{"id":5994,"date":"2025-02-11T01:33:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T01:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/unions-sue-to-stop-doge-from-accessing-federal-data\/"},"modified":"2025-02-11T01:33:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T01:33:42","slug":"unions-sue-to-stop-doge-from-accessing-federal-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/unions-sue-to-stop-doge-from-accessing-federal-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Unions sue to stop DOGE from accessing federal data"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A leading teachers\u2019 union and allied labor groups sued three Trump administration agencies on Monday to halt billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s government-efficiency operation from accessing sensitive federal data.<\/p>\n

The American Federation of Teachers, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the National Federation of Federal Employees filed suit in a Maryland federal court<\/a>, alleging that the Treasury Department has disclosed the contents of a government system that includes records on Americans\u2019 tax refunds and Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n

The labor groups further accused the Education Department of improperly disclosing information in its national student loan data system that carries sensitive financial records for nearly 43 million borrowers. And they accuse the federal Office of Personnel Management of allowing Musk\u2019s representatives access to information on millions of current and former federal employees, plus federal job applicants.<\/p>\n

The legal complaint backed by the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy and the Munger, Tolles & Olson law firm amounts to yet another challenge to the sweeping access and authority granted since Trump\u2019s inauguration to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteamrolling into sensitive government record systems threatens to upend how these critical systems are maintained and compromises the safety and security of personal identifying information for Americans all across the country,\u201d the lawsuit alleged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also violates federal law,\u201d said the lawsuit, which alleges the government disclosures to Musk\u2019s operation break the federal Privacy Act of 1974<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Representatives for the Education Department, Treasury Department, and Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

The complaint asks a federal judge to prohibit the government agencies from allowing DOGE representatives further access to sensitive information \u2014 and requires the Trump administration \u201cto retrieve or ensure the destruction of any copies of any records that were unlawfully disclosed\u201d among other requests.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon Musk and his minions are stealing Americans\u2019 private personal and financial data in one of the biggest data hacks in U.S. history,\u201d AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement on Monday. \u201cI suspect no one who voted for Donald Trump thought he would allow Musk permission to invade their privacy. This is a breach of our fundamental freedoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s DOGE in the past few weeks had begun a wholesale effort to cut parts of the federal government, including USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Education Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment agencies are not private entities that billionaires can simply buy and rummage through,\u201d IAM Union International President Brian Bryant said in a statement. \u201cCongressional oversight, advocacy and voting are how we make government work for us, not reckless takeovers that put the personal data of millions of Americans into the hands of unqualified, unvetted political operatives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A leading teachers\u2019 union and allied labor groups sued three Trump administration agencies on Monday to halt billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s government-efficiency operation from accessing sensitive federal data. The American Federation of Teachers, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the National Federation of Federal Employees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}