After months of the congress, in which President Gerald Ford the Data Protection Act on December 31, 1974, the chair of the Inland Council Committee for the right to privacy that Nixon had created in office, in office, emphasized “The important need to offer adequate and uniform protective measures for data protection for the enormous amounts of personal information that were collected, recorded and used in our complex society.”
How is that relevant today?
The critics of DOGES – including democratic legislators, federal employees and state watchdog groups – indicate the office of office Young, controversy and apparently largely countless employees Access to sensitive government data is a major violation of privacy. According to John DavissonA lawyer for the electronic data protection information center, one of the groups that block the access of Doge.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, says that Doge employees need this data access to fulfill their mission, eliminate wasteful expenditure and shottering programs that are conflict with President Donald Trump’s agenda. After a federal judge temporarily blocked the access of Doge to state payment systems, a spokesman for the White House called the decision “Absurd and judicial presentation.” Musk aimed at the judge On X and said: “He has to be charged now!”
Can the Data Protection Act stop Doge?
It depends on whether several judges agree to the arguments of the Trump administration, in which it is claimed that the law does not access Doge’s employees to the sensitive data of the agencies.
The government asserts that people in one of four scenarios can only sue the agencies within the framework of the Data Protection Act: if an agency refuses to grant someone access to someone; If an agency refuses to change a person’s records of how it has been requested; If an agency does not keep the recording of a person up to date and experiences concrete damage such as a refusal to perform; Or if an agency otherwise violates the requirements of the law, in a way that has a negative impact on someone. It remains to be seen whether the judges find that Doge’s access to data adverse people.
Agencies have also argued that they do not violate the Data Protection Act, since DGE’s activities have to fall under the “routine use” of the law and have to “know” exceptions. In a judicial report The financial department responded to a legal challenge and announced that Doge staff had accessed the data in order to potentially identify improperly improper payments “to promote (their) tasks”, as from Trump (triggering the exception “) and that Share of this information with other agencies fell under one of the “routine” that the agency had previously disclosed in accordance with the Data Protection Act.
The strength of this argument is based on how the judges weigh two questions: whether the Doge Personnel, which accesses the data of each agency, are employees of these agencies and whether the two exceptions apply to the situations in which they access the data and have used them.
Who uses the data protection law to sue Doge?
There are at least eight lawsuits against the Trump administration about the access from Doges to federal data, and everyone is at least partially dependent on the Data Protection Act.
- The American Federation of Government employees, the association of administrative law and more than 100 current and former federal workers Complete Doge, Musk and the Office for Personnel Management because of the illegal decision by OPM to give Doge’s employees access to a federal assistant database and claim that Doge’s employees “have no lawful and legitimate necessity of such access”.
- The electronic data protection information centerIn the name of an unnamed federal worker, OPM, Doge and the Ministry of the Ministry of Finance supposedly sued doke access to the personal database of OPM and the payment system of the Ministry of Finance “for purposes that are inadmissible within the framework of the data protection law”.
- The Student Association of the University of California The Ministry of Education is sued because you supposedly handed over student data to Doge employees who do not “employ employees who need the records for fulfilling their tasks in the language of the Data Protection Act”.
- Six state unions, two non -profit groups and the Institute for Menu factory economic policy The departments for work and health and human services sue the consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Doge to prevent the data protection law. “
- Two state unions and the Advocacy Group Alliance for retired Americans sue the finance minister Your own special rules of the Internal Revenue Service.
- The National Treasury Employees Union Squips the deputy CFPB director Russell, who is available for information about CFPB employees to employees of CFPB, and claims that her status as a “special employee” puts it outside of the CFPB and thus outside the need for the data protection law.
- Nineteen prosecutors General Complete Trump and Treasury about DOGE’s access to federal payment systems and argue that “many of the Doge members were access to (the system) that were not a state treasury”, this “a violation of the data protection law”.
- Six Americans Complete the Ministry of Finance and Doge about the violations of the sensitive personal data that you gave to the government while submitting tax returns, applying for student loans, applying for the payments of disabilities and receiving retirement.
Where are these cases?
In The case of the state AGSPresent A judge was issued quickly A temporary injunction that limits access to all Treasury systems that store sensitive personal and financial data. The case has been assigned to another judge since then Hired the order slightly after The Trump administration complained about to his restrictions for political representatives. A status hearing took place on February 14th.
In The epic caseThe organization has asked the judge For a temporary injunction that blocks the further Doge access to certain Treasury and OPM systems. A status hearing will take place on February 21.
