A federal judge in Maryland Thursday blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials from accessing sensitive data and systems at the Social Security Administration (SSA).
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander explained in her order. “It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.”
Judge Hollander, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, granted a restraining order requested by a coalition of unions and retirees represented by Democracy Forward* arguing that DOGE’s access violates the Privacy Act and other federal laws.
The order prevents DOGE officials, including Musk, from accessing and tampering with electronic systems at SSA and requires them to destroy any personal information they may possess.
In recent weeks, Musk has repeatedly suggested without evidence that Social Security is rife with fraud, at one point calling it “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Accompanying these claims, the SSA has proposed firing 7,000 workers and closing dozens of field offices.
After receiving major pushback last week, the SSA abandoned plans to end phone support for Social Security recipients, which would have potentially made it more difficult for millions of people to file retirement and disability claims.
The judge criticized SSA officials giving DOGE officials “unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans.”
The data included Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers’ license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates and home and work addresses, the judge said.
“Defendants, with so called experts on the DOGE Team, 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 said.
In February, the former acting Social Security commissioner resigned after refusing to provide DOGE staffers access to sensitive information.
*Democracy Docket Founder Marc Elias is the chair of Democracy Forward’s board.