Summary:


Donald Trump’s interim Social Security chief suggested Thursday night he will effectively turn off the agency that manages the essential safety net program for seniors and the disabled, if Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) can’t access the non-anonymized sensitive personal information and data of hundreds of millions of Americans, based on a judge’s order.

“My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” said Lee Dudek, acting Social Security Administration (SSA) commissioner, arguing the order was too broad, according to Bloomberg News. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems,” he said, adding: “Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency.”

Dudek’s threat to block SSA employees from using the agency’s IT systems — a move that could halt Social Security payments — came in response to a judge’s temporary restraining order in a case brought by the AFL-CIO labor union. The order bars Social Security Administration officials from allowing DOGE, including Musk, and the SSA’s DOGE team to access personally identifiable information. It also directs Musk and DOGE to delete from their possession all non-anonymized personal data, and bars them from having access to SSA computers or code.

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander wrote that the SSA had likely violated administrative and privacy laws when it gave DOGE “unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers’ license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses.”

She added that the “defendants, with so-called experts on the DOGE Team, never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA’s entire record systems, thereby exposing personal, confidential, sensitive, and private information that millions of Americans entrusted to their government.”


  • Veedem
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    91
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 days ago

    That’s the move that will send people over the edge. What a ridiculously stupid administration

    • d00phy
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      59
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      Unfortunately it won’t. Too many people didn’t learn, and learn from, history. They’ll watch as their freedoms are eroded away in the name of “making America great,” and then cry about how everything got so bad as if they had nothing to do with it.

      • Dadifer
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        33
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        I think you underestimate the rage of old white people.

      • Chris
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        3 days ago

        I dunno, killing entitlements is the only thing that seems to energize a lot of them.

      • d00phy
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        3 days ago

        Y’all, it would make me ecstatic to be completely wrong with this hot take. I guess it’s a combination of my lack of faith in the citizenship to give enough of a shit, and my lack of faith in our government to listen.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        3 days ago

        Take away SS, and you will leave many old people with nothing left to lose, and many of them own guns, and have had military training. In addition, ANY of them that kill governmental officials will be hailed as heros, the same as Luigi.

    • foggy
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      35
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 days ago

      I’m convinced they want civil eruption to declare martial law, call off elections, and seal the deal.

      • GreyAlien@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        3 days ago

        At this point, they don’t need martial law to call off elections anymore, it’s already done.

      • Hobbes_Dent
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 days ago

        I’m convinced that when that happens everyone will allow it like they continue to do.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 days ago

        The goal is Martial Law and the suspension of elections. He needs to preserve his Congressional majorities.

        Its still too early. If he tries it now, there is too much time to fight about it between now and the election in 2026.

        The summer/ fall of 2026 is going to get really ugly and violent, and he will suspend elections about a month before, in early October.

        If he does, we will have HELLoween on October 31, 2026.

      • Sirus@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        Elections still happen at that time. Elections happened during the last civil war

    • Xanthobilly
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 days ago

      I’m reminded of this every time someone gives an ultimatum with Trump.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      They will blame Democrats, saying that wokeism is preventing DOGE from running things efficiently, or something. And people will lap it up and get angry at the wrong people.

      • Baron Von J
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        3 days ago

        I don’t think they will this time. Republican representatives have already had to stop holding town halls because their districts are so pissed off at Musk and DOGE.

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    3 days ago

    We’ve already seen how these types of scenarios play out:

    • If DOGE isn’t given access to SSA’s systems, SSA will fuck over everyone who relies on them and MAGA will blame democrats for their unwillingness to negotiate
    • If DOGE does get access to SSA’s systems, they’ll hold hostage everyone in the country and MAGA will blame Biden for bad security and accuse democrats of weakening national security to sabotage President Mu/mp
    • If somehow everything magically works out okay, it’ll be because Mu/mp is the greatest smartest bestest president of all time and deserves a third term

    This is not an argument for doing nothing, just a forewarning to brace for undue blowback.

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    3 days ago

    LOL as usual, trying to spin it like it’s the people’s own fault they’re getting robbed blind. the worst thing is that the maga cultist sheep will lap it up like hogs at the trough, willingly handing over every last right they didn’t even know they had, while calling themselves the party of “individual liberty and freedom”

    • DarkFuture
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 days ago

      while calling themselves the party of “individual liberty and freedom”

      The days where they could masquerade as this are gone.

      They are fascists. Period.

      • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 days ago

        ever since the “alt-right” days, i’ve been saying stop using the bullshit neutral-sounding terminology they chose for themselves, and call them what they are: fucking nazis

  • DarkFuture
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    3 days ago

    If they want to find out what violent revolution looks like, then they can go right ahead and stop social security.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      3 days ago

      what violent revolution looks like

      I fear that’s exactly what he’s trying to do. He wants martial law, civil law gets suspended and military swoops in.

      Of course, what happens if instead of calling in the military, he just calls in the military industrial complex. You KNOW we have to have autonomous weaponry by now.

  • givesomefucks
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    3 days ago

    “Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency.”

    They’ve done that…

    It’s just not how he wants it to be run…

    Meanwhile, Dudek was fired for disobeying SSA as a mid level staffer in favor of DOGE, so trump made him the head:

    https://abc17news.com/politics/national-politics/cnn-us-politics/2025/02/22/how-a-mid-level-staffer-rose-to-oversee-the-social-security-administration-within-days/

  • NocturnalMorning
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    3 days ago

    Do it, see what happens. You wanna actually see a million people overrun the Whitehouse security? This is how you do it. Martial law ain’t gonna stop half the country driving into Washington DC.

  • jerryh100
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    3 days ago

    SSS: Stealing Social Security so they can fund the billionaires tax cut