Left: Elon Musk flashes his T-shirt that reads "DOGE" to the media as he walks on South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, Sunday, March 9, 2025 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana). Right: President Donald Trump pauses as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration is violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to release records related to the use of sensitive Social Security data by the members of the defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a transparency-focused watchdog group.
In a 28-page complaint, American Oversight accused the Social Security Administration (SSA) of violating FOIA by failing to release requested information about how DOGE teams embedded within the agency shared data containing "personally identifiable information."
The lawsuit comes in the aftermath of whistleblower disclosures and a Maryland court filing in which the government admitted DOGE team members may have violated internal SSA policy or otherwise been in violation of the court's order restricting access to the data in question.
"Americans hand over their most sensitive personal information to the federal government because they have to, and they have every right to expect that information will be protected," American Oversight Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement. "Instead, the Trump administration gave DOGE access to that information, and we're now learning about serious failures to safeguard it."
The lawsuit recalls the broad strokes of a January filing in which the SSA notified the Maryland court about several information technology practices of the agency's DOGE team.
Those practices included the use of a third-party server administered by Cloudflare to upload large amounts of sensitive data.
That SSA filing, however, conceded the agency "had not been able to determine exactly what data were shared to Cloudflare or whether the data still existed on the server," the lawsuit notes.
One DOGE team member attached a file containing "names and addresses of approximately 1,000 people derived from SSA systems of record" to an email sent outside the agency, the lawsuit recalls.
The lawsuit goes on to catalog other such admissions and media reporting on additional data breaches allegedly caused by DOGE staff.
In October 2025, American Oversight filed an initial FOIA request broadly seeking records related to DOGE's presence within SSA. Earlier this year, the group filed two additional FOIA requests based on the admissions from the court filing, public reporting, and the whistleblower claims.
To date, the SSA has essentially gone radio silent regarding the first two requests, according to the lawsuit.
"Apart from denying Plaintiff's fee waiver request, Defendant has not communicated further with Plaintiff regarding the request, nor has it produced any responsive records," the lawsuit reads.
As for the third request, which centers on allegations that "a former SSA employee had sensitive SSA data on a thumb drive that he intended to transfer to a personal computer and eventually provide to his private employer," the group received a markedly different, though not unusual, response.
In July, the SSA provided American Oversight with a "Glomar" response, infamous verbiage in open records litigation.
With such a response, a federal agency will decline to "confirm or deny" the existence of the records sought.
In August, the group appealed the Glomar response. The SSA confirmed receipt of that appeal later that same month, and since then has not communicated again with the group, the lawsuit says.
"As of the date of this Complaint, Defendant has failed to (a) notify American Oversight of a final determination regarding the Cloudflare and Thumb Drive Requests, including the scope of responsive records it intends to produce or withhold and the reasons for any withholdings; or (b) produce the requested records or demonstrate that they are lawfully exempt from production," the lawsuit goes on.
The filing then refers, in substantially similar terms, to the agency's alleged silence following the appeal of the Glomar response.
"Through Defendant's failures to respond to American Oversight's FOIA requests and FOIA appeal within the time period required by law, American Oversight has constructively exhausted its administrative remedies and seeks immediate judicial review," the lawsuit continues.
The lawsuit seeks "declaratory and injunctive relief requiring Defendant to promptly produce all non-exempt records responsive to American Oversight's FOIA requests and provide indexes justifying withholding of any responsive records withheld under claim of exemption."
The filing specifically wants a judge to order the SSA "to conduct a search or searches reasonably calculated to uncover all records responsive to the FOIA requests identified in this pleading" and for the agency to produce the requested records within 20 days of a court order.
The group expects that even in the presence of a court order, the SSA will claim some exemptions and wants "indexes justifying the withholding of any responsive records withheld under claim of exemption."
"The people who stand to pay the price aren't the officials who made these decisions," Chukwu's statement continues. "They're working families, retirees, and everyday Americans who could face identity theft, financial fraud, or threats to the benefits they've earned. Enough is enough."
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