The Supreme Court on Friday granted the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unfettered access to sensitive data held by the Social Security Administration (SSA).
In an unsigned order, the Supreme Court agreed to temporarily lift a preliminary injunction issued by a Federal judge in Maryland that blocked DOGE from accessing certain SSA data.
“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 Supreme Court said in its decision.
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
The decision comes after Judge Ellen Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued the preliminary injunction in April after a group of labor unions and retirees sued the Trump administration. They claimed that DOGE was violating privacy laws and creating information security risks by accessing that data.
The preliminary injunction allowed DOGE to access taxpayer data that’s been redacted or has had any personally identifiable information removed, as long as staffers undergo training and background checks.
The order also directed DOGE to delete all non-anonymized taxpayer data that it may have gained access to through SSA systems.
Notably, a Federal appeals court also denied the Trump administration’s request to lift the preliminary injunction that restricted DOGE’s ability to access SSA data.
In asking the Supreme Court to lift the district court’s injunction, the Trump administration argued that the court made “glaring legal errors,” including claiming that the plaintiffs lack standing. It also argued that the district court is “installing itself as the supervisor of the SSA’s routine operational decisions.”
“Left undisturbed, this preliminary injunction will only invite further judicial incursions into internal agency decision-making,” Solicitor General John Sauer, who works for the Justice Department and is the Federal government’s chief representative in Supreme Court cases, wrote in the 211-page emergency appeal.
Sydney Saubestre, a senior policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute, slammed the Supreme Court’s decision.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to lift the injunction isn’t a neutral procedural move – it’s a green light for the government to exploit deeply personal data before the courts have even ruled on whether that access is legal,” Saubestre said in a statement.
“By siding with the administration and DOGE, the Court has sent a chilling message: When it comes to your data, due process is optional and accountability is expendable,” Saubestre added. “We are watching the slow collapse of the principle that the government must earn the public’s trust with their data. There is no emergency here, no crisis demanding immediate access to this information – only a pattern of abuse by DOGE, which has repeatedly acted outside the law.”