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Your Social Security records are like a suitcase you pack for a trip, full of things you would rather keep private.
Not entirely private, of course. Just as Transportation Security Administration agents can take a quick look inside your suitcase to check for contraband, qualified staffers with the Social Security Administration can also take a look at the records of more than 340 million Americans.
Now, the Trump administration wants the team behind Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency to be able to rummage around that data.
The people who normally look at your Social Security data are trained on the federal Privacy Act and have to pass background checks. Other members of the DOGE team, by contrast, include a 19-year-old nicknamed "Big Balls" who was reportedly fired from an internship with a cybersecurity company after he was accused of leaking proprietary information. (He said at the time that he had done “nothing contractually wrong," according to Bloomberg.)
The administration says this access is necessary so that DOGE can root out waste, fraud and abuse, but this is among the most sensitive databases about everyday Americans that the federal government keeps. It includes names, addresses, Social Security numbers and bank accounts, not to mention how much money you've made at every job you've ever had and medical records that show if you have a disability.
In a 145-page ruling last month, U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander blocked DOGE from accessing the data, finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in a lawsuit arguing that giving DOGE access violates the Privacy Act.
Last week, the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court asking for DOGE to be allowed access.
In the filing, Solicitor General John Sauer accidentally made a telling comparison, complaining that Hollander, an Obama appointee, was treating DOGE employees "as the equivalent of intruders who break into hotel rooms."
That seems apt, actually. Just because you let trained TSA agents who've passed background checks look inside your suitcase, that doesn't mean you would let just anyone from the federal government do it — much less people hired by Musk for his dodgy DOGE operation.