Ellen Hollander

Stories

DOGE's unauthorized access to federal data systems

As of May 2026: Presiding over SSA v. AFSCME case

The Privacy Act of 1974 was written to prevent exactly this: government employees using federal databases containing Social Security numbers, health records, and bank account information for unauthorized purposes. Department of Government Efficiency staffers did it for nearly a year. They copied records of 300 million Americans to unsecured servers, shared files with outside political groups, and coordinated with election-denial activists to match voter rolls against Social Security data.

Updated May 22

Notable Quotes

"The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion."

from DOGE's unauthorized access to federal data systems · Updated May 22

"The issue here is not the work that DOGE or the Agency want to do, but rather how they want to do the work."

from DOGE's unauthorized access to federal data systems · Updated May 22