DOGE Limits on Social Security Data Access Vacated on Appeal (1)

The Trump administration prevailed Friday in its bid to reverse a court order restricting the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration.

The organizations that challenged the access failed to show—based on the record before the district court when it issued the preliminary injunction—that they were likely to suffer irreparable harm absent that early relief, a divided en banc US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said.

The US District Court for the District of Maryland issued the preliminary injunction restricting DOGE’s ability to access Americans’ personal data at SSA on the theory that the allegedly unlawful access itself is a privacy violation that’s irreparable in a legal sense.

“The difficulty with that argument is that there are two forms of corrective relief that may be available down the line: money damages and a reparative permanent injunction,” Judge Toby J. Heytens wrote in the majority opinion.

The Supreme Court had stayed the preliminary injunction last June pending this appeal and any further Supreme Court review.

Judge Julius N. Richardson, in a separate opinion concurring in the judgment, said the high court “necessarily concluded that the government was likely to succeed in this appeal to vacate the injunction.”

That type of predictive judgment from the Supreme Court squarely controls this appeal, Richardson said, adding that the plaintiffs also failed to show they likely have standing because they lack a concrete injury.

Although the plaintiffs argue their asserted harm resembles intrusion upon seclusion, “that’s wrong,” Richardson wrote. The harm involved in such a claim arises from the knowledge that a third party is conducting targeted snooping, while the plaintiffs here allege government employees have “generalized access to a vast database that includes their personal information,” Richardson said.

But Judge Robert B. King, in a partial dissent, said the Fourth Circuit should have reviewed the preliminary injunction based on an updated record in light of the government notifying the district court of several instances of DOGE staffers mishandling Social Security records. One DOGE team member, for example, signed a voter data agreement with a political advocacy group aiming to overturn election results in certain states, the government said in a January court filing.

The Fourth Circuit should have addressed the merits of the preliminary injunction based on that corrected record, because it “presents the facts as they truly were, correcting the false version of the facts portrayed by the erroneous original record” due to that material information being omitted, King said.

Judge James Andrew Wynn, in a separate opinion, also said that the Fourth Circuit isn’t bound by the Supreme Court’s stay. The high court’s interim orders “are not designed to announce governing law, and the Court has never said they do,” Wynn wrote.

Chief Judge Albert Diaz and Judge Pamela A. Harris joined the majority opinion in full.

Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. also authored separate concurring opinions. Judges Paul V. Niemeyer, G. Steven Agee, Allison Jones Rushing, Quattlebaum, and Wilkinson joined Richardson’s opinion. Judges Roger L. Gregory, Stephanie D. Thacker, DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, Nicole G. Berner, and Wynn joined King’s opinion. Thacker, Benjamin, Berner, and King also joined Wynn’s opinion.

Democracy Forward Foundation represents the plaintiffs.

The case is Am. Fed’n of State, Cty., & Mun. Emps. v. Social Sec. Admin., 4th Cir. en banc, No. 25-01411, 4/10/26.