Greg Pearre

Former Associate Commissioner,  Office of Systems Architecture, Social Security Administration 

“For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.” – Federal Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander, when handing down ruling blocking DOGE's unlimited access to SSA records

Imagine what it was like for Greg Pearre when DOGE came knocking, demanding unprecedented access to the Social Security Administration’s massive trove of sensitive data.

A 25-year SSA veteran, Pearre rose through its ranks to oversee hundreds of IT employees and the agency’s critical databases. It was literally his job to protect the privacy of personal data – social security numbers, addresses, medical/education history and bank, wage and tax information – of the 72 million Americans who receive benefits. You might even say it was part of his professional DNA.

So, when the DOGE team and immigration officials cooked up a scheme to move thousands of undocumented immigrants to the SSA’s “Death Master File” – to get them to self-deport – Pearre and his team did what they could to block them, deeming the plan a violation of SSA policy. At one point, Pearre blasted Scott Coulter, the hedge fund executive tapped by Musk as Chief Information Officer. The plan was illegal, cruel, and risked declaring people who were still alive as legally dead, Pearre told Coulter, according to colleagues familiar with the confrontation who spoke to The Washington Post, which broke the story.

The Death Master File is used by government agencies, employers, banks and landlords to check the status of employees, residents, clients and others. Senior SSA officials have issued past warnings that the database “is also insecure and can be edited without proof of death — a vulnerability, staffers say, that the Trump administration has now exploited,” per the Post.

Even Trump loyalist and acting commissioner Leland Dudek (since departed) had reservations about the scheme’s legality, SSA staffers revealed, but when pressured by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, he caved, transferring 6,100 immigrants –  teens to octogenarians – onto the death database. That spelled a devastating blow that affects their ability to withdraw their own money from their bank or use their credit cards, and could lead to loss of jobs, homes, health insurance – and much more. Trump officials hoped that would then spur them to leave the US.

Two days after his blowup with Coulter, Pearre was forcibly removed from his office, marched out of the building by security guards, and placed on paid administrative leave. To date, Pearre has not publicly commented on his removal.

The legal battle over privacy

Meanwhile, another drama was unfolding in a federal courtroom. Two labor unions—AFSCME and the AFL-CIO – teamed up with the legal nonprofit Democracy Forward, sued the SSA and DOGE in February for granting DOGE “unfettered access” to systems holding personally identifiable information (PII), arguing it violated the 1974 Privacy Act and federal rulemaking procedures. In a critical ruling, US District Court Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander issued an injunction blocking DOGE’s access to SSA data and went further, ordering deletion of the data gathered to date.

Declared Judge Hollander: “For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records. This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.” She repeatedly insisted that giving DOGE unlimited access to PII – without anonymization (removing names of people) or clear justification – was legally and practically untenable. Simply put, she made clear the injunction wasn’t about what DOGE was doing, but how they were doing it — and why such broad access needed far more rigorous justification under privacy law.

In early May, the case ended up in the US Supreme Court when the Trump administration requested an emergency stay of Judge Hollander’s ruling, which an appeals court had let stand. In a 6-3 unsigned order, the Supreme Court granted the stay – allowing SSA to restore access to personal records while the case continues. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented, citing significant privacy concerns.

Justice Jackson, in a dissent joined by Justice Sotomayor, roundly criticized the majority’s decision: “Today the Court grants ‘emergency’ relief that allows the Social Security Administration to hand DOGE staffers the highly sensitive data of millions of Americans,” Justice Jackson wrote. “The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now – before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE’s access is lawful.”

“[O]nce again,” Justice Jackson declared, “this Court dons its emergency-responder gear, rushes to the scene, and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them.”

For their part, federal policy oversight experts have denounced Trump’s move: “This is an unprecedented step,” Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow on the federal fiscal policy team for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, told the Post. “The administration seems to basically be saying they have the right to essentially declare people equivalent to dead who have not died. That’s a hard concept to believe, but it brings enormous risks and consequences.”