Washington (AP) – A group of unions is asking a Federal Court for an emergency order to prevent the Elon Musk government efficiency department from accessing confidential social security data of millions of Americans.
The emergency relief motion was presented on Friday night in a federal court in Maryland by the Democracy Award Legal Services Group against the Social Security Administration and its interim commissioner, Leland Doubek. The unions want the court to block Doge’s access to the vast personal data players held by the agency.
The presentation includes a sworn statement of Tiffany Flick, a former agency official who says that career public officials are trying to protect Doge data. “A contempt for our careful privacy systems and processes now threatens the security that SSA data houses millions of Americans,” Flick wrote in judicial documents.
Karyianne Jones, lawyer for unions and a group of retirees behind the demand, said it is not completely clear what type of access could have to dege for personal data on taxpayers. But she said that the apparent scope and lack of information about what Doge is looking for means that the potential impact is “huge.”
“Essentially, what you have is Dege simply sliding and intimidating access to millions of private data from Americans. They cannot explain why they want this data. They really can’t tell you what data you want. They just want everything. They want the source code and want to do it without restrictions, ”he said.
The Social Security Administration did not immediately respond to a request on Saturday to comment on the demand, which originally appeared last month.
Doge’s work during the early stages of the Trump administration has attracted almost two dozen demands. The judges have raised questions in several cases about Doge cost reduction efforts, made with little public information about their staff and operations. But the judges have not always agreed that the risks are imminent enough to block the elves of government systems.
The Social Security Administration cuts are causing questions about the possible effects on the benefits for dozens of millions of recipients.
Among the possible changes in the agency are layoffs for more than 10% of the workforce and the closure of dozens of offices throughout the country. Everything is part of the efforts of the Trump administration to reduce the size of the Federal Work Force.
Doge has accessed other government databases, even in Treasury and IRS. The Trump administration has generally said that efforts are destined to eliminate what states that it is waste and fraud in the government.
On Friday, a federal judge in Washington refused to prevent Doge employees from accessing treasure systems that contain confidential personal data for millions of people. American District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly recognized privacy concerns about that work. Doge is still limited by a different court order in New York.
In addition, an February agreement between the Office of Personnel Management and the IRS affirms that a Employee of Dugo, Gavin Kiger, may have access to the IRS systems, but not to the personal information of the taxpayers.
