Summary
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from sharing sensitive records with DOGE.
The lawsuit, filed by labor unions and veterans, alleges DOGE seeks to fire workers and cut federal programs while violating the Privacy Act of 1974.
Judge Deborah Boardman ruled the plaintiffs are likely to succeed and face “irreparable harm” if DOGE gains access.
This follows other legal challenges against DOGE’s efforts to access federal data.
If those start backing up, I would guess that Congress is going to get grouchy. I wonder who actually passed that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States)
Looks like the House was unanimous. Wikipedia doesn’t have the Senate, but it’d be very surprising if they differed much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_in_the_Sunshine_Act
This amendment was unanimous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986
This amendment was 95%-ish in favor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974
This amendment doesn’t show the House vote, but the Senate was ~90% in favor.
[EDIT: This last one actually restricted disclosure of some personal information of citizens without their written authorization, so it’s a minor move in the other direction]
So I’m pretty sure that both parties want FOIA.
If you remember, Trump was making an enormous deal out of the fact that he was going to “release JFK files” during this campaign. In general, I think that a lot of supporters are suspicious that the government is Up To Something and want to watch it.
Also, the Heritage Foundation was behind Project 2025. Their website describes the Freedom of Information Act in pretty positive terms.
I don’t think that FOIA is likely going to be at much risk. From what I’ve read, I think that in general, a lot of people supporting Trump are suspicious that the progressive bureaucrats are going to go get up to no good progressive things in shadowy confines unless the sensible conservative public keeps an eye on them.
https://therealnews.com/cnn-made-foia-request-about-doge-only-to-learn-foia-staff-was-fired
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/18/politics/opm-privacy-team-fired/index.html