Latest news with #EllenHollander
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court grants Trump's urgent bid for DOGE to have access to Social Security data
The Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration's urgent bid for Department of Government Efficiency personnel to access sensitive Social Security data. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander had blocked access pending further litigation. She wrote in a lengthy ruling April 17 that the administration couldn't justify granting DOGE members access to Americans' personal information, notwithstanding the stated goal of rooting out fraud and promoting efficiency. 'This intrusion into the personal affairs of millions of Americans — absent an adequate explanation for the need to do so — is not in the public interest,' the Obama-appointed judge in Maryland wrote. She said the Social Security Administration could still give DOGE members access to redacted or anonymized records, so long as anyone accessing that data is properly trained and vetted. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declined to halt Hollander's injunction, and the government brought an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. The government has frequently filed such appeals in President Donald Trump's second term, as judges find legal issues with various aspects of his agenda. Trump's solicitor general, John Sauer, wrote that his emergency application 'presents a now-familiar theme: a district court has issued sweeping injunctive relief without legal authority to do so, in ways that inflict ongoing, irreparable harm on urgent federal priorities and stymie the Executive Branch's functions.' When it comes to this Social Security case specifically, Sauer said the government 'cannot eliminate waste and fraud if district courts bar the very agency personnel with expertise and the designated mission of curtailing such waste and fraud from performing their jobs.' Opposing emergency relief were the plaintiffs who brought the case and secured the preliminary injunction — labor unions and an advocacy group for retired Americans. They said the administration made 'a sudden and striking departure from generations of precedent spanning more than a dozen presidential administrations,' by seeking to 'throw open its data systems to unauthorized (and often unvetted) personnel who have no demonstrated need for the personally identifiable information ('PII') they seek.' They said the administration wanted high court relief 'simply because a lower court has interfered with something the Executive Branch wants to do.' But they said that 'has never been the standard for emergency relief, and the Court should not adopt it now.' Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration's legal cases. This article was originally published on
Axios
2 days ago
- Business
- Axios
DOGE given access to Americans' Social Security data by Supreme Court
DOGE employees can access millions of Americans' sensitive Social Security data, the Supreme Court ruled Friday in a party-line decision. Why it matters: The ruling is a win for other Trump administration, which has charged the Department of Government Efficiency with rooting out alleged waste and fraud at the Social Security Administration. The unsigned majority opinion overturns a 9-6 decision from the entire Fourth Circuit that upheld a lower court's decision to temporarily block DOGE from accessing the data. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who issued the initial stay, had questioned why DOGE needed "unprecedented, unfettered access to virtually SSA's entire data systems." Friction point: The Supreme Court's three Democratically-appointed justices voted to prevent DOGE from accessing the Social Security data until lower courts have had a chance to resolve legal challenges. Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissent joined by Justice Sonya Sotomayor that chastised the Supreme Court for once again issuing an emergency order in favor of the Trump administration without the benefit of briefing or oral argument. What they're saying:"In essence, the 'urgency' underlying the Government's stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes," Jackson wrote.
CBS News
02-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow DOGE to access to Social Security Administration systems
Washington — The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to let the White House's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have access to sensitive information kept by the Social Security Administration. The emergency appeal to the Supreme Court stems from an injunction issued by a federal district court judge in Maryland who blocked DOGE's access to Social Security Administration system of records containing personal information. The judge concluded in her April decision that the plaintiffs, two labor unions and an advocacy group, were likely to succeed on their claim that the Social Security Administration's decision to give DOGE access to millions of Americans' confidential information violated the Privacy Act and a federal law governing the agency rulemaking process. "T]he issue here is not the work that DOGE or the agency want to do. The issue is about how they want to do the work," U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote in her 145-page decision. "The DOGE Team seeks access to the [personally identifiable information] that millions of Americans entrusted to SSA, and the SSA defendants have agreed to provide it. For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation." The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declined a Trump administration request to halt that injunction, leading it to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court. This is a developing story and will be updated.
Boston Globe
02-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to let DOGE access Social Security systems
The government says the DOGE team needs access to target waste in the federal government. Musk has been focused on Social Security as an alleged hotbed of fraud, describing it as a 'Ponzi scheme' and insisting that reducing waste in the program is an important way to cut government spending. Advertisement An appeals court majority refused to lift the block on DOGE access, though it split along ideological lines. Conservative judges said there's no evidence that the team has done any 'targeted snooping' or exposed personal information. The lawsuit was originally filed by a group of labor unions and retirees represented by the group Democracy Forward. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland that blocked DOGE from Social Security systems did allow staffers to access data that has been redacted or stripped of anything personally identifiable.
Epoch Times
01-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
Appeals Court Declines to Lift Restrictions on DOGE's Access to Social Security Information
A federal appeals court on April 30 said it would not lift the restrictions on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing unredacted Social Security data of millions of Americans. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' full panel of judges voted 9-6 to keep U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander's previous On April 17, Hollander's order Hollander 'For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation,' she wrote. Hollander concluded that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the other enjoining plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their claims that the SSA giving DOGE access to unredacted data was not only arbitrary and capricious, but also in violation of federal laws. Related Stories 4/3/2025 4/29/2025 'And, plaintiffs have demonstrated that their members will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction, the equities tip in their favor, and the preliminary injunction serves the public interest,' she wrote. The order did not block DOGE from accessing redacted Social Security data stripped of personally identifiable information, as long as the staffers who view it undergo training and background checks. Additionally, DOGE must remove any unredacted or non-anonymized data it has already obtained and cannot make changes to SSA computer code, Hollander ordered. Attorneys for DOGE had argued that working to anonymize data would be too burdensome and could obstruct the Trump administration's efforts to root out fraud in the agency. On April 30, Appellate Judge Robert B. King—writing for the majority—said that DOGE wants 'immediate and unfettered access to all' Social Security records, including 'the highly sensitive personal information of essentially everyone in our Country,' such as mental health and medical records for disability recipients, and bank information. 'All this highly sensitive 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 wrote. Writing for those who voted against the majority ruling, Appellate Judge Julius Richardson said a smaller three-judge group should have handled the case, instead of the 4th Circuit's full panel of judges. Additionally, he said the plaintiffs have failed to prove that DOGE has actually looked at their unredacted personal information, but are rather upset by the possibility of 'abstract harm.' Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
