A federal judge declined to block DOGE from accessing swaths of Treasury Department data on Friday morning, denying plaintiffs an injunction.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s austerity operation will once again have access to some of the nation’s most sensitive personal data on federal paychecks, Social Security, and tax refunds, along with other payments.
In the Friday morning opinion, D.C. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned her February 6 temporary order limiting access to the system. That order allowed only existing Treasury employees, plus Department of Government Efficiency staffers Tom Krause and Marko Elez, to access Treasury data.
Kollar-Kotelly admitted the plaintiff’s fears on unfettered DOGE data access were “understandable and no doubt widely shared,” but said she couldn’t issue a restraining order.
“If Plaintiffs could show that Defendants imminently planned to make their private information public or to share that information with individuals outside the federal government with no obligation to maintain its confidentiality, the Court would not hesitate to find a likelihood of irreparable harm,” the appointee of former President Bill Clinton wrote. “But on the present record, Plaintiffs have not shown that Defendants have such a plan.”
Though DOGE is reportedly training a massive AI model using data from various federal agencies, there isn’t yet word from the agency about whether that includes sensitive Treasury data.
If that changes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote, plaintiffs are “free to return to federal court to seek any proper emergency remedy.”
The ruling is a boost to Musk and comes days after President Donald Trump somewhat scaled back his authority to make firing decisions for cabinet leaders amid GOP pressure.
DOGE previously won in court in fighting off a bid led by Democratic states to restrain the group from making changes at various federal agencies, with Barack Obama appointee Tanya Chutkan denying to issue “prophylactic restraining orders.”
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