Today's opinion is here. I'm on the run, and can't add more right now, but I thought I'd pass it along.
UPDATE: Just got back, and thought I'd post this excerpt:
Plaintiffs allege that, since February 20, 2025, USDS [DOGE] personnel have obtained unprecedented access to information systems across numerous federal agencies, including Treasury and OPM. In this regard, Treasury operates the Bureau of Fiscal Service ("BFS"), which manages "a federal payment system that distributes nearly 90% of all federal payments, including Social Security benefits, tax refunds, and vendor payments." The BFS payment systems contain the sensitive personal data, such as full Social Security numbers, of "tens of millions of individuals." OPM manages the Enterprise Human Resources Integration ("EHRI") system, which is "responsible for maintaining the integrity of the electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF), which protects information rights, benefits, and entitlements of federal employees." The EHRI contains "Social Security numbers, dates of birth, salaries, home addresses, and job descriptions of all civil government workers, along with any disciplinary actions they have faced." Plaintiffs further assert that the BFS and EHRI systems and the information contained therein are typically protected by information security protocols mandated by the Federal Information Security Act of 2014 ("FISMA"), privacy protections established by the Privacy Act of 1974 (the "Privacy Act"), and supervision by trained personnel.
Plaintiffs allege that, at the direction of the DOGE Defendants, the Government Defendants have abandoned these safeguards by providing the DOGE Defendants with unlawful access to sensitive and protected data in the BFS and EHRI systems and allowing the data to be used for prohibited purposes. On January 27, 2025, after being confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury, Defendant Scott Bessent granted USDS personnel access to the BFS payment systems, allegedly giving USDS personnel the ability to "stop payments from the federal government."
As a consequence of granting this access, Plaintiffs assert that Secretary Bessent and the Treasury Department disclosed personal information contained in those systems to individuals not authorized by law to access them. After USDS personnel received access to the BFS systems, the official USDS/DOGE account on Twitter/X tweeted that it was "stopping improper payments." Similarly, Elon Musk, "an individual who is either Acting USDS Administrator or otherwise exercising substantial authority within USDS," stated on his personal Twitter/X account that "[t]he @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments." Plaintiffs further allege that, upon information and belief, USDS and Treasury personnel are unlawfully exfiltrating identifying information from the BFS payment systems and redisclosing the information to individuals not employed at Treasury, and that USDS is moving to "stop approved payments to federal contractors, charities that provide social services, and other federal departments."
