Donald Trump’s buddies, the conservative majority at the Supreme Court, did him a solid times two late Friday afternoon.
In a pair of orders, the Court held that the Department of Government Efficiency can rummage through your Social Security data. They also held that DOGE is not even obliged to explain what type of entity it is, but whatever it is, it now has your data.
Up first, DOGE gets your SSA data. When the baby-faced goblins in DOGE first tried to get SSA data, two labor unions and the Alliance for Retired Americans sued to stop it. The lower court issued a preliminary injunction blocking their access, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declined the administration’s request to overturn that and allow Elon Musk’s now-former minions to begin hoovering up your bank info, even as litigation continues.
Enter the Supreme Court. In a completely fact-free two-page decision, the majority said that DOGE can have the data.
It’s not a joke to say it’s fact-free. The majority first lays out the four factors that warrant staying a lower court’s order, and then literally just says, “After review, we determine that the application of these factors in this case warrants granting the requested stay.” No, you can’t see what any of the review is. Just trust them.
Related | Your private data is up for grabs thanks to Trump
So you can thank Chief Justice John Roberts and friends for ensuring that people like “Big Balls” and other twentysomething racists can rummage around in your private data. And the DOGE kids aren’t exactly great at cybersecurity. They’ve connected unauthorized outside servers to government networks and built a website, DOGE.gov, so insecure that people immediately figured out how to post updates to the site. There’s also pretty credible evidence that DOGE personnel have already exfiltrated government data.
But hey, why should all that matter in the face of DOGE not wanting to wait one moment longer before doing whatever it is they want to do with your data? Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent points out that the only “urgency” here is that the government cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out.
The way the Court justifies these huge shadow docket rulings is that these are simply rulings lifting stays. Theoretically, they could decide differently once the case is fully litigated and rule that DOGE is not entitled to SSA data. Except by that point, DOGE already has your data.
Oh, and although DOGE is getting access to sensitive private data for every American citizen, they don’t even have to explain to the American people what they are.
The administration has been refusing to answer discovery in a case about whether DOGE is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. No, not refusing to provide material subject to FOIA, but refusing to explain what they even are, so a judge could determine whether they are the type of government entity subject to FOIA. When Solicitor General John Sauer raced to the Supreme Court to block this, he said that being required to provide material showing what DOGE is “offends the separation of powers” and would stop presidential advisors from providing candid advice.
In another fact-free order, this one even less than two pages, the conservative majority agreed, saying that “separation of powers concerns counsel judicial deference in the context of discovery regarding internal Executive Branch communications.”
This is, to put it mildly, absurd. The administration can’t just create an entity that is functionally overseeing the wholesale destruction of government and then say that the courts can’t possibly inquire into what the nature of that entity is. But that’s pretty much exactly what the Court is letting them do.
You likely are confused as to why DOGE is enough of a government entity to get all your private data, but not enough of a government entity to have to explain what it is, but that is only because you do not have a big brain like the conservative justices. Those big brains have no trouble believing both those things at the same time, even though they contradict one another.
Here’s the big secret as to why: they like what Trump is doing and they want him to succeed, and they don’t care if they trash every last bit of credibility they have. There’s really no other explanation for their constant willingness to give in to the administration’s demands. The lower courts continue to follow the rule of law, a result that almost always leads to the administration losing, because their actions are lawless.
However, the Court’s conservative majority is routinely signaling that if the administration wants to do something, they’ll figure out a way. Just say something is urgent, or it impinges on the authority of the executive, or whatever fig leaf they want to offer. The majority will rush to give Trump all the power he needs, even if it means limiting their own.
Separation of powers doesn’t really work if one branch has all the power, but until the conservative justices care, Trump’s authority will keep expanding.