Judge rules DOGE can access personal data despite invasion of privacy claims

[Lonestarblue]

12. So good of this judge to stand ready to remedy the harm after it's done!

Where were the questions this judge should gave been asking about why the DOGE employees needed to know our most private data. The amorphous excuse given is for “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” As anyone who knows only a smidgen about technology knows, a system can be modernized and made more efficient with no need to have access to my personal name, bank account number, email, address, and Social Security number. Where is the question of how DOGE will specifically use this information and whether that use violates the Privacy Act?

This judge, wrongly in my view, assumed that DOGE has good intentions and can have access to whatever they want. The DOGE employees have an agenda totally unrelated to data privacy. If they use the information to illegally withdraw Social Security deposits from my bank account, for example, and refuse to return it because they’ve decided that I’m actually dead (as has happened to others already), then I’m welcome to pay a lawyer thousands of dollars to help me retrieve my money and this judge will be happy to hear the case. Or if DOGE gives my information to outside vendors to modernize technology, they have a contract but their employees have unnecessary access to data that we certainly did not give them. We are already bombarded with spam and data hacks where our email and account passwords get stolen. Giving DOGE access to even more private data like bank names and account numbers is just opening the door to more identify theft.