SCOTUS Gives DOGE Access to Social Security Data; Justice Jackson: 'Grave Privacy Risks for Millions'
The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday ruled that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may have unfettered access to Social Security Administration data "to do their work." Some opponents of the decision said it decimated citizens' privacy rights.
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In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that a lower court's stay, hamstringing DOGE, was the correct course.
“I would proceed without fear or favor to require DOGE and the Government to do what all other litigants must do to secure a stay from this Court: comply with lower court orders constraining their behavior unless and until they establish that irreparable harm will result such that equity requires a different course,” Jackson wrote. “The Court opts instead to relieve the Government of the standard obligations, jettisoning careful judicial decisionmaking and creating grave privacy risks for millions of Americans in the process.”
The majority did not justify its ruling as the case was an emergency appeal on the shadow docket.
In an emailed statement to Privacy Daily, Sydney Saubestre, senior policy analyst at the Open Technology Institute, said the government’s request to deny the injunction was a dangerous power grab.
"The Supreme Court’s decision ... isn’t a neutral procedural move -- it’s a green light for the government to exploit deeply personal data before the courts have even ruled on whether that access is legal,” she said.
“By siding with the administration and DOGE, the Court has sent a chilling message: When it comes to your data, due process is optional and accountability is expendable. We are watching the slow collapse of the principle that the government must earn the public’s trust with their data. There is no emergency here, no crisis demanding immediate [government] access to this information -- only a pattern of abuse by DOGE, which has repeatedly acted outside the law."