SSA v. AFSCME
The Supreme Court allowed the Social Security Administration to give DOGE staff broad access to agency records — including the highly sensitive personal data of tens of millions of Americans — while legal challenges to that access continue working through the courts.
The ruling is temporary and does not decide whether DOGE's access is actually lawful; it only lifts the lower court's interim restrictions while the Fourth Circuit hears the appeal.
“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 Court's bottom-line rationale for lifting the lower court's restrictions on DOGE's access to SSA records.
How it got here: A Maryland federal judge issued a preliminary injunction limiting DOGE's SSA data access; the Fourth Circuit en banc refused to stay it 9-6; the government then applied directly to the Supreme Court for a stay.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The Social Security Administration holds extraordinarily sensitive personal data on virtually every American — Social Security numbers, bank accounts, medical histories, disability records, and more. After DOGE was created in January 2025 and demanded broad, immediate access to SSA data systems, two labor unions and an advocacy group sued, arguing the access violated the federal Privacy Act and administrative law. A federal judge found the access likely unlawful and imposed temporary, qualified limits on what DOGE staff could see while the lawsuit proceeded.
The question before the Court
Can the government give DOGE staffers unrestricted access to Social Security records for tens of millions of Americans while a lawsuit challenging the legality of that access is still being decided in the courts below?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court paused the lower court's restrictions and allowed the SSA to give DOGE staff access to agency records while the appeal continues. Applying the standard four-factor test for emergency stays, which weighs the likelihood of winning the case, the risk of serious harm without relief, the harm to the opposing side if relief is granted, and the public interest, the Court concluded the balance favored letting the government proceed now rather than waiting for the courts below to finish their work.
The stay is explicitly limited in duration: it lasts only while the Fourth Circuit resolves the government's appeal, and potentially while the Supreme Court considers whether to take the case afterward. If the Supreme Court later declines to hear it, the stay ends automatically. The Court did not decide whether DOGE's access to SSA records is actually legal under the Privacy Act or federal administrative law — those questions remain live in the lower courts.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Americans whose Social Security numbers, bank account details, medical histories, and other sensitive information are held by the SSA may have that data accessed by DOGE personnel before any court has ruled that such access is legal. The ruling also signals that the Court will step in to lift emergency restrictions on government action even when lower courts have found the government's case for urgency to be thin.
What changes now
The Fourth Circuit will continue hearing the government's appeal of the preliminary injunction on the merits, with briefing scheduled to conclude the following month and all active circuit judges participating. If the Fourth Circuit rules against the government, or the Supreme Court later denies review, the stay ends and the data-access restrictions could be reimposed. The underlying lawsuit — testing whether DOGE's access violates the Privacy Act and federal administrative law — is far from over.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly did not decide whether DOGE's access to SSA records is lawful under the Privacy Act or any other federal law. It only lifted interim restrictions while the appeal proceeds. The Fourth Circuit and, potentially, the Supreme Court will still have to address the merits of those legal questions.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson argued the government never showed it would suffer any real, concrete harm from complying with the district court's temporary restrictions — the standard every other litigant must meet to get a stay. She contended the majority's willingness to lift the restrictions anyway signals that the government gets preferential treatment at the Supreme Court's emergency docket, undermines the lower courts' carefully crafted interim orders, and creates serious privacy risks for millions of Americans before any court has ruled DOGE's access lawful.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the four-factor emergency-stay test from Nken v. Holder (a 2009 case setting the standard for when the Court will pause a lower court's order): it asks whether the party seeking the pause is likely to win the underlying case, whether that party will suffer serious and unrecoverable harm without the pause, whether granting the pause will seriously harm the opposing side, and where the broader public interest lies.
- After weighing all four factors together, the Court concluded the balance warranted granting the stay and allowing DOGE staffers to access the SSA records needed to perform their work — though the brief majority opinion does not detail how it weighted each factor.
- The stay was expressly tied to the appellate calendar: it runs only through the Fourth Circuit's decision on the underlying appeal, and if the government then seeks Supreme Court review, through the Court's disposition of that petition. The stay terminates automatically if the Supreme Court ultimately declines to hear the case.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Nken v. Holder (556 U. S. 418)
Both sides accept the four-factor Nken test as the controlling standard for emergency stays; the Court applies it here.