Federal workers launch new lawsuits to combat Doge’s data access

A new lawsuit filed today by more than 100 federal workers in the US Southern District Court in New York, has brought Elon Musk’s so-called government efficiency (DOGE) into their own hands. It claims to access Confidential personal data It’s illegal. The plaintiffs have asked the court for an injunction to block access to Doge’s information from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which serves as the US HR department and houses data on federal workers such as Social Security numbers. Masu. Numbers and personnel files. Wired Previously reported Those who had connections with Musk took over the OPM.

“OPM defendants to Doge and Doge agents, of whom were under the age of 25, or were employees of Musk’s private companies until recently, or to the OPM computer system without undergoing a normal, strict national security review. The complaint claims that the plaintiff is in violation of the Privacy Act, a 1974 law that determines how the government collects, uses and stores personal information. I criticize you.

Charles Ezell, acting director of Doge Organization, Personnel Management and OPM, has been appointed defendant in the case. Plaintiffs include more than 100 individual federal workers across the US government and groups representing them, including the AFL-CIO, the Federation of Trade Unions, the Federation of US Government Employees, and the Association of Administrative Law. AFGE represents more than 800,000 federal workers, ranging from Social Security Agency employees to Border Patrol agents.

The plaintiffs are represented by prominent high-tech industry lawyers, including attorneys for the digital rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and recently intellectual property and technical lawyer Mark Lemley. I dropped the meta As a client in that controversial AI copyright lawsuit, he opposed what he claimed was a “neo-Nazi madness.”

“Illegal access to Doge employee records has been found to be a means of achieving many other illegal purposes, such as by all government employees to make illegal acquisition offers. This is how we got the list. We can provide access to information about transgender employees and discriminate against those employees illegally. And that is the illegal we saw in multiple departments. It lays the foundation for termination,” Lemley told Wired.

EFF lawyer Victoria Noble says concerns about Doge’s data access are growing due to the political nature of Musk’s project. For example, according to Noble, there is a risk that Musk and his Acolite will use OPM data to target ideological enemies or people they think are dishonest.

“There is a great risk of using this information to identify employees and essentially ending based on inappropriate considerations,” Noble told Wired. “We have medical information, we have disability information, we have information about people’s involvement in unions.”

The Human Resources Administration and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The team behind the lawsuit is set to push even more. “This is just phase one and it focuses on getting an injunction to stop the ongoing violation of the law,” says Lemley. The next step involves filing a class action lawsuit on behalf of the affected federal workers.