Lawsuit outlines how DOGE pushed for access to Social Security systems and data

New documents filed last week as part of a lawsuit against the Social Security Administration and DOGE contain details of Elon Musk’s associates’ push to access SSA systems and information.

Democracy Forward filed an amended complaint and motion for emergency relief to halt any DOGE access to SSA information about millions of Americans in the agency’s systems last week. They sued last month alongside two unions and a retiree advocacy group, alleging that DOGE’s access to SSA data violates laws like the Privacy Act. It’s one of many lawsuits related to DOGE access to sensitive government systems and data.

Among the new court documents is a declaration from Tiffany Flick, a retired SSA employee who worked at the agency for almost 30 years and served most recently as the acting chief of staff to former acting head of SSA Michelle King.

Flick alleged that DOGE associates pressured her and King to flout agency norms and processes to quickly give DOGE access to agency systems and data. 

“I witnessed a disregard for critical processes — like providing the ‘least privilege’ access based on a ‘need to know’ — and a lack of interest in understanding our systems and programs,” according to her declaration. “That combined with the significant loss of expertise as more and more personnel leave, have me seriously concerned that SSA programs will continue to function and operate without disruption.”

Flick and King both left suddenly in February after resisting pressure from DOGE to hand over access to SSA data and systems when a mid-level employee formerly focused on anti-fraud efforts, Leland Dudek, was placed in the acting head role. At the time, he was on administrative leave because of allegations that he had improperly been sharing information with Elon Musk’s team.

Flick detailed the pressure she and those in SSA leadership at the time were under to onboard a DOGE software engineer, Akash Bobba, and give him access to agency systems and data, including the agency’s Enterprise Data Warehouse, which contains information like names and immigration status about anyone with a social security number. 

Flick called the urgency with which DOGE associates were asking for Bobba to be quickly onboarded and given access to SSA systems and data “unprecedented,” and noted several times that SSA leadership wasn’t given details on why DOGE wanted access to this information. 

Her understanding was that the agency’s new chief information officer, Mike Russo, “was actually reporting to DOGE” and “seemed completely focused on questions from DOGE officials based on the general myth of supposed widespread Social Security fraud, rather than facts.”

“We tried to determine why Mr. Bobba needed full access to the EDW,” she continued. “But Mr. Russo was evasive.”

That dynamic went against standard procedure and policy at the agency, where “generally we would not provide full access [to] all data systems even to our most skilled and highly trained experts,” wrote Flick in the court documents, because of protections meant to prevent “inadvertent or unauthorized changes to systems.”

According to Flick, Russo went to Federal CIO Gregory Barbaccia to get an “opinion” that Bobba be given access to the SSA data.

Bobba was also working out of the Office of Personnel Management, where other people not employed by SSA may have also been accessing SSA information, said Flick. 

In addition to that risk of data being accessed by people not meant to have access to it, Flick also outlined potential dangers to the agency’s tech itself, which is complex and at times operating on old programming languages.

Her understanding was that Dudek has given DOGE access to the data warehouse and possibly other databases, she wrote. ABC News also reported last week that DOGE employees had access to the Enterprise Data Warehouse. 

SSA did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit or clarification on what systems DOGE can currently access. In mid-February, Dudek said in a statement that DOGE personnel have read-only access to systems and information.

The agency delivers retirement, disability and other benefits to over 70 million people. Since the start of Trump 2.0, a slew of senior leadership has retired early amid agency plans to lose thousands of workers, reorganize its org chart and close field offices nationwide. 

Trump and Musk have repeated false claims about fraud in the agency’s benefits rolls that even Dudek himself has debunked, bringing up another risk. 

“Even with only read access DOGE can, and already has, used SSA data to spread mis/disinformaiton,” wrote Flick.