DOGE will be allowed to access Social Security data for now, Supreme Court rules

The Department of Government Efficiency will be permitted to access sensitive Social Security data while litigation over the matter continues, the U.S. Supreme Court said in an order on Friday.

Lifting an injunction that a lower court judge placed to protect the privacy of Americans, the conservative wing of the court agreed that the DOGE staffers assigned to the Social Security Administration need to access the information to perform their jobs.

“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 justices wrote in an unsigned order.

DOGE, set up by Elon Musk before he departed from the government, intended to find “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal government. Musk had targeted Social Security specifically, previously characterizing it as a “Ponzi scheme.”

Two labor unions and an advocacy group sued to block DOGE’s access to private information, such as tax records, Social Security Numbers, banking information and more, saying much of that information was deeply personal and protected by laws.

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A lower court judge in Maryland previously denied DOGE’s request to access SSA information, saying it amounted to a “fishing expedition.” However, she did allow certain staffers to access redacted data as long as they underwent training and background checks.

But DOGE said that was not sufficient.

An appeals court refused to lift the Maryland judge’s injunction, which led the administration to ask the Supreme Court for help – a common theme of the current term.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the majority. Justice Elena Kagan said she would have denied the emergency application.

Writing for the dissenting justices, Jackson questioned the court’s reasoning for intervening in the emergency request – an increasingly hot-button issue at the court.

“I would proceed 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: comply with lower court orders constraining their behavior unless and until they establish that irreparable harm will result such that equity requires a different course,” Jackson wrote.

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“The Court opts instead to relieve the Government of the standard obligations, jettisoning careful judicial decision making and creating grave privacy risks for millions of Americans in the process,” Jackson added.

It is the latest win the Supreme Court has handed the Trump administration, and the second win for DOGE on Friday.

In a second unsigned order, also issued Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court ruled that DOGE does not have to turn over internal records to a government watchdog group as part of a public records lawsuit.