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President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to allow Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access Social Security Administration data on hundreds of millions of Americans.
The latest emergency appeal to reach the high court during Trump’s second term puts DOGE front and center before the justices and is the first dispute to reach the Supreme Court that deals with the access to sensitive government databases that Musk affiliates have demanded.
“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,” the administration said in its appeal.
But lower court judges have said that at least some of the information DOGE has requested is tightly controlled even within the Social Security Administration itself. The appeal followed a divided decision from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday that continued to block DOGE from accessing the information.
The case was filed with Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency matters rising from the 4th Circuit, though he will likely refer the matter to the full court. Roberts has ordered the groups challenging DOGE to respond to the administration’s appeal by May 12.
In the appeals court’s opinion, US Circuit Judge Robert King wrote that the data DOGE was seeking exceeded what “all but the few most experienced and trusted” at the administration itself are permitted to review. Access to the data, the Clinton appointee wrote, “contravened SSA policy and practices of access limitations and separation of duties.”
Nine judges voted to leave the district court’s order in place and six dissented.
The lower courts scrutinized the rationales the administration was providing for why a handful of DOGE operatives needed the keys to the closely guarded Social Security databases, which include data concerning Americans’ medical records, bank account numbers and tax return information.
The groups that challenged the DOGE effort argued that much of its work could be done using anonymized information that would protect Americans’ privacy.
The lawsuit, filed by federal employee unions and a retiree association, is one of several that challenge DOGE access to closely guarded data systems across various federal agencies. DOGE has argued that it needs the data to implement “reform efforts” aimed at combatting fraud.
“The district court is forcing the executive branch to stop employees charged with modernizing government information systems from accessing the data in those systems because, in the court’s judgment, those employees do not ‘need’ such access,” the administration told the Supreme Court in its filing.
“The injunction involving the SSA does not merely halt the executive branch’s critically important efforts to improve its information-technology infrastructure and eliminate waste,” the administration continued. “District court control of decisions about internal access to information also constitutes inappropriate superintendence of a coequal branch.”
US District Judge Ellen Hollander in March described DOGE’s efforts as a “fishing expedition” that was “in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion.”
As in many other cases challenging DOGE’s activities, the district court judge expressed frustration with how opaque the Musk initiative was.
In one hearing, Hollander requested that acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek attend to help clear up some discrepancies in the government’s filings, but the administration turned down the invitation.
The DOGE staffers working at Social Security need access to databases with people’s personal information for the anti-fraud projects they are working on, Dudek has written in declarations.
One effort, named the “Are You Alive?” project, seeks to make sure the agency’s records accurately reflect whether a person is alive or dead to root out improper payments and fraud that could be related to deceased individuals. The DOGE employees need access to people’s Social Security numbers, demographic data, benefits status and contact information to do this work, Dudek wrote.
The Death Data Clean Up Project seeks to update the records of people the agency has sufficient confidence are deceased. But this also requires access to Social Security numbers, dates of birth and death and benefits information that could indicate whether the person is still living.
Another effort, named the Fraud Detection Project, is looking for fraud in direct deposit information changes, wage reporting and new claims, which Dudek also says requires access to databases with people’s personal information.
This story has been updated with additional information.
