Cybersecurity Policy Report, Parties File Supplemental Briefs on ‘Corrected Record’ in DOGE Social Security Case, (Feb 20, 2026)

By Tony Foley

The Justice Department and opposing parties representing government workers and retirees have filed supplemental briefs, as requested by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Richmond), in a case challenging the sharing of Social Security Administration (SSA) data by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Background. The Fourth Circuit requested the briefs pursuant to a filing by the plaintiffs in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in which the plaintiffs noted that DoJ recently informed the court of misstatements it had made in court filings. In the filing in American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, et al., v. Social Security Administration, et al., No. 25-cv-00596 (D. Md. Feb. 9, 2026), the plaintiffs maintained that the DoJ’s “corrections for the record” contained revelations that contradicted factual representations made in the government’s briefings before the district court, the Fourth Circuit Court, and the Supreme Court that directly related to the plaintiffs’ claims, and asked the district court to lift a stay of the district court’s preliminary injunction imposed by the Supreme Court to allow expedited discovery by the plaintiffs to learn more about DOGE’s activities at SSA (CPR, Feb. 12). The Fourth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case last fall, but earlier this month it said that it wanted more information about DOGE’s activities at SSA and the DoJ’s “corrected record” filing, ordering the parties to file supplemental briefs by Feb. 19.

DoJ brief. In its supplemental brief, DoJ said that the corrected record made a handful of minor corrections and clarifications to statements in declarations submitted by SSA in March 2025 and that the record had no bearing on the legal questions raised by the plaintiffs. “To the extent plaintiffs intend to suggest that anything in the corrected record might allow them to develop or present different legal theories, and to then ask the district court to enter a different injunction based on those theories, that has no bearing on this appeal,” DoJ contended (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, et al., v. Social Security Administration, et al., No. 25-1411 (4th Cir. Feb. 19, 2026).

The brief then reiterates DoJ’s contentions regarding what it considers to be the flaws in plaintiff’s arguments, including failure to establish a cognizable Article III injury, as well as failure to establish that the “loosely-defined series of personnel decisions related to granting individual agency employees access to internal agency systems” constituted final agency action reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act. The brief also maintained that the district court’s injunction turned on what it deemed a “fundamental misunderstanding of the Privacy Act.”

The government’s brief concludes by noting that the corrections made to the record by SSA occurred in March 2025, well before the district court issued its preliminary injunction, and that none of the corrections supported the district court’s holding that plaintiffs had established that they faced some future, irreparable harm at the time the preliminary injunction issued.

Plaintiffs’ brief. The plaintiffs contend that the corrected record supports the district court’s injunction, arguing that the defendant relied on factual assertions directly contradicted in the supplemental record. With respect to the issue of a cognizable injury under Article III, the plaintiffs’ brief alleges that, while the defendant had previously argued that there was no evidence that any third party had gained access to the data at issue, the defendant’s supplemental disclosures reveal that DOGE team members sent a file outside of the SSA to a third party at the Department of Homeland Security and that a team member signed a “Voter Data Agreement” with a political advocacy group, meaning that, at a minimum, the record now contains evidence of third party disclosures, which the plaintiffs contend demonstrates a showing of Article III standing.

Similarly, the plaintiffs’ brief argues that entering into a data sharing agreement with the political advocacy group is unrelated to “modernizing government information systems” and that, under the Privacy Act and SSA regulations, individual agency employees may be given access only to the data the employee needs to perform their specific job duties. Finally, the plaintiffs argue that the disclosures in the corrected record indicate that SSA allowed DOGE team members to share SSA data with third parties and to enter into a data-sharing agreement with a non-governmental political organization without standard review and approval through the agency’s data-exchange procedures, none of which constituted “day-to-day personnel decisions,” but rather constituted final agency action reviewable under the APA.

The plaintiffs conclude by maintaining that the supplemental record supports the district court’s grant of injunctive relief but requesting the Fourth Circuit, should it decline to affirm the injunction, to vacate and remand to the district court for additional fact finding related to the defendant’s notice of corrections to the record.

MainStory: TopStory FederalLegislation DataPrivacy DataSecurity LitigationEnforcement