Social Security chief backs down on threat to shut down agency after DOGE ruling
The acting social security commissioner is backing down on a threat to cease operations at the agency after a judge blocked DOGE staffers from accessing data.
WASHINGTON — Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek is backing down on a threat to cease operations at the agency after a federal judge blocked staffers at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive data housed at the agency.
Dudek’s reversal comes after U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander on Thursday granted a request by several union groups seeking to stop “DOGE affiliates” from accessing the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including their Social Security numbers, medical records, birth and marriage certificates, bank and credit card information and tax information.
Hollander said DOGE was engaged in a “fishing expedition” for fraud based on “little more than suspicion” and said the temporary organization “never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems.”
Dudek, in a series of interviews following the judge’s decision, criticized the ruling as being overly broad and threatened to terminate access to sensitive data for every employee at the agency, arguing they could all be considered “DOGE affiliates.”
“My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” Dudek said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Thursday. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.”
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