The full slate of judges on a federal appeals court in Virginia rejected the Trump administration’s request to give the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “immediate and unfettered” access to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) records systems, dealing the president another court loss just after passing the 100-day mark in office.

In a nine-to-six vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on Wednesday kept in place a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, of Maryland, that blocked the Elon Musk-led organization from gaining access to the highly sensitive personal information of “essentially everyone in the country.” The majority reasoned that the “bedrock” principle of the SSA keeping personal data confidential “has been flouted by the sudden grant to DOGE of unfettered access to SSA system of records.”

In the majority’s 12-page order, Circuit Judge Robert Bruce King, an appointee of Bill Clinton, heaped praise on Hollander, an appointee of Barack Obama, referring to her as a “very able district judge” who had “carefully and thoughtfully examined the evidence and the legal issues” in the case. He also noted that her initial TRO order was accompanied by a 137-page opinion, while her preliminary injunction order included a 148-page opinion.

King lauded Hollander’s dual opinions as “addressing extensive evidence proffered by the parties” and “refining the pertinent legal analysis” of the lawsuit. The complaint accused the administration of violating the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by granting DOGE SSA system access, and claimed it was acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner by “flouting SSA protocols for hiring, onboarding, training, and granting systems access to the DOGE affiliates.”

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In her latest opinion in the case, Hollander noted that since the SSA’s inception in 1935, it has “collected, stored, respected, and protected” personal and private data of U.S. citizens. She then emphasized that ensuring the confidentiality of that information was a “bedrock principle of the agency” — a principle the Trump administration sought to change by giving DOGE “unfettered access to SSA systems.”

“The objective to address fraud, waste, mismanagement, and bloat is laudable, and one that the American public presumably applauds and supports,” Hollander wrote. “Indeed, the taxpayers have every right to expect their government to make sure that their hard earned money is not squandered.”

Rather, she said, the issue was how DOGE wants to perform its work, and how the SSA was willing to abandon its long-standing mission.

“However, the issue here is not the work that DOGE or the [Social Security Administration] want to do,” she continued. “The issue is about how they want to do the work. For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records,” adding, “This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation.”

Hollander ultimately found the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits, as did the majority of the appellate court judges.

“[Hollander’s preliminary injunction] analysis of those claims and the preliminary injunction factors is lengthy, thorough, and compelling,” the appellate court’s opinion says. “Rather than repeating that carefully crafted analysis herein, I adopt and attach hereto the [preliminary injunction] Opinion in its entirety.”

A federal judge in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday blocking the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing citizens’ personal data at the Social Security Administration (SSA), saying the Elon Musk-led organization was essentially on a “fishing expedition” to make good on the baseless claims of widespread fraud coming from the Trump administration.

“The American public may well applaud and support the Trump Administration’s mission to root out fraud, waste, and bloat from federal agencies, including SSA, to the extent it exists. But, by what means and methods?” U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote in a scathing 137-page opinion. “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.”

Musk himself has repeatedly alleged that Social Security is rife with fraud, though he’s yet to produce any concrete evidence to back up that claim. Over the last few weeks he has referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” as well as “one big pyramid scheme.”

Hollander’s order will allow DOGE to continue systems training and permit its employees to access data from the SSA systems, provided the DOGE employees have “received all training that is typically required of individuals granted access to SSA data systems” and the data is anonymized

In addition to blocking DOGE, Hollander ordered the organization and those affiliated with it to immediately “disgorge and delete” any personally identifying data in their possession and remove any software or code it may have installed or altered on the SSA computer systems.

A Colorado man who was arrested with human remains in his jacket was convicted of murder after attempting to claim that his victim killed herself.

Solomon Martinez, 27, was found guilty by a jury on March 13 after going on trial for the January 2024 murder of Renee Portillos, 47. According to reporting from the courtroom by KKTV, a local CBS affiliate, prosecutors presented DNA evidence, the autopsy report, and evidence from Martinez’s phone that pointed to his guilt. The defense unsuccessfully argued that Portillos killed herself.

As courtroom losses pile up in myriad cases and controversies, the Trump administration is now looking to amass a collection of tentative money judgments in its favor that would come due later on down the line — if and when the government’s defeats are overturned on appeal.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum “directing federal agencies to enforce a rule mandating financial guarantees from parties requesting” injunctions or restraining orders in lawsuits, according to a White House fact sheet about the policy.

In the memo, U.S. Department of Justice attorneys are now directed, in all cases going forward, to “demand that parties seeking injunctions against” the administration “must cover the costs and damages incurred” if the government is “ultimately found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained” by a lower court.

The memo, on its own terms, aims to curb the power of “activist organizations fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in donations” and “activist judges” by pushing back against “frivolous litigation.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Jan. 17 upholding the federal law banning TikTok continues a long history of judicial deference to claims of national security. The ruling upholds a federal statute that bans a medium of communication that is used by more than 170 million people in the United States. The speech of all who generate content for it and all who receive it is restricted by this law. It is difficult to think of any law in American history that restricted so much speech for so many people.

