President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Elon Musk in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, May 30, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
A federal judge in Maryland this week signed off on an expansive discovery request by labor union plaintiffs in a long-running case challenging the release and use of sensitive public data.
In the underlying litigation, a coalition of national labor organizations and a grassroots advocacy group alleged the Trump administration and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees, in particular, were being granted unfettered access to Social Security Administration (SSA) systems and data in breach of privacy laws.
The lawsuit has traveled up and down the court system dramatically since the original petition was filed in February 2025.
The district court previously issued a temporary restraining order barring DOGE staffers from accessing the data, as well as demanding they “disgorge and delete” any personally identifying data in their possession and remove any software or code the group may have installed or altered on SSA computer systems. A long series of failed attempts to overturn the blocks raised by U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, a Barack Obama appointee, ensued.
In April 2025, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit denied a stay and agreed to hear the appeal en banc – before the full appellate court. The en banc court denied the government”s stay request but scheduled additional briefing on the matter for July 2025.
In June 2025, however, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a shadow docket ruling, blessed government efforts to turn over the SSA data to DOGE until the litigation fully plays out at the lower court level.
Since then, several additional developments – including admitted government missteps – have changed the landscape considerably.
On Monday, in a five-page order, Hollander noted the plaintiffs’ discovery request was the subject of an August 2025 hearing. The upshot of which, the judge explained, was a wait-and-see approach.
“I don’t know how I can authorize discovery when [the appeal] is pending,” Hollander said. “I’m not sure I would agree to put the Government through [plaintiffs’ discovery] until I know the case survives.”
The judge was concerned about the en banc review before the 4th Circuit. That full court review, however, has since returned something of a double-edged verdict. While the appellate court found merit in the plaintiffs’ case – and the underlying harms they alleged – they decided the plaintiffs had not proved enough “irreparable harm” to justify a preliminary injunction at the present stage of the litigation.
So, the preliminary injunction was finally vacated after over a year, but the ruling contained a silver lining in terms of discovery.
The appeals court ruling came earlier this month. In January of this year, the government filed a notice of corrections to the record, which “disclosed several inaccuracies in regard to information previously provided by defendants to the Court,” Hollander explained.
In March, the plaintiffs filed their own supplemental motion – citing an article in The Washington Post with the more or less self-explanatory title of “Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job.”
The 4th Circuit majority’s early April opinion “characterized the government’s admissions in the supplemental record as ‘alarming’ and stated that they ‘raise serious questions about its earlier conduct before the district court,'” the judge relayed.
The appellate court also commented on the Post article while acknowledging the development was not exactly part of the appeal.
From the Monday order, at length:
With respect to plaintiffs’ filing of March 10, 2026, and the article from the Washington Post, the Court wrote: “The same goes for the even more recent—and even more alarming—allegations that plaintiffs flagged in their March 10 district court filing, which have not been made part of the record on appeal and thus are not properly before us in any sense.”
In light of defendants’ admissions and the allegations of the whistleblower report, the Court majority stated: “‘On remand, however, the parties will be able to introduce further evidence on’ these points, and the district court will be free to consider any future requests for appropriate relief or corrective action.
In other words, the appellate court took note of the government’s own admissions and the allegations raised by the plaintiffs in the Post article and suggested the lower court was in the best position to deal with the shifting legal terrain.
The plaintiffs, of course, quickly agreed.
“Discovery is necessary for—as the Fourth Circuit contemplated—the parties to be able to introduce further evidence, and for the Court to have an adequate record to consider further requests for relief or corrective action,” the unions said in an additional supplemental notice filed last week.
Now, the district court says the next step is clear.
“Defendants have not yet responded,” Hollander writes. “But, the time to do so has not expired. As noted, as a result of the conference call with counsel on August 12, 2025, the Court was persuaded to defer discovery until after disposition of the appeal. The appeal has been decided. The majority opinion makes clear that discovery is appropriate.”
