WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily barred billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Social Security systems that contain personal information for millions of Americans, calling their work there a “fishing expedition.”
The order also requires the team to delete any personally identifiable information in their possession.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland determined that the team had broad access to sensitive information at the Social Security Administration to investigate fraud with little justification.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” she wrote in an email.
The order does allow DOGE employees to access data that has been redacted or stripped of any personally identifiable information if they complete training and background checks.
“To be sure, exposing potential fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the SSA is in the public’s interest. However, this does not imply that the government can break the law to do so,” Hollander wrote.
The Trump administration claims DOGE is focusing on waste in the federal government. Musk has focused on Social Security as an alleged hotbed of fraud, calling it a “ponzi scheme” and insisting that reducing waste in the program is a critical way to reduce government spending.
The ruling, which could be appealed, stems from a lawsuit filed by labor unions, retirees, and the advocacy group Democracy Forward. They argued that DOGE access violates privacy laws and poses significant information security risks.
The lawsuit included a declaration from a recently departed Social Security official who witnessed the DOGE team sweep into the agency and expressed her deep concern about sensitive information being exposed.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
DOGE described a 10-person team of federal employees at the SSA, seven of whom had read-only access to agency systems or personally identifiable information, according to court documents.
The staffers were all federal employees authorized to access the data under federal privacy laws, according to the government, and there is no evidence that any personal information was improperly shared.
The Justice Department also stated that DOGE access is not significantly different from standard practices within the agency, where employees are routinely permitted to search its databases. Plaintiffs’ attorneys, however, described the access as unprecedented.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, described the decision as a “major win for working people and retirees across the country.”
Democracy Forward’s president, Skye Perryman, stated that “the court recognized the real and immediate dangers of DOGE’s reckless actions and took action to stop it.”
DOGE has gained access to at least some other government databases, including those at the Treasury Department and the IRS.
DOGE staffers stormed into the SSA days after Trump’s inauguration and demanded that a software engineer be granted immediate access to data systems that are typically tightly controlled even within the government, according to a former official.
Tiffany Flick, the acting commissioner’s former chief of staff, said the team appeared to be looking for fraud based on inaccuracies and misunderstandings.
Hollander, 75, who is based in Baltimore and was appointed by President Barack Obama, is the most recent judge to hear a DOGE-related case.
The team has faced nearly two dozen lawsuits. Earlier this week, another Maryland judge ruled that DOGE’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development was likely unconstitutional.
While other judges have questioned DOGE’s extensive cost-cutting efforts, they have not always agreed that any risks are serious enough to prevent the team from accessing government systems.