By what is effectively a 9-6 vote, the en banc Fourth Circuit has vacated an injunction blocking DOGE from accessing Social Securit data (that #SCOTUS had previously stayed).

Much of the drama is over the precedential effects of #SCOTUS's June 2025 intervention:

georgetown.box.com/v/AFSCME-CA4-EB

April 10, 2026 - 14:23 UTC

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When does common sense come into the law equation, or does it at all? We already know a DOGE dude has misused our data.
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Never, with this fascist group.
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Goddamnit
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The court's validation of the intrusion upon seclusion as a common law analogue for Privacy Act violations is a big deal; that's central to many of the pending cases against DOGE and other agency database incursions.
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Yeah -- there's a lot I agree with in Judge Heytens's opinion. It's just the precedential value stuff (and the Wilkinson concurrence's finger-wagging about it) that's really disheartening.
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Ugh!
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Everyone’s info that was stolen should be contacted immediately so they can file legal recourse!
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Looks like a class action lawsuit on the horizon.
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I am a reasonably intelligent person but I think lawyers always fail to appreciate how challenging it is to understand triple negatives like, “vacating an injunction blocking…” that leaves the rest of us wondering, “wait, so they CAN access it or they CAN’T?”
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In exchange for 3 years of your life and a shitload of money, you too can speak like this.
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They can continue to access it. This ruling doesn't change anything in that sense, bc the injunction prohibiting it (that this decision removed) was stayed almpst immedoately after it was issued. This doesn't end things either. They can still have a trial on the merits.
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same
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Honestly I am still confused - "vacated an injunction blocking DOGE from accessing Social Securit data" sounds like the injunction blocked access, and vacating it now effectively allows access. Am I misreading this?
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So this means they can continue to steal our information and use it in a variety of ways against us? We already had somebody get caught taking the information home
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What is wrong with these idiotic judges?
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“As SSA recently revealed in a “Notice of Corrections to the Record,” a significant
portion of the information provided by SSA and the other defendants in the preliminary
injunction proceedings was patently false.“ — dissent, pointing to prior gov’t lies.

A problem the majority brushes aside. 😒
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> I regret my dear colleague Judge Wynn’s rhetorical assault upon the Supreme Court and my friend Judge King’s support of it.

The Fourth is MESSY
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And you-all had your knickers in a twist over automating Selective Service registration. Where did you imagine that automation was coming from? The stolen Social Security data is where - that which was stolen by the Muskrats. But I guess SSA data only affects the olds, so that's okay.
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I really like the dissent opinion and the points that it makes. This opinion is, with respect to its part 4 and conclusion, *terrible*.

The judges act as they completely do not recognize the real world they live in. They fail to acknowledge the inherent *risk* in the spread of sensitive data.
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The opinion reads like "oh, there's no irreparable harm because the court can always deny access to the data and assess damages". But this *completely* ignores the reality of the possible undetectable *illegal* spread of the data that is impossible to reverse in practice.
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Dammit.
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It’s almost like judges want to put themselves out of a job.
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There's a *lot* to process.

Among other things, yet again, we see a largely ideological divide over whether/to what extent #SCOTUS needs to explain itself if it expects its rulings on emergency applications to have downstream precedential effects (and the validity of critiques of it not doing so).
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There's a lot in Judge Heytens's majority opinion that strikes me as right (and good), including about why the plaintiffs have standing and why efforts to turn likelihood of success into a mixed probability analysis is bonkers. It's treating the three-paragraph #SCOTUS order as precedent that's not.
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OMG.
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Hadn't heard about this. Came here to ask you to please comment on the likihood of this new extremely cool Montana statute's surviving Supreme Court review under Citizens United.

One of @sanders.senate.gov's biggest applause lines in '15 & '16 was "End Citizens United!!!"

bsky.app/profile/beverlymann19.bsky.social/post/3mj5sgeppdk2c
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Millions of Americans who will be harmed if their data gets out into the wild will have a monetary recourse. Batten down the hatches, courts--millions of FTCA actions coming your way. Of course proving it got into the wild this way will be hard to prove. So any Doger is now free to set it free.
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#WITAOD
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I'm wondering if this would have any effect on the information Trump is trying to garner from the States regarding voter information. Many Red States have already handed over personally identifiable voter information, 1/2
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including the last four digits of2 Social Security numbers, and he's actively extorting others for access to theirs. 2/2
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