Federal Court Allows DOGE Access to Sensitive Data on Millions of Americans

An appeals court has cleared the way for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — an agency that has dismantled the federal government through mass layoffs and agency closures — to gain access to information on millions of Americans collected by the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

In January, President Trump established DOGE via executive order and directed federal agencies to provide the new department with access to “all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems” as part of its efforts to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”

The American Federation of Teachers and other labor unions, as well as veterans groups, filed suit, and in February, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocked the Department of Education and OPM from sharing data with DOGE, but not the Treasury Department, as another court had already blocked disclosure of those records in a separate lawsuit.

“DOGE affiliates have been granted access to systems of record that contain some of the plaintiffs’ most sensitive data — Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, income and assets, citizenship status, and disability status — and their access to this trove of personal information is ongoing,” she wrote.

On August 11, in a 2 to 1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit tossed out the preliminary injunction. Trump appointee Judge Julius N. Richardson, along with George W. Bush appointee, Judge G. Steven Agee, ruled in favor of the government. Judge Robert B. King, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, dissented.

“Each Plaintiff’s information is one row in various databases that are millions upon millions of rows long,” Richardson wrote for the majority. “In fact, Plaintiffs do not allege in their complaint that any particular row of information belonging to any particular Plaintiff has been examined at all.”

Billionaire Elon Musk headed up DOGE until he left the department in May. Under the guise of government efficiency and cost-cutting, DOGE has pushed out thousands of federal employees and gutted government agencies.

More than 60,000 federal workers were laid off in January and February alone — an increase of more than 41,000 percent compared with the same period last year, according to Newsweek.

“Musk’s initial pitch for DOGE was to save $2 [trillion] from the budget by rooting out rampant waste and fraud, as well as to conduct an overhaul of government software that would modernize how federal agencies operate,” Nick Robins-Early wrote for The Guardian. “The greater impact of DOGE has instead been its dismantling of government services and humanitarian aid.”

He continued: “DOGE’s cuts have targeted a swath of agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which handles weather and natural disaster forecasting, and plunged others such as the Department of Veterans Affairs into crises. Numerous smaller agencies, such as one that coordinates policy on homelessness, have been in effect shut down.”

Experts estimate that DOGE’s actions may end up costing the United States billions of dollars. Cuts to the Treasury Department alone could lead to a loss of more than $500 billion in tax revenue next year.

Algernon Austin, the director of Race and Economic Justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, called DOGE a “complete boondoggle.”
“By any fair assessment, DOGE is a complete disaster,” Austin wrote in April. “It will end up costing taxpayers a substantial amount of money. Taxpayers will end up paying more and will receive weaker government protections of their health, safety and economic well-being.”