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