Judge Hollander Refuses to Rescind DOGE Discovery, Citing SSA's Own Admissions of PII Searches and Access After the Restraining Order (AFSCME v. SSA)

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander denied the government’s motion to rescind her order allowing limited discovery in AFSCME v. SSA. She rested the ruling on the government’s own corrections to the record, which she described as admissions that DOGE team members ran PII searches on the day compliance with the restraining order was certified, and that “DOGE personnel received PII access on at least two occasions after the TRO was issued”.

The admissions the court relied on (agency’s own filing). In its notice of corrections, filed by the Justice Department for SSA, the agency stated:

• DOGE team members had shared data through a third-party server, and “Cloudflare is not approved for storing SSA data”. The notice dates this to the days before the restraining order. SSA said it could not determine what data went there.
• A DOGE team member emailed an encrypted file to DHS, copying a senior U.S. DOGE Service adviser. SSA believes the file held “names and addresses of approximately 1,000 people”.
• A DOGE team member signed a voter-data agreement with a political advocacy group. SSA said “This agreement was not reviewed or approved through the agency’s data exchange procedures.” It also said “SSA has not yet seen evidence that SSA data were shared with the advocacy group”.

Ledger class. ADMITTED. The court’s opinion treats the admissions as raising questions of noncompliance with a court order sufficient to justify discovery. It is not a contempt finding and not a holding that the Privacy Act was violated. For each earlier declaration it corrects, the notice repeats that “SSA believed that statement to be accurate at the time it was made”.