On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of granting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to sensitive Social Security records.
What Happened: The Supreme Court granted the Donald Trump administration's emergency request to lift a lower court's ruling that had blocked DOGE's access to Social Security's data, reported Politico.
This decision allows DOGE's team, tasked with detecting and preventing fraud, to access personal information in the Social Security Administration's (SSA) systems, including tax and wage reports and disability payments.
A three-paragraph unsigned order from the court's majority stated, "We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work."
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However, the decision was met with dissent from three liberal justices. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a 10-page dissent that the ruling posed “grave privacy risks for millions of Americans.”
Why It's Important: The legal battle over DOGE's access to Social Security data is one of several that emerged in the early weeks of Trump's second term, as a cost-cutting team led by Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk spread throughout the federal government.
Last month, Musk ended his contentious four-month stint as head of the DOGE. Despite falling well short of the projected savings, President Trump honored him with a golden key to the White House.
DOGE set out to cut $1 trillion in federal spending by targeting bureaucracy and inefficiencies. However, according to its own website, the initiative has only achieved $180 billion in documented savings to date.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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