Appeals court blocks DOGE’s access to Social Security data

A federal appeals court on April 30 shut down Donald Trump’s attempt to let DOGE scrape through millions of Social Security records.

In a 9-6 ruling, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia refused to lift a legal order that’s been blocking the Social Security Administration (SSA) from giving unrestricted access to DOGE, the government agency led by Elon Musk.

Trump’s administration tried to push past that block, but the court told them no. This case started after US District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander in Maryland issued an injunction on April 17, saying SSA most likely broke federal privacy laws by trying to hand over private data to DOGE without restrictions.

Now, the appeals court has kept that injunction in place. The White House still wants access, and Liz Huston, Trump’s spokesperson, said in a statement that the president “will continue to seek all legal remedies available to ensure the will of the American people is executed.”

Judges say DOGE overstepped with data grab

Trump and Elon launched DOGE to wipe out what they call “government waste.” That includes cutting jobs, gutting federal departments, and cracking open databases. But this time, they ran into resistance.

DOGE had already been cleared to access sensitive information at the Treasury, Education, and Office of Personnel Management, but now the line has been drawn at Social Security.

Three separate plaintiffs – two labor unions and an advocacy group – sued DOGE, Elon, and SSA in February. They wanted DOGE banned from accessing SSA’s most secure internal systems. Those systems hold data on roughly 73 million Americans, including people who get retirement and disability benefits.

Elon said the system is corrupt. He claimed that millions of dead Americans were still getting checks, even though that statement has no proof behind it. Trump echoed the same fraud claims, despite also saying he wouldn’t cut Social Security. But federal judges weren’t moved.

Judge Robert King, who joined the majority in the 9–6 vote, made it clear in a written opinion that SSA was trusted with sensitive information and had failed to protect it.

“This highly sensitive personal information has long been handed over to SSA by the American people with every reason to believe that the information would be fiercely protected,” King said.

King added that trust was broken the moment DOGE was allowed into the system. Judge Hollander had already made it clear two weeks earlier that DOGE had no business digging around in those systems. The level of access DOGE received was higher than that of even SSA’s most senior staffers.

King said the evidence was solid and the stakes were higher than anything DOGE had done before. “The case over Social Security data was substantially stronger,” he said.

Judge Julius Richardson, one of the six who voted against keeping the injunction, said the court should’ve treated this case the same as DOGE’s previous data access at other departments. But Richardson got outvoted. The majority didn’t agree. They saw Social Security data as a different beast.

DOGE is now being forced to back off. The ruling says the agency can’t access SSA’s data and also demands that DOGE delete any personally identifiable information it has already pulled from the SSA. That part is final unless Trump’s team gets the Supreme Court involved.

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