June 7 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing members of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency to access personal Social Security Administration data.
On Friday, the Court's six conservatives granted an emergency application filed by the Trump administration to lift an injunction issued by a federal judge in Maryland. Opposing the injunction were the three liberal justices: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
There are 69 million retirees, disabled workers, dependents and survivors who receive Social Security benefits, representing 28.75% of the U.S. population.
In a separate two-page order issued Friday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration for now to shield DOGE from freedom of information requests seeking thousands of pages of material. This vote also was 6-3 with no written dissenting opinions.
In the two-page unsigned order on access, the court said: "We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work."
