Federal Judge Blocks DOGE Access to Sensitive Data At Education Department and OPM
A federal judge Monday temporarily blocked the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from sharing sensitive data with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the faux agency headed by billionaire Elon Musk that has drawn a flurry of legal actions against it.
In issuing the temporary restraining order, the judge said DOGE’s access to the data breached federal privacy laws and posed irreparable harm to plaintiffs.
The order was in response to a lawsuit from a coalition of labor unions against Musk’s DOGE earlier this month. The suit, led by the American Federation of Teachers, sought to prevent DOGE from accessing private data at the Education Department, the Treasury Department and the OPM.
The suit asserted that The Trump administration violated federal privacy laws in giving DOGE access to systems containing personal information on millions of Americans without their consent.
In issuing the order, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman said the plaintiffs “have made a clear showing that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm without injunctive relief.”
She noted that people affiliated with DOGE have been granted access to systems that contain Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, income and assets, citizenship status and disability status.
Boardman said the plaintiffs showed that the Education Department and OPM likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act by giving DOGE access to the sensitive data in defiance of the Privacy Act.
“This continuing, unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates is irreparable harm that money damages cannot rectify,” Boardman said.
In arguing against a temporary restraining order, the government had claimed that such relief would limit President Donald Trump’s ability “to effectuate the policy choices the American people elected him to pursue.”
Boardman said relief does not prevent the president from creating policies. Rather, she said it “prevents the disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates who, on the current record, do not have a need to know the information to perform their duties.”
However, the judge did deny portions of the plaintiffs’ motion, including one that sought to prevent the Treasury Department from sharing data with DOGE.