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Earlier this month Hollander issued a preliminary injunction in
the case, which was brought by a group of labor unions and
retirees who allege DOGE’s recent actions violate privacy laws
and present massive information security risks.
Hollander said DOGE staffers could access data that has been
redacted or stripped of anything personally identifiable, but
only if they undergo training and background checks. She also
said DOGE and its staffers must purge any of the non-anonymized
Social Security data they have already obtained, and barred them
from making any changes to the computer code used by the Social
Security Administration.
Attorneys representing DOGE had argued that anonymizing the data
would be too burdensome, and disrupt the Trump administration's
efforts to root out any Social Security fraud.
Appellate Judge Robert B. King, writing for the majority, said
DOGE wants “immediate and unfettered access” to all Social
Security records, including “the highly sensitive personal
information of essentially everyone in our Country,” like family
court and school records, mental health and medical records of
SSA disability recipients, and bank and earning information.
“All this highly sensitive information has long been handed over
to SSA by the American people with every reason to believe that
the information would be fiercely protected,” King wrote.
Appellate judge Julius Richardson, who voted against the
majority ruling, said the case should have been handled by a
smaller three-judge group rather than the full panel of active
appellate judges. He also said the plaintiffs haven't shown DOGE
has actually snooped on any of their personal information, but
instead are distressed by the possibility of “abstract harm.”
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