Supreme Court Gives Doge Access to Social Security Data
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
> JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR joins, dissenting from the grant of application for stay. Today the Court grants “emergency” relief that allows the Social Security Administration (SSA) to hand DOGE staff- ers the highly sensitive data of millions of Americans. The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now—before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE’s access is lawful. So it asks this Court to stay a lower court’s decision to place temporary and qualified limits on DOGE’s data ac- cess while litigation challenging DOGE’s authority to ac- cess the data is pending. But the Government fails to sub- stantiate its stay request by showing that it or the public will suffer irreparable harm absent this Court’s interven- tion. In essence, the “urgency” underlying the Govern- ment’s stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes. That sentiment has traditionally been insufficient to jus- tify the kind of extraordinary intervention the Government seeks. But, once again, this Court dons its emergency-re- sponder gear, rushes to the scene, and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them. See, e.g., Noem v. Doe, 605 U. S. ___, ___ (2025) (JACKSON, J., dissenting from grant of application for stay) (slip op., at 5) (explaining that, by granting a stay, the Court was allowing the Government to terminate the lawful parole status of half a million noncitizens before the courts could determine whether such agency action was lawful). Once again, re- spectfully, I dissent.
We really need to do something about social security numbers. They've all been leaked and there's no way to put the cat back in the bag.
And when people use them fraudulent the bank can somehow hold YOU responsible? Total insanity.
Cars were rented in his name across multiple states and never returned, At&T charged dozen of apple products in his account, SoFi approved and disbursed loan in his name, credit cards were opened, credit score completely ruined. Some of them happened even after he froze his SSN.
And the answer he gets is "Too bad, there is nothing we can do". He is now fighting multiple legal cases against him.
Every time I think about it my blood boils.
What does it mean to freeze an SSN, and how does one go about it? I'm familiar with freezing credit (through the big 3 credit score companies), but that doesn't sound sufficient to protect against a lot of what you're describing.
Eventually he hired a lawyer to help him out, there are so many reporting agencies (for subprime loans etc) that you need to reach out to.
Long term a new SSN will be issued for him, but there is a lot of cleanup before that.
In my country we just have a name but you need an ID document to get anything done.
Do banks etc. consider an SSN number to be a password?
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/credit-scor...
I mean, imagine, often, when you're the ACTUAL holder of an identity, trying to legitimately obtain credit, buy products and so forth, you get all sorts of absurd algorithmic or anti-fraud roadblocks that can make it tricky or fully block you, but then some dude with only part of your ID paperwork in his hands can just go ahead and take out loans, get credit, use your name for X or Y official thing just like that? Then also, them getting the mailing addresses they need for all these scams to work. How do they pull that off too?
I'm really puzzled by how these contradictions work?
Like, occasionally my credit card company will call me up about some fraudulent transactions and then they'll mail me a new card and take the fraud off my bill.
A problem can be simultaneously incredibly acute for an unlucky subset, structurally really problematic, and also on average have very low impact. Those problems generally don't decide elections.
I talked to the IRS and I got audited (naturally). My income tax returns were withheld for about 7 years plus the 3 that had fraudulent filings. One day, I got a check from the US Treasury for all the back-returns plus interest. It was worth, I guess. Some individuals had also tried to get various loans, phones, etc in my name but my credit was sub 500 at the time, so they were denied. I kinda got lucky and unlucky at the same time.
I suppose it's not as bad as believing/promoting the lies that got the US into two wars in Iraq, but it's still bad and sort of feels like it goes into the same bucket.
The credit card companies block a transaction and issue a card replacement and everyone feels OK again.
I have had a couple of PayPal alternatives accounts opened using my email address. Still feel on edge about it. Holy shit. The only thing which gives me a modicum of peace is I get free credit monitoring from the Equifax boondoggle.
https://qbix.com/blog/2023/06/12/no-way-to-prevent-this-says...
https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/25/no-way-to-prevent-this-says...
