What did Donald Trump do today?

He failed in an attempt to give Elon Musk unfiltered access to the most sensitive information the government collects about its citizens.

A federal judge today blocked the Trump administration's attempts to allow his political patron, Elon Musk, to continue to access the most sensitive data that the United States collects on anyone with a Social Security number. Musk has made blatantly false claims about supposed fraud in how Social Security payments are made, apparently in an attempt to justify getting access to its "crown jewel" databases. 

Had that access been granted, Musk would have been able to personally review information about effectively any and every person living or working in the United States, including

• medical history
• mental health treatment records
• bank account data, including account numbers
• work history
• marriage and divorce records
• tax records
• lifetime address information

Unfettered access to this data, especially without any independent oversight by career government officials not reporting directly to Musk, represents a massive security risk. As with many other government systems that Musk has sought access to, the best case scenario is that he would gain a massive advantage for his private businesses over their competitors for the government contracts and subsidies.

A far more dangerous situation is that, accidentally or otherwise, Americans' most sensitive personal data could fall into the hands of hostile foreign governments. The source of most of Musk's wealth, his stock in Tesla, is highly dependent on maintaining the goodwill of the Chinese government. (Separately, the New York Times is reporting tonight that Trump plans to give Musk direct access to the United States' most secret military plans regarding China.)

In a 137-page ruling, Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander summarized the situation this way:

The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion.  It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack. 

To facilitate the expedition, SSA provided members of the SSA DOGE Team with 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.  

Yet, 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.  Indeed, the government has not even attempted to explain why a more tailored, measured, titrated approach is not suitable to the task.  Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud.  Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.  

As the judge noted in her ruling, there are situations where Musk is extremely concerned about privacy—specifically, in keeping the identities of the people drafted onto the DOGE team secret and unaccountable to the public. Journalists who figured out some of their names and reported on them faced immediate threats from Trump's Justice Department. That reporting on DOGE employees unearthed racist and misogynist posts on social media, lack of technical skills, security risks, and—in at least one case—someone being fired from a private sector job for leaking secret information.

Why does this matter?

• Unelected political donors shouldn't be able to buy access to Americans' most private and sensitive information.

• If this exact thing were happening without the compliance of the President of the United States, it would be the biggest cybercrime in history.

• This doesn't look like the kind of thing any president would permit a subordinate to do, if he were able to stop it.