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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

>Mr. Borges said DOGE members copied the data to an internal agency server that only DOGE could access, forgoing the type of “independent security monitoring” normally required under agency policy for such sensitive data and creating “enormous vulnerabilities.”

The fact that the courts (largely SCOTUS) has allowed this whole mess to go on is bonkers. These are potentially terrible results for citizens by an organization that continuously has shown no care for the rights of citizens ... and yet is given a free hand to do what it wants.

There's no negative impact to saying "no you can't do the thing until you get your security shit together".

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It could be because the role of courts is to interpret the laws enacted by congress.

To my knowledge there is no law enacted by congress that dictates how SSN data is stored. Congress created the social security apparatus but day to day operations of said apparatus are in executive branch and executive branch ultimately carries the wishes of the president. So if president directs part of executive branch (DOGE) to audit another part of executive branch (social security) it's legal and works exactly as the constitution prescribed.

The departments of government do have laws on how they handle data and handing it to another organization with no rules clearly would violate those laws.

Care to elaborate for this specific case?

https://www.justice.gov/opcl/privacy-act-1974

Doesn't seem to prescribe implementation details.

That’s how laws tend to work, yes.

>> To my knowledge there is no law enacted by congress that dictates how SSN data is stored.

Like the Privacy Act of 1974?

"The Privacy Act prohibits the disclosure of information from a system of records absent of the written consent of the subject individual, unless the disclosure is pursuant to one of twelve statutory exceptions."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974

https://www.justice.gov/opcl/privacy-act-1974

Federal agencies are subject to this law and these actions are violations of the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974#Under_the_...

There used to be the right of privacy.

The negative impact would be that they couldn't do the very shadey things with the data that the intended from the onset had they had to subject to basically any security oversight.

Unfortunately, the courts can largely only address harm. If someone's data actually gets stolen, or if a specific law is broken, the courts are the government arm to address it.

Avoiding ending up in court is the purpose of agency policy, and... gestures widely at the current state of the United States Executive regarding policy adherence.

It is absolutely the case that courts can address potential harm before it occurs. There have been already many cases rising up where people sue to stop government actions because if taken, they would cause harm. But... the current SCOTUS is all onboard the dictator train (unitary executive theory) and have stayed lower court orders on the basis that the president would have irreparable harm if orders, even unconstitutional ones, are not carried out immediately.

Can you give an example of the kind of prior restraint you're thinking of?

What you're describing is an injunction, and in general, courts are loathe to hand them out (this one notwithstanding). It happens, but the bar is generally extremely high. Even prior to Trump, I wouldn't expect one for this category of executive operation for the same reason that I wouldn't expect one if someone complained that the government was physically transferring PII in an agent's car instead of a Brinks truck.

Birthright citizenship was one. An injunction was granted, then stayed by SCOTUS. It was only when a new class action lawsuit was filed that kept it going.

Another is the NIH funding, where lower courts agreed and SCOTUS over-turned. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/21/g-s1-84441/supreme-court-nih-...

Precisely. That's two examples of SCOTUS restraining the lower courts from imposing constraints before harm had happened. That's what I mean regarding the court generally not having the authority to act preemptively.

These were actually examples of courts imposing blocks to prevent harm, but the SCOTUS over-riding them, without any legal justification!

Consider the same SCOTUS and its block on Biden's student loan relief. A notable example because the president has clear authority to waive or modify the loans. But it was blocked.

You're correct, but this policy is to enshrine a legal doctrine (rather than a statutory requirement) that harm must be allowed to occur - apparently without regard to the predictability or scope of the harm. It's like a trolley problem where one track has a large number of people about to be crushed by the trolley car, while the other track is completely empty - and SCOTUS arguing that the lever can't be pulled to divert the trolley because the accident hasn't happened yet.

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