One of the first acts by Trump in regard to DOGE was to give the agency access to Social Security records to try to root out fraud.
The move was immediately challenged by Democrats, as well as them touting the narrative that the access was putting Americans at risk, but the Supreme Court has just ruled against the challenge.
The argument by Dems, at least to me, seemed ridiculous from the outset.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has virtually every record imaginable, and if it did fall into the wrong hands, it would create significant issues, but other agencies have access to this information.
And let’s face facts... with all the hacks that have taken place of government agencies and credit card companies, all of our information is already likely on the dark web.
When the challenge to the access came before District Court Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander, the judge agreed this was an “intrusion into the personal affairs of millions of Americans,” and the access was blocked.
Last month, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court to allow the administration to give DOGE access to these records.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer claimed the blocking of the records “does not merely halt the Executive Branch’s critically important efforts to improve its information-technology infrastructure and waste,” but “also constitutes inappropriate superintendence of a coequal branch.”
Sauer further argued that the plaintiffs in the case did not have standing because they are unable to show any harm having actually taken place by these actions.
The case went before the Court last week.
On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that the SSA had to give access to records to DOGE, in what will be considered a crushing defeat to Democrats.
The ruling fell along ideological lines, with the majority stating, "We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work.”
The dissent claimed this ruling created “grave privacy risks” for millions of Americans, but I am just not buying it.
As I stated, our records are already out there, so giving them to another government agency does not seem to be the risk to me that Dems are making it out to be. It just seems like a ploy to block DOGE from uncovering more waste and fraud.