‘Hitting a fly with a sledgehammer’: Judge blocks DOGE from accessing sensitive Social Security records
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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Government Efficiency approach’s to identifying fraud at the Social Security Administration “is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer,” a federal judge said Thursday, blocking DOGE’s unlimited access to sensitive agency data.
In a 137-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander wrote the Trump administration never justified the need to access the data — which they argued was vital to identifying alleged fraud — and likely violated multiple federal laws in doing so.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” she wrote.
The judge’s order blocks the agency from granting DOGE access to systems containing personally identifiable information and orders DOGE members to destroy any data in their possession that identifies individual taxpayers. However, the judge’s decision allows DOGE to continue to allow access anonymized data from the agency.
According to Hollander, the decision to give DOGE “unlimited access to SSA’s entire record system” endangered the sensitive and private information of millions of Americans, risking information including Social Security numbers, credit card information, medical and mental health records, hospitalization records, marriage and birth certificates, and bank information.
“The government has not even attempted to explain why a more tailored, measured, titrated approach is not suitable to the task,” she wrote. “Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud. Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.”
The lawsuit challenging DOGE’s access was filed last month by two national unions and an advocacy group who argued DOGE’s access violated privacy laws and the Administrative Procedures Act. In a statement to ABC News, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees celebrated the decision as a “major win for working people and retirees across the country.”
“The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a statement.
In her decision, the judge also pointed out the irony that DOGE has accessed the sensitive information of millions of Americans while the identities of the DOGE employees working in the SSA have been concealed for privacy reasons.
“The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent,” she wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — After a weekend of confusion, the Trump administration on Monday afternoon told federal agencies they don’t have to direct workers to comply with Elon Musk’s request for information about their activities at work, and that doing so is voluntary, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The Office of Personnel Management — effectively the human resources agency for the federal government — updated agency human resources officers on a Monday call over Elon Musk’s call for the Trump administration to fire federal workers who did not reply to an email asking them to submit an email listing their accomplishments from the previous week.
Adding to the confusion are Trump’s own comments Monday, when he told journalists in the Oval Office there was a “lot of genius” behind Musk’s proposal, and that workers would be “sort of semi-fired” if they don’t respond.
OPM did not respond to a request for comment on the instructions given to federal agencies.
In the latest effort by the Department of Government Efficiency to investigate efficiency and reduce the size of the government, employees were asked in an email from the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday to list five accomplishments over the previous week and reply by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday.
Musk threatened on social media that employees would face termination if they do not comply. The original email sent to employees did not include such an ultimatum, leaving some employees unaware of the threat.
However, some federal agencies told employees not to respond to the OPM email, some advised that employees should reply and others said that replying is “voluntary,” creating uncertainty among the rank and file.
Musk’s ultimatum raised questions about how much authority he holds in the government. While the White House argued in a court filing that Musk has no true power, Musk doubled down on his ultimatum Monday morning, warning that “Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere.”
Trump endorsed the email while taking questions Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“I thought it was great because we have people that don’t show up to work, and nobody even knows if they work for the government,” Trump said. “So, by asking the question, ‘Tell us what you did this week,’ what he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?'”
“And then if you don’t answer like you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired because a lot of people are not answering because they don’t even exist,” Trump said.
Asked later Monday about the change in OPM policy, a White House official said, “DOGE is moving fast, at the direction of POTUS, and that’s exactly the point.”
“It’s all about efficiency, even internally,” the official added.
In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Everyone is working together as one unified team at the direction of President Trump. Any notion to the contrary is completely false.”
Mixed messages
Federal employees on Saturday began receiving the OPM email with the subject line “What did you do last week” that demanded they list “5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager,” according to multiple sources and an email reviewed by ABC News.
The subject line came from Musk’s playbook: “What did you get done this week?” is the same message he sent to the CEO of Twitter (now X) Parag Agrawal before Musk bought the company and fired the CEO.
A spokesperson from the Office of Personnel Management said Saturday that “agencies will determine any next steps.”
Yet management at multiple agencies told their staff that they were waiting on further guidance and, in some cases, told them to hold off on replying, according to multiple sources.
Employees at the Justice Department were told that they did not need to respond to the OPM request, according to an email obtained by ABC News. The Defense Department told employees who received the email to “please pause any response.” The Pentagon official filling in as the Department’s top personnel officer said that DOD would review any performance of personnel according to its own procedures, but added that “when and if required” it would coordinate responses to OPM’s email.
Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel also told staff to “please pause any responses” to the email.
Employees at agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United States Department of Energy were told by senior staff that they were waiting on further guidance and, in some cases, told to wait for further notice before responding.
NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro informed employees on Monday before OPM’s guidance went out that responding to the email was optional and that not responding would have “no impact to your employment,” according to an email obtained by ABC News.
“Employees may have already responded or may still choose to respond. You are not required to respond, and there is no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond,” Petro wrote in the email.
Other agencies directed employees to reply. Speaking to Fox News on Monday morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained why his employees should respond to Musk’s email.
