An appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) can access sensitive federal data of millions of Americans, reversing a temporary injunction that was issued earlier this year.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision that unions looking to bar DOGE from accessing sensitive data at the Treasury Department, Office of Personnel Management and Department of Education were unlikely to succeed on the merits as they argued the move would be a violation of federal privacy laws.
“As we will explain, adding ‘likelihood’ to the merits analysis creates a probabilistic structure that stacks the deck against a plaintiff who must prevail on multiple independent issues to prevail overall,” Judge Julius N. Richardson, an appointee of President Trump, wrote for the majority.
“The district court failed to account for this structure and thus miscalculated Plaintiffs’ likelihood of succeeding on the merits,” Richardson continued. “So, we vacate the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction and remand for further proceedings.”
In March, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman prevented DOGE from accessing troves of personal data at the three agencies of around 2 million plaintiffs.
A month later, in April, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit issued a pause in a 2-1 ruling on Boardman’s decision to curtail DOGE’s access to personal data.
Five union organizations, including the National Federation of Federal Employees and the American Federation of Teachers, along with six Americans, sued the three agencies over DOGE’s access to personal data.
Richardson and Judge G. Steven Agee, a former President George W. Bush appointee, were in the majority. Judge Robert B. King, an appointee of former President Clinton, dissented.
“Contrary to the panel majority, the district court did exactly what it was obliged to do. Specifically, in its thorough and cogent Opinion, the district court separately assessed the plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the contested merits issues — i.e., whether the plaintiffs possess Article III standing to pursue their APA claim, whether there was a final agency action for purposes of APA jurisdiction, whether the APA claim is otherwise precluded by the existence of an adequate remedy under the Privacy Act, and whether the Privacy Act’s need-to-know exception renders lawful the disclosure of personally identifiable information to DOGE,” King wrote in his dissent.
Updated at 3:10 p.m. EDT.
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