Retiree Advocacy Group, Public Employee Unions Sue Treasury due to ‘Illegal DOGE Data Access’

The Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union, filed a lawsuit Monday against the Department of the Treasury for sharing confidential data with the Department of Government Efficiency Service Temporary Organization, run by Elon Musk at the direction of President Donald Trump. The Treasury data likely include Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs’ complaint—which names Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, the Department of the Treasury and the department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service—argues that instead of protecting the private information of Americans, as required by law, Bessent is taking “punitive measures against officials who sought to protect that information from improper access and allowed DOGE full access to the data.”

The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The data in question can include names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, birthplaces, home addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and bank account information, according to the complaint. Federal law protects sensitive information from improper disclosure and misuse, including by barring disclosure to individuals who “lack a lawful and legitimate need for it,” according to the complaint.

“Elon Musk and/or other DOGE members had sought access to the Bureau’s records for some time, only to be rebuffed by the employee then in charge of the Bureau,” the lawsuit stated. “Within a week of being sworn in as Treasury Secretary, Mr. Bessent placed that civil servant on leave and granted DOGE-affiliated individuals full access to the Bureau’s data and the computer systems that house them.”

The civil servant placed on leave was former Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the Treasury David Lebryk, who had served in that role since 2014 and served as acting secretary of the Treasury until Bessent’s confirmation on January 27. Lebryk reportedly resisted the DOGE’s access to the Treasury payment system. Lebryk suddenly retired on January 31 in reaction to the dispute.

Bessent also granted the DOGE access to the federal payment system without making any public announcement, providing any legal justification or explanation for his decision or “undertaking the process required by law for altering the agency’s disclosure policies,” according to the complaint.

“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” the complaint states. “Millions of people cannot avoid engaging in financial transactions with the federal government and, therefore, cannot avoid having their sensitive personal and financial information maintained in government records.”

As the DOGE has been granted access to this information for an unspecified period of time, the advocacy group and labor unions argue that retirees, taxpayers, federal employees, companies and other individuals have “no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords.” In addition, affected individuals do not have information about what personal or financial information the Treasury is sharing with outside parties or how their information is being used, the complaint states.

The complaint also argues that the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code make it “unlawful” for Bessent to allow the DOGE to access the bureau’s records with respect to taxpayer information.

The advocacy group and unions, represented by the Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund, are seeking that the district court prohibit Treasury from continuing to permit such access to or transfers of such personal information and to ensure that future disclosure of individual records will occur only in accordance with the Privacy Act and the IRC.

“We are outraged and alarmed that the Trump Administration has allowed so-called DOGE staff to violate the law and access millions of older Americans’ sensitive personal and financial data,” said Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, an advocacy organization with 4.4 million members nationwide, in a statement. “Seniors are already the most vulnerable Americans to fraud and scams, with FBI data showing losses of $3.4 billion in 2023 alone. We urge the court to quickly act to stop this unlawful theft of our data.”

The ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, published a letter to Bessent on Friday in which Wyden expressed concern about officials associated with Musk gaining access to payment systems to “illegally withhold payments to any number of programs.”

“To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy,” Wyden wrote.

The Department of the Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for comment.