Appeals court allows DOGE access

A federal appeals court said the Social Security Administration can keep letting Department of Government Efficiency staff look at agency data while the case keeps moving, even though judges also said the government’s newer disclosures were “alarming.” The ruling came from the full United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on April 10, 2026, in a case brought by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Alliance for Retired Americans, and the American Federation of Teachers. (ca4.uscourts.gov) The data in this fight is not a narrow file cabinet. The Social Security Administration holds records tied to retirement checks, disability benefits, earnings histories, addresses, bank details, and Social Security numbers for huge parts of the country. (law.cornell.edu) This started after President Donald Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency, which told agencies to set up internal teams and give them “full and prompt access” to unclassified records and information technology systems, subject to existing law. That order put the Social Security Administration on a collision course with privacy law almost immediately. (law.cornell.edu) A federal district judge in Maryland blocked that access on April 17, 2025 with a preliminary injunction, which is a temporary order used before a case is fully decided. The government then asked first the Fourth Circuit and then the Supreme Court to put that block on hold. (law.cornell.edu) The Supreme Court did exactly that on June 6, 2025 in an unsigned emergency order. The justices said the Social Security Administration could let members of its Department of Government Efficiency team access the records “in order for those members to do their work” while the appeal continued. (law.cornell.edu) That emergency order is why this new opinion is getting so much attention from lawyers. The Fourth Circuit’s majority said the Supreme Court had already made a merits judgment strong enough that the lower court could not keep the injunction in place on the same record. (reason.com) Then the record changed. In a January 2026 correction, the government said Department of Government Efficiency associates may have improperly accessed sensitive Social Security Administration data, that much of the access happened outside official protocols, and that an unauthorized server was involved. (govexec.com) That same correction said one Department of Government Efficiency employee signed an agreement to share Social Security Administration data with an unnamed political advocacy group that wanted to overturn election results in certain states. The government also said the agency still did not know the full scope of the access and sharing. (govexec.com) The Fourth Circuit majority did not shrug that off. Judge Toby Heytens wrote that the government’s recent acknowledgments were “alarming” and said reports tied to a whistleblower account about an ex-associate planning to take sensitive data to a contractor job were “even more alarming.” (govexec.com) But the majority still threw out the injunction because preliminary injunction appeals usually ask whether the district judge was right on the record that existed at the time. On that question, the court said the plaintiffs had not shown likely irreparable harm strongly enough to keep the order alive after the Supreme Court’s stay. (ca4.uscourts.gov) Several judges on the same court were furious about that logic. Judge Robert King wrote that the courts now know the government gave the district court “patently false information,” and Judge James Wynn warned that treating emergency Supreme Court orders like binding precedent would shift constitutional law toward rushed motion practice instead of full opinions. (govexec.com) (law.com) So the practical result is narrow but important. Department of Government Efficiency personnel keep their Social Security Administration access for now, the injunction is gone, and the case goes back to the district court, where the newer evidence about improper access can still be used in the next round. (ca4.uscourts.gov)