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A New York Federal Judge temporarily blocked Elon Musk and his team to access data from the Payments of the US Treasury Department, warning that this was likely to lead to the disclosure of sensitive information.
The order made on Saturday morning is a new legal blow for the billionaire of technology and the push of its nearest allies to comb federal payments in order to reduce the costs of the United States government.
The court’s decision came in response to a judicial dispute of 19 prosecutors general of the Democratic State, which argued that the unofficial unity of “the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government”, which was created by President Donald Trump should not have access to personal information relating to millions of Americans.
In the court order, judge Paul Engelmayer of the South District of New York wrote that the “new policy” presented a risk of “disclosure of sensitive and confidential information” and a “increased risk that the systems in question are more vulnerable than before to piracy”.
He ordered that “appointments, special government employees and any government employee” outside the US Treasury are prevented from accessing the agency data and destroying any information they had obtained from the ‘Trump inauguration last month.
The order should remain in place at least up to a court hearing which was set for February 14.
The judge’s ordinance underlines how Trump’s great thrust and Musk to selectively reduce public spending is faced with his greatest obstacles to court, because he tests the limits of executive power as well as American privacy laws.
Earlier this week, a federal judge of the Columbia district judged that foreigners should not have access to the data of the payments of the Treasury, in response to a separate legal challenge brought by representatives of pensioners and government employees.
The White House tried to repress the fears that Musk, who was appointed “a special government employee”, manages a thug operation. But the Democrats are increasingly sounding alarms on the activities of “DOGE”.
“Doge’s actions represent an invasion of two front of the American financial and privacy fronts,” wrote Ron Wyden, the best democrat of the Senate Committee Finance letter to the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, which manages government pensions for millions of Americans.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
