The Blubber

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of the Trump administration, allowing members of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) to access sensitive records maintained by the Social Security Administration while ongoing legal challenges continue.

In a brief, unsigned order, the conservative-majority court lifted a lower court injunction that had blocked access, writing that the agency “may proceed” to grant Doge team members access “to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work.” The three liberal justices dissented.

Doge, a group created by executive order but not officially part of the federal government, was led by Elon Musk before he stepped back from his government role last month amid a growing public feud with Trump. The team has pushed through federal agencies as part of its stated goal to eliminate bureaucratic inefficiency and government waste.

According to the administration, access to Social Security data is essential to Doge’s mission of rooting out fraud and saving taxpayer dollars. Musk has long criticized the Social Security system, calling it “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” and has echoed unsupported claims that millions of people over 100 years old are still receiving checks.

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned against granting what she called “unfettered data access” to Doge without regard for privacy protections or established legal standards. “The court is thereby, unfortunately, suggesting that what would be an extraordinary request for everyone else is nothing more than an ordinary day on the docket for this administration,” she wrote.

The lawsuit was brought by labor unions and a legal advocacy group, Democracy Forward, who argued that granting Doge access to the agency’s vast database—containing Americans’ financial, medical, and educational records—posed a significant risk to privacy. “This is a sad day for our democracy and a scary day for millions of people,” Democracy Forward said in a statement. “Elon Musk may have left Washington DC, but his impact continues to harm millions of people.”

Back in April, U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander of Maryland issued an order limiting access to the records and requiring any personal data already obtained by Doge or affiliated Social Security staff to be purged. She cited the agency’s “abiding commitment to the privacy and confidentiality of the personal information entrusted to it by the American people” and described the situation as exposing “a wide fissure in the foundation” of that trust.

The move to allow Doge access has sparked concerns from privacy advocates, government employees, and Democratic lawmakers, many of whom fear that the information could be exploited for political or commercial purposes. At local town halls, constituents have urged their representatives to take steps to shield their data from misuse.