A federal judge likened DOGE efforts to identify and eliminate waste and fraud at the Social Security Administration to a “fishing expedition” on Thursday, blocking Elon Musk’s team of cost-cutters from accessing the personal information of Americans held by the agency.
District Judge Ellen Hollander’s temporary restraining order compels DOGE staffers to delete any personally identifiable data they may have collected from SSA and any software installed at the agency.
The Maryland judge also told senior SSA officials to prevent Musk’s team from accessing any systems that may contain personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, medical records, banking information, income history and tax records.
Hollander, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, allowed SSA to provide DOGE with “redacted or anonymized data” for the length of the 14-day restraining order.
The judge appeared skeptical of DOGE’s goal and need for such sensitive data.
“The American public may well applaud and support the Trump Administration’s mission to root out fraud, waste, and bloat from federal agencies, including SSA, to the extent it exists. But, by what means and methods?” Hollander wrote in her 134-page order.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” she argued. “It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.”
Hollander said the Trump administration “never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government.”
She described DOGE’s methods for uncovering potential waste, fraud and abuse as “hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.”
In the lawsuit brought by labor unions, the Trump administration revealed that of the 10-person DOGE team at SSA, seven had read-only access to personally identifiable information.
The Trump administration argued that DOGE’s level of access wasn’t significantly different from other federal employees at SSA, who are routinely allowed to search its databases.
The head of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees – one of the unions that brought the lawsuit against the Trump administration, celebrated the ruling Thursday.
“This is a major win for working people and retirees across the country,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a statement. “The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans.”
The former acting head of SSA, Michelle King, resigned last month after reportedly taking issue with DOGE’s efforts to access the agency’s sensitive databases.
King was replaced by Leland Dudek, who has been supportive of DOGE’s mission, and has shuttered multiple offices within SSA, impacting hundreds of employees.
An SSA spokesperson told The Post that the agency “will work to comply with the court order.”
