ABC NEWS: Judge blasts Social Security fraud 'fishing expedition' by Elon Musk's DOGE

"The Department of Government Efficiency approach's to identifying fraud at the Social Security Administration "is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer," a federal judge said Thursday, blocking DOGE's unlimited access to sensitive agency data."

"In a 137-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander wrote the Trump administration never justified the need to access the data -- which they argued was vital to identifying alleged fraud -- and likely violated multiple federal laws in doing so."

"The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack," she wrote.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hitting-fly-sledgehammer-judge-blocks-doge-accessing-sensitive/story?id=120002248