Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on DOGE access to personal data and FOIA immunity

WASHINGTON D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court handed down two rulings Friday favoring the Trump administration and its controversial Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, granting the agency access to sensitive personal data and temporarily shielding it from federal transparency laws.

In the first decision, the Court’s six conservative justices lifted a lower court’s injunction that had prevented DOGE personnel from accessing detailed Social Security Administration records. The injunction had been issued by a federal judge in Maryland in April, following lawsuits by civil rights and privacy groups who argued DOGE’s data collection methods were invasive and unlawful.

“The 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 Court stated in its unsigned three-paragraph ruling.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing in dissent on behalf of the three liberal justices, condemned the majority for intervening before the legal process had played out. “Once again, this Court dons its emergency responder gear, rushes to the scene, and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them,” Jackson wrote, according to the Associated Press.

The controversy stems from DOGE’s mission, created under former President Elon Musk’s brief advisory capacity, to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse across federal agencies. When DOGE staff began probing the Social Security Administration, alarms were raised over the team’s attempts to access data including Social Security numbers, addresses, income details, medical history, and disability status.

A Maryland judge temporarily restricted DOGE’s access to anonymized data only, with the condition that any employees undergo the same training and background checks required of SSA personnel. That injunction was upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting the Trump administration to escalate the case to the Supreme Court, which reversed the ruling.

In a separate but related case, the Supreme Court also sided with the administration in a decision that temporarily halts DOGE from having to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. A watchdog group had filed a request seeking documentation on DOGE’s operations and personnel, which a lower court agreed was valid and even authorized the deposition of DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason.

That ruling was stayed by the Supreme Court, with the conservative majority asserting that the request was too broad. The justices ordered the case back to lower courts for further proceedings, particularly to determine whether DOGE qualifies as a federal agency subject to FOIA.

“The lower court’s FOIA directives are not appropriately tailored,” the majority stated, according to Politico.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined Justices Jackson and Elena Kagan in dissenting from the stay. They expressed concern that DOGE’s exemption from disclosure undermines transparency and public accountability.

With both rulings favoring the Trump administration, DOGE’s work will continue with fewer immediate legal constraints. The broader constitutional questions about privacy rights, agency accountability, and the reach of presidential power remain unresolved and are expected to be further litigated.

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