Judge Blocks Education Department, OPM From Sharing Data With DOGE

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge on Feb. 24 blocked two agencies from sharing sensitive information with employees of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“The U.S. Department of Education; Denise L. Carter, the Acting Secretary of Education; and their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys are ENJOINED from disclosing the personally identifiable information of the plaintiffs and the members of the plaintiff organizations to any DOGE affiliates,” U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman wrote in a 33-page order.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and its employees are also forbidden from disclosing the same information to DOGE workers, the judge said.

The temporary restraining order is in effect until March 10 as the case proceeds. It could be extended, converted into a preliminary injunction, or allowed to expire.

The American Federation of Teachers and other groups recently asked the court to block officials with the OPM, Department of Education (DOE), and U.S. Department of Treasury from conveying sensitive records to DOGE employees.

Allowing DOGE access to the records endangers the privacy rights of veterans and other people represented by the groups, the organizations said in their request to the federal court in Maryland.

Government lawyers argued that the judge should reject the motion for a restraining order because government officials have not violated the plaintiffs’ privacy.

“At the heart of Plaintiffs’ theory is the baseless allegation that ‘DOGE representatives’ at the Defendant agencies are somehow outside the category of federal employees, or outside the category of federal employees in their respective agencies. Neither criticism withstands scrutiny. The Privacy Act therefore expressly allows disclosure of information protected under that statute in the circumstances of this case,” the lawyers wrote in a filing.

Boardman said that even if officials have only been sharing information with other government employees, it still violates the plaintiffs’ right to have their sensitive personal information kept private if the employees are not authorized to access the data.

“Education and OPM possess a significant amount of detailed information about the plaintiffs’ lives. To say that the plaintiffs suffer no cognizable injury when their personal information is improperly disclosed to government employees would nullify their interest in preventing unlawful government intrusion into their private affairs. The unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information is an injury in fact,” the judge wrote.

While plaintiffs cannot receive relief under the Privacy Act, the judge said later, they can under the Administrative Procedure Act, which bars the government from taking steps that are not in accordance with the law.

“The plaintiffs have shown that Education and OPM likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing their personal information to DOGE affiliates without their consent,” Boardman said.

The act prohibits agencies from disclosing “any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains.”

In addition to the American Federation of Teachers, a union that represents some 1.8 million people, the other plaintiffs in the case are the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, and the National Federation of Federal Employees.

The order expressly names Adam Ramada, a DOGE employee who said in a declaration filed in the case that he and five other DOGE employees have been working with the DOE to audit contracts, grants, and programs “for waste, fraud, and abuse.”

“In addition, we help senior Department leadership obtain access to accurate data and data analytics to inform their policy decisions at the Department,” Ramada said in the filing

Ramada said he learned that one of the six employees had not yet completed training on ethics or information security and had been directed to complete the training.

A DOE official previously told the court that six employees associated with DOGE went through background checks and other procedures before gaining access to DOE systems. OPM officials had told the court that all personnel with access to sensitive OPM records are employees of OPM, although some also work for other agencies.

DOGE employees have also been helping other agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Treasury, in line with President Donald Trump’s executive orders.