“If you can’t come up with five things that you did, maybe you shouldn’t be employed here,” Duffy said, calling it an “easy task” that “happens in the private sector all the time.”
Leadership at the Treasury Department sent an agency-wide email Monday morning instructing all employees — including those at the IRS — to comply with OPM’s email by the deadline, according to an email obtained by ABC News.
However, the email still left some employees confused, particularly because it does not clarify whether failure to respond by the deadline could result in termination.
Federal workers who don’t follow Musk on social media could be unaware there’s an ultimatum on the table. While the administration did ask federal employees to list their accomplishments, the email did not state that those who failed to respond by the deadline would be fired.
Employees across agencies told ABC News they hadn’t seen Musk’s threats until they were asked for their reaction to them.
One IRS employee told ABC News that when they asked their direct managers whether not responding would result in them being fired, they were told, “We are only to adhere to official emails and ignore any directives not communicated through official channels.”
Another employee in management at the IRS said staff are “freaking out.”
Managers at the Department of Veterans Affairs told employees to respond to the email. One manager at the agency told ABC News that workers are “scared.”
“It’s not an exaggeration,” they said. “Everybody is afraid they are going to lose their jobs on a daily basis. There’s this fear that you’re going to open your email and you will be terminated.”
How much authority does Musk have?
It is not clear if Musk has the authority to terminate employees in this manner. However, he continues to act as if he does, threatening employees on Monday morning with administrative leave if they do not return to work this week.
White House lawyers attested in federal court that Musk “has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions.”
Trump aides have also said publicly that Musk is operating in an advisory capacity as a special government employee.
While Trump has said that Musk cannot do anything without his approval, the president has publicly heralded Musk as the leader of DOGE and lauded him for the job he’s doing in that capacity. On Saturday, shortly before the OPM email went out, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”
-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer, Peter Charalambous, Selina Wang, Emily Chang and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is planning to use military aircraft every day to help carry out what President Donald Trump and his “border czar,” Tom Homan, have promised will be the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, Homan told ABC News.
In an interview with ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, Homan said that only days after Trump took office, the U.S. government for the first time ever used military aircraft to transport migrants back to their home country, and it will now be a daily occurrence.
According to U.S. officials, the U.S. military on Thursday flew more than 150 migrants to Guatemala on two separate flights. But Homan made clear that the military flights are just one part of a much broader plan.
He claimed that – unlike under the Biden administration – Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are now free to arrest any of the estimated more than 11 million immigrants in the country without legal status, not just those identified as priorities for deportation for being convicted criminals or other public safety threats.
Watch more of Martha Raddatz’ interview with Tom Homan Sunday on ABC’s ‘This Week’
“If you’re in the country illegally, you’re on the table because it’s not okay to, you know, violate the laws of this country,” he said.
Homan said that while the Trump administration’s enforcement actions are currently prioritizing public safety and national security threats, they’re going to “open up the aperture” in the weeks and months ahead.
“As that aperture opens, there’ll be more arrests nationwide,” he said.
Homan also offered another possible solution for “those who are in the country illegally”: They “should leave” on their own, he said.
Early in the Biden administration, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued guidance to immigration enforcement officers discouraging them from “spending resources to remove those who do not pose a threat” and noting that many undocumented immigrants inside the country “have been here for generations and contributed to our country’s well-being,” as he put it in a statement at the time.
Homan, however, noted that the nation’s immigration laws were passed by Congress to be enforced, and said immigrants without legal status are violating those laws.
More of Homan’s interview with Raddatz will air Sunday on “This Week.”
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has sparked concerns within the intelligence community after it posted information about an agency that oversees U.S. intelligence satellites to its newly launched government website.
The DOGE website, updated earlier this week to include information about the federal workforce across agencies, contained details about the headcount and budget for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency responsible for designing and maintaining U.S. intelligence satellites, according to a review by ABC News.
Multiple intelligence community sources told ABC News that this likely represents a significant breach.
John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, said that anytime any details about U.S. citizens working for one of the intel agencies is released, it puts their safety in jeopardy.
A former CIA official who served on classification review boards called the incident a “significant” breach, “particularly if it involves the budget and personnel of the NRO,” adding that “it could be even more significant if it involves declassifying sensitive information under executive authority.”
Mick Mulroy, an ABC News national security and defense analyst and a former CIA officer, said “I do not know whether classified information has been publicly disclosed but there are several reasons that the size, budget, and of course names of those in the intelligence community should not be publicly disclosed.”
“Our adversaries want to collect as much information as they can to determine what we are doing, how we are doing, the extent of our investment in intelligence collection and of course the identity of those involved so the can be targeted for intelligence purposes,” Mulroy said.
HuffPost was first to report the information on DOGE’s website.
Following the publication of this report, a Trump administration official told ABC News, “DOGE is sharing OPM data from under the Biden administration. The headcount for this agency has been publicly available on OPM’s website. This is the same intelligence community that wrote in a letter that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Their lack of credibility is not up for debate.”
The bottom of the DOGE.GOV page states, “Workforce data excludes Military, Postal Service, White House, intelligence agencies, and others.”
