A federal judge in Baltimore issued a preliminary injunction Thursday restricting the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to Social Security data.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, an Obama appointee, said DOGE-affiliated staffers must purge any of the non-anonymized Social Security data that they have received since Jan. 20.
They are also barred from making any changes to the computer code or software used by the Social Security Administration, must remove any software or code they might have already installed, and are forbidden from disclosing any of that code to others.
The injunction does allow DOGE staffers to access data that's been redacted or stripped of anything personally identifiable, if they undergo training and background checks.
"The objective to address fraud, waste, mismanagement, and bloat is laudable, and one that the American public presumably applauds and supports," Hollander wrote in the ruling issued late Thursday night. "Indeed, the taxpayers have every right to expect their government to make sure that their hard earned money is not squandered."
But that's not the issue, Hollander said — the issue is with how DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, wants to do the work.
"For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation," the judge wrote.