By Jack Queen
(Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday blocked Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Social Security records as part of its hunt under President Donald Trump for fraud and waste, calling the effort a “fishing expedition.”
U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of Maryland said in her ruling the Social Security Administration likely violated privacy laws by giving DOGE “unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans.”
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” Hollander said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)
