The Supreme Court sided with the Department of Government Efficiency in two cases concerning the group’s access to Social Security data and whether it has to comply with a public records law.
In the Friday decisions, Supreme Court justices said they will allow the group to access Social Security Administration data it had been seeking and halted any forced compliance with a FOIA request from a government watchdog group.
The court ruled 6-3 in both cases, with the liberal wing of the high court dissenting.
DOGE to access Social Security Administration records
In the Social Security case, DOGE, which seeks to modernize and cut government spending, requested data from the Social Security Administration to achieve its goals. The DOGE team assigned to the agency should have “access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” according to the order.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissenting opinion questioning why the court should intervene on an emergency basis.
“In essence, the ‘urgency’ underlying the government’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,” she