Judge: Federal government lawyers ‘barely defend’ giving Elon Musk’s DOGE illegal access to government data

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breached federal law by sharing sensitive government data with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to a federal judge.

In a 39-page ruling released on Tuesday, Judge Denise Cote said OPM violated the Privacy Act of 1974, a post-Watergate law which prohibits the disclosure of certain records and outlines requirements for safeguarding others, and subsequently disobeyed its own cybersecurity practices.

OPM failed to provide a credible reason for why DOGE would need access to personally identifiable information (PII) of tens of millions of federal employees, as well as applicants and retirees, according to Cote. 

“The defendants barely defend its legality, relying instead on what has happened since to argue that the case is moot and that prospective relief is unnecessary,” Cote wrote in her ruling.

Musk assembled DOGE in the first days of President Donald Trump’s second term, claiming the special advisory would root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. While DOGE claims to have saved the government $215........

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