In a 137-page ruling, the US District Court for the District of Maryland granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Thursday blocking Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from having continued unlimited access to sensitive Social Security information of millions of Americans.

The plaintiffs in this case were two national labor and membership associations, and an advocacy group, which alleged that the DOGE team is essentially engaging in a “fishing expedition” under the guise of searching for fraud based on “little more than suspicion.” Accusing the Social Security Administration (SSA) of facilitating this expedition, the plaintiffs said that SSA granted Musk’s aides:

unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers’ license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses.

The plaintiffs further accused DOGE of launching “a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack” and criticized its methods as “tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.”

Judge Ellen Hollander agreed with the plaintiffs that the actions of the SSA in granting such an unfettered access to sensitive data “is arbitrary and capricious, and in violation of the Privacy Act and the [Administrative Procedure Act].” Acknowledging that the “American public may well applaud and support the Trump Administration’s mission to root out fraud, waste, and bloat from federal agencies,” Hollander could not but help noting a blatant irony inherent in this case:

the identity of these DOGE affiliates have been concealed because defendants are concerned that the disclosure of even their names would expose them to harassment and thus invade their privacy. The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent, and which contain sensitive, confidential, and personally identifiable information (“PII”).

In granting the TRO, the court discussed the legal standard for a TRO in detail and concluded that the plaintiffs have shown a sufficient likelihood of success on the merits, that their members will suffer irreparable harm if the TRO is not granted, that the equities tip in the plaintiffs’ favor, and that the TRO serves the public interest.

The president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (one of the plaintiffs in the case), Lee Saunders, hailed the decision as a “major win for working people and retirees across the country.” Saunders added: “The court saw that Elon Musk and his unqualified lackeys present a grave danger to Social Security and have illegally accessed the data of millions of Americans”