DOGE’s concerns about inefficiencies and corruption in the sprawling entitlement program hold no basis that warrants access to sensitive databases, U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote in a decision that directs Musk’s initiative to destroy SSA data it has obtained.
The Maryland judge accused DOGE of engaging “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,” Hollander said. “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.”
DOGE is barred from installing software in Social Security systems and must remove any software that has already been…
