Split 4th Cir. Upholds DOGE Social Security Access Restrictions

A court order barring the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive personal information from the Social Security Administration will remain in effect pending appeal, a split en banc appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The record showed that DOGE’s unrestricted access to Social Security data “exceeded that allowed to all but the few most experienced and trusted SSA employees,” and demonstrated there’s “no need for such access,” Judge Robert B. King of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit wrote in an opinion denying the government’s request to stay a lower court injunction.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees led a lawsuit filed in February against top officials within SSA and DOGE, alleging that by allowing DOGE representatives unrestricted access to Social Security information, the administration is disregarding privacy protections that Congress and the executive branch put in place to protect the data of millions of Americans. The groups asserted violations of the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Judge Ellen Hollander of the US District Court for the District of Maryland on April 17 granted the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction request, extending a temporary restraining order issued in March. The government is appealing the injunction and asked the Fourth Circuit to put Hollander’s order on hold pending the outcome of that appeal.

“The very able district judge has carefully and thoughtfully examined the evidence and the legal issues,” as evidenced in her 137-page March opinion and 148-page April opinion, King wrote for the appellate court’s majority.

Hollander’s April opinion “emphasizes” that the highly sensitive personal information Americans provide to SSA is handed over with the belief that the information would be “fiercely protected,” King said. DOGE staff were given unrestricted access without proper training, hiring, or background checks. And the evidence demonstrates DOGE’s work can be done “largely with anonymized and redacted data, along with discrete pieces of non-anonymized data in limited, appropriate circumstances,” as allowed under the injunction.

‘Legal Twin’

Hollander’s analysis of the plaintiffs’ Privacy Act and APA claims also “is lengthy, thorough, and compelling,” King added.

But Judge Julius N. Richardson, a Trump appointee, said in dissent that he’d have granted the stay. This case “is the legal twin” of another challenging DOGE’s access to data at agencies including the Department of Education, American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent, in which a Fourth Circuit three-judge panel granted the government’s request for a stay.

The plaintiffs in that case failed to allege a concrete injury by showing “abstract access to personal information,” the court said then.

Although the SSA’s databases are larger, “the jurisdiction and statutory interpretation questions before us presumably come out the same whether they contain one million rows or one hundred million rows,” Richardson said. The plaintiffs’ alleged harm in this case, that they have “anxiety and distress” over DOGE’s access to SSA data, similarly doesn’t rise to the level of a concrete harm, the judge said.

Chief Judge Albert Diaz and judges Roger L. Gregory, James A. Wynn, Stephanie D. Thacker, Pamela A. Harris, Toby J. Heytens, DeAndrea G. Benjamin, and Nicole G. Berner joined the majority. Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Paul V. Niemeyer, G. Steven Agee, A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., and Allison J. Rushing joined the dissent.

Democracy Forward Foundation and Complex Appellate Litigation Group LLP represent the plaintiffs.

The case is Am. Fed’n of State, Cty., & Mun. Emps. v. Social Sec. Admin., 4th Cir., No. 25-01411, stay denied 4/30/25.