Obama-Appointed Judge Decides DOGE Can’t Access Social Security Data To Uncover Fraud

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Social Security Administration (SSA) data.

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander, an Obama appointee, argued that DOGE failed to articulate a clear reason for why it needed “unlimited access” to the record system.

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” the judge wrote. “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 wrote that the government “simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud” rather than explaining its need for access.

“Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer,” she wrote in the ruling.

The judge’s temporary restraining order (TRO) blocks the SSA and Treasury from granting access to “any DOGE Affiliate.” (RELATED: Congress Has The Tools To Stop Rogue Judges From Overriding Trump’s Agenda — Without Reaching For Impeachment)

Acting SSA head Leland Dudek told Bloomberg that the order is so broad that it could apply to any employee of the agency.

“My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” Dudek told Bloomberg. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.”

Labor unions and advocacy groups, backed by the left-wing organization Democracy Forward, sued in February to block DOGE’s access, arguing that it violates the SSA’s legal obligations to “protect the sensitive personal and financial information that they collect and maintain about individuals from unnecessary and unlawful disclosure.”

“In sum, the entirety of Plaintiffs’ Motion relies on one claim: that it’s unlawful for one employee of a federal agency to share information with another authorized federal employee specifically for the purpose of carrying out an Executive Order of the President,” the government wrote in a filing. “That claim cannot be correct.”

In an affidavit, SSA Chief Information Officer Michael Russo explained the SSA’s DOGE team employees need access to the data to do their jobs of detecting “fraud, waste and abuse.”

“The agency has provided read-only access to copies of production data which does not allow modification or deletion of the underlying data,” he wrote. “This level of access provides no access to SSA production automation, code, or configuration files, and provides no avenues to alter the function of SSA production systems. This level of access ensures these employees can review records needed to detect fraud but does not allow them the ability to make any changes to beneficiary data or payment files.”

The SSA did not respond to a request for comment.

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