient access to agency data, including personal identifiable information.
In a harsh opinion on page 137, US District Judge Ellen Hollander said the administration failed to demonstrate why representatives of the Elon Musk-led initiative have “need” for “wide access” to such “millions of American-sensitive” personal information, as required under relevant laws.
“The Doge team is basically engaged in fishing expeditions at SSA, seeking a fraud epidemic based on more than doubt,” writes Hollander. “I’ve started searching for Haystack proverb needles, but I don’t have any specific knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.”
Her new temporary restraining order also requires the removal of personal identifiable information data obtained from the agency, and ordered that the software installed on the SSA system be removed. However, her orders allow DOGE affiliates to access edited or anonymized Social Security data, only if those Doge representatives are properly trained and subject to background checks.
The case, brought by the Federal Employee Union and the Retirement Association, is one of several that challenged Doge access to data systems closely guarded by various agencies, but only in some cases have been a court decision that reduced the ability of government newcomers to dig into those systems.
Hollander noted the lack of training received by Doge affiliates and the failure to close some of their background investigations before the government provided the key to a sensitive social security management system. The systems contained sensitive information from millions of Americans, including medical records, bank account numbers and tax returns, she described Doge’s actions as “an invasion of the personal issues of millions of Americans.”
JFK File
Jugde also knocked the administration for hiding the name of Doge’s affiliates from harassment concerns, but it appears that SSA records did not show “privacy concerns for the millions of Americans available to Doge affiliates.”
The judge, who sat in Baltimore and appointed by President Barack Obama, was cynical at the timing of her ruling, and came shortly after news that around 200 Social Security numbers were revealed in the release of John F. Kennedy’s assassination file.
In this case, “The Doge team has access, and although it has not been publicly disclosed (yet), the response to SSNS disclosures regarding the Kennedy file supports the conclusion that there are privacy expectations regarding SSNS,” she writes.
Hollander said the challenger showed the administration could be violating privacy laws. It said employees must show “the need to record job performance” to access agency confidential records.
She said at last week’s hearing, the Justice Department, defending the administration, “provided no meaningful explanation as to why the Doge team “needs” unprecedented free access to essentially the entire SSA data system in order to maximize modern technology, maximize efficiency and productivity, and achieve its goal of detecting fraud, waste and abuse.”
“The defendant has not submitted a declaration from the hired experts of the Doge team. We will explain why such unlimited and free access is required,” she wrote. “They do not provide a specific explanation of how, or why, is necessary for the entire SSA database to conduct the investigation, or at least the insufficient records that were edited or anonymized at first. The silence in this issue seems deafening.”