So it happens everywhere
Many other Europeans on this site should consider climbing down from their imaginary pedestals of moral superiority. Very little about either past or present day Europe (insofar as you can generalize about it at all) merits such a sense of superiority, at all. It all comes with trade-offs.
Reading some HN comments from "As a European" types, you'd think they were already living in a wonderfully socialist version of the singularity, and it got built right next to the Pearly Gates, where it daily receives the airy blessings of winged angels.
Hearing stories about the US, that is indeed how it feels. I pretty regularly read unironic stories of people that literally lived on the street because of some random misfortune. I just can’t imagine that happening in my home country (e.g. socialist paradise), and I’m inclined to believe much of western Europe is the same.
Well, it’s not as if I come from a place of no experience. I’d say the US lives up to its reputation in many ways.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/us/politics/supreme-court...
Get everybody to realize that identifiers and credentials are pretty much polar opposites in design space? Sounds like one of the many impossible infosec literacy crusades, unfortunately.
It'll never happen, though.
The whole thing is a giant corporate subsidiary to lenders.
The decision lets DOGE have full access to personally identifiable information in the Social Security Administration database while the case proceeds on appeal.
Imagine a court was considering the issue from years ago when Australian authorities were deciding to release the cane toad to kill sugar cane pests. That's not a decision taht you can take back. Once they're released, there's really no rolling that back. So a court would generally side on issuing an injunction pending an appeal for that very reason.
As a historical side note, the cane toad was released and it's been an ecological disaster ever since.
Now imagine another case where a government agency is requiring all fishing boats to install transponders and they're relatively cheap. There's reallly no irreversible harm either way so a court will tend to look instead at the likelihood of the plaintiff prevailing instead.
At least that's how it should work.
In practice, particularly with the Supreme Court through its entire history, there's a fairly accurate way of predicting how they'll rule: pick the side that favors the wealthy and powerful and that's how they'll rule way more often than not.
There are exceptions to this and it's not universal (eg decisions rolling back segregation) but it is (IMHO) arguably the best predictor.
Gov says that enjoining them from accessing the data is doing harm by preventing the work.
In opposition, the plaintiffs say that if USDS has access to the data, it will sell it or abscond it, or something. That's a claim of potential harm.
First, is the plaintiff likely to succeed on the merits? Probably unlikely that plaintiffs will ultimately succeed in preventing data access within the executive branch. The harm is theoretical, in the future, and not very well articulated. Nothing about USDS access to the data is structurally enabling the selling or distribution of data.
Second, where is the most harm at present? Real harm on one hand, potential harm on the other. So likelihood of the harm in the future needs to be really imminent, real, highly likely to outweigh actual harm in a work stoppage.
That's basically the formula.
On other hand we have government trying to do something, and their potential harm is delay their plans until courts will consider the case.
You need to compare not only immediate harms, but more importantly potential harms of the emergency order in case if final decision differs from (assumed) emergency one. You also make merits question to be very straightforward but it’s not – other courts ruled plaintiffs have good chances to succeed on merits.
I think the balancing act here is clear.
The Trump Administration has repeatedly said DOGE is not a federal agency (mostly so they can say they're exempt from FOIA).
-- https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1063_6j37.pdf
All of the razors still apply and I’m confused why we’re so reticent to accept that.
This is absurd. Musk has already completely burned his bridges with Democrats. There's no going back. Making some petty insult against Trump, reminiscent of the "pedo guy" comment, isn't going to magically switch people from protesting and actually defacing Teslas to buying them.
The same Democratic leadership brain(-dead) trust thought it was a great idea to parade around Liz Cheney in 2024, as if that won a single vote for Harris.
Maybe Ro Rhanna will buy a Tesla, but it sounds like he was never boycotting in the first place.
I don't understand the theory here. Who exactly would be buying Teslas as a result of the feud?
Not a constructive comment.
As for how we’re going to reign in the budget, they’ll likely turn to Regan-era austerity initiatives at some point. Come get your 10lb block of cheese…