Advocates Expect Continued Legal Clamp Down on DOGE Data Access

“This is the largest and most consequential breach of personal information in U.S. history,” said John Davisson, Electronic Privacy Information Center litigation director, during a Free Press event Monday. He expects legal wins will continue in what figures to be a “very long and difficult fight.”

Two federal courts in the past week issued injunctions against DOGE initiatives, and several lawsuits are pending. A federal judge on Saturday issued a preliminary injunction blocking DOGE’s access to Treasury Department payment system data in response to a lawsuit from 19 Democratic attorneys general.

The ruling followed a more narrow decision from Thursday, in which a federal judge restricted payment system collection to two Treasury Department employees, limiting their access to read-only. The lawsuit was filed by government employee and consumer advocate groups.

The Trump administration is “moving fast and doing things that normal governments wouldn’t try, and the courts are responding appropriately,” said Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen co-president. PC co-authored one of the lawsuits with federal employee groups and is suing separately over DOGE's underlying structure. “The way the judges have been responding to just the blatant illegality is comforting," said Gilbert. Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press, agreed DOGE is violating laws such as the Privacy Act.

U.S. District Court of Southern New York Judge Paul Engelmayer in his decision agreed with the AGs’ data privacy argument. The states challenged the administration granting political appointees and special government employees access to payments systems of the Bureau of Fiscal Services. They argued that DOGE violates the Administrative Procedure Act, exceeds the Treasury’s statutory authority, violates the separation of powers doctrine and is unconstitutional under the Take Care Clause, which requires the president to enforce laws passed by Congress.

Citing the data privacy argument, Engelmayer agreed states will “face irreparable harm” without injunctive relief. “That is both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking,” he said.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) said in a Monday statement supporting the AGs that “giving political appointees access to our most personal information like this is illegal. That’s plain as day.”

Congressional Democrats and Republicans told us last week that they’re seeking more information about what data DOGE is handling and who has had access to it. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said Saturday’s decision is a “limited victory.” Musk and DOGE “still have access to Americans’ data at other federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. I’m continuing to demand answers to how this happened and work to put a permanent end to it.”

The White House said Monday that Democrats are “hell-bent on keeping their heads in the sand and gaslighting on the widely supported mission of DOGE. Slashing waste, fraud, and abuse, and becoming better stewards of the American taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars might be a crime to Democrats, but it’s not a crime in a court of law.” In a post on X, Musk called Engelmayer’s decision “absolutely insane.”