The RecordExhibit 8
DOGE gets into Americans' Social Security records
Mixed rulings means: Courts have ruled both ways on parts of it.
Musk's DOGE team pushed into Social Security systems holding Social Security numbers, bank, tax and medical data for nearly everyone in the country.
What happened
The acting SSA commissioner resigned rather than hand the data over. The agency's chief data officer later filed a whistleblower complaint saying DOGE copied records on more than 300 million Americans to a cloud server without proper oversight. In a later court filing, the Justice Department admitted a DOGE staffer shared data through an unapproved server, that DOGE kept accessing data while a court order barred it, and that a DOGE employee had a secret agreement with a political advocacy group.
Where it stands
A Maryland judge blocked the access as a likely Privacy Act violation, writing that DOGE never gave a single reason it needed everything. The Supreme Court lifted that block in June 2025, over three dissents. On April 10, 2026, the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Maryland judge's injunction and sent the case back to her, with a majority deferring to the Supreme Court's order. The majority opinion found that the unions have standing to sue, and the lower court could still order DOGE employees to destroy any illegally obtained data. On Sept. 29, 2026, the Government Accountability Office reported on DOGE teams at six other agencies (the CFPB, Education, NOAA, the SEC, the SBA and the VA). Four of them reported that the teams had access to more than 23 systems, which held sensitive information including personal data; the SBA and the VA did not say which systems their teams could reach. The GAO said it could not determine what the teams were allowed to do in those systems, and that without the records it asked for, Congress and the public lack assurance the information was properly secured. The review did not include the Social Security Administration.
The administration's side
DOGE said full access was needed to root out fraud and improper payments, including payments to dead people. Of the six agencies in the GAO review, five offered no comments on the report and the CFPB said it had concerns about its accuracy; the GAO said it stands by its facts.
Sources
Permanent link: https://unredactedrecord.com/e/doge/