TikTok stopped operating in the United States for a brief time after the court’s decision. Upon taking office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order delaying the TikTok ban from going into effect for 75 days. It is questionable whether he has the authority to do this under the federal statute. But if no court enjoins his order, TikTok at least has a temporary reprieve. The ultimate fate of TikTok in this United States remains uncertain.

Factual background

On April 24, 2024, President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act into law. The act identifies the People’s Republic of China and three other countries as foreign adversaries of the United States and prohibits the distribution or maintenance of “foreign adversary controlled applications.” The law prohibited TikTok in the United States as of Jan. 19, unless its owner, ByteDance, had sold it by then.

Under the law, the president may grant a 90-day extension if there is significant progress being made toward a sale of TikTok. ByteDance has given no indication that it is interested in a sale, so it is difficult to see President Trump’s action fitting within this statutory authority.

On Dec. 6, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the federal law outlawing TikTok. The judges acknowledged the impact of the law on freedom of speech, but they accepted the government’s argument that national security concerns justified the ban.

First, the court said China, through TikTok, could gather information about those in the United States. Second, the court said China could attempt to use TikTok to influence attitudes, including about politics, in this country.

Supreme Court decision

The Supreme Court granted certiorari and scheduled oral argument for Jan. 10. A week later, the court unanimously affirmed the D.C. Circuit in a per curiam opinion.

At the outset, the court said there was the question of whether “heightened review” was appropriate when there was a regulation of nonexpressive activity (ownership of a platform) that disproportionately burdens those engaged in expressive activity (those who post on TikTok and receive information there). The court did not resolve that issue, instead declaring, “We assume without deciding that the challenged provisions fall within this category and are subject to First Amendment scrutiny.”

The court began by reciting the familiar principle that content-based regulations must meet strict scrutiny, while content neutral laws only need meet intermediate scrutiny. Under strict scrutiny, a law must be necessary to achieve a compelling purpose, while under intermediate scrutiny, a law only need be substantially related to an important purpose. A law is deemed content-based if either it restricts speech based on its topic or its viewpoint.

The court said that “As applied to petitioners, the challenged provisions are facially content neutral and are justified by a content-neutral rationale.” The court explained that the federal statute was content- neutral because it prohibited all speech over TikTok in the United States, whatever its topic and whatever its viewpoint.

The court identified the government’s purpose as preventing China, a foreign adversary, from gathering large amounts of information on Americans using the platform. And it expressly declared that this was a sufficiently important interest to meet intermediate scrutiny: “The act’s prohibitions and divestiture requirement are designed to prevent China—a designated foreign adversary—from leveraging its control over ByteDance Ltd. to capture the personal data of U. S. TikTok users. This objective qualifies as an important Government interest under intermediate scrutiny.”

The court said China could gather vast amounts of information about users of TikTok that could include enabling “China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.” The court stressed that the case arose in the context of “national security and foreign policy,” and therefore concluded that “we must accord substantial deference to the predictive judgments of Congress.”

Notably, the court did not echo the D.C. Circuit’s conclusion that the TikTok ban was justified because China might use it to influence attitudes in the United States. The premise of the First Amendment is that more speech is inherently better, regardless of its source. Restricting speech because it might change minds is antithetical to the First Amendment. Even during the height of the Cold War, the United States allowed the Russian newspaper Pravda to be sold in this country.

The challengers argued that the purpose of the federal law was to prevent TikTok to be used to convey particular views. The court acknowledged that no prior cases had determined “the appropriate level of First Amendment scrutiny for an act of Congress justified on both content-neutral and content-based grounds.”

The court said it did not need to decide that issue, but then effectively did by declaring: “The record before us adequately supports the conclusion that Congress would have passed the challenged provisions based on the data collection justification alone.” This is an important clarification of First Amendment law: If a government action is justified by both content-based and content-neutral rationales, it will be treated as content-neutral so long as the court is convinced that the law would have been adopted anyway based on the content-neutral rationale.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred in part and concurred in the judgment. She agreed with the decision but said the court should have held, not just assumed, that the ban on TikTok is expressive activity. She said, “TikTok engages in expressive activity by ‘compiling and curating’ material on its platform.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch concurred in the judgment. He questioned whether the law was actually content-neutral but said it was constitutional under any level of scrutiny. He wrote: “I am persuaded that the law before us seeks to serve a compelling interest: preventing a foreign country, designated by Congress and the president as an adversary of our oation, from harvesting vast troves of personal information about tens of millions of Americans.”

Analysis

No one in the litigation disputes that TikTok can gain a great deal of information about users of its platform. Nor was it disputed that this information potentially could be obtained by China.

What is missing in the court’s analysis is a discussion of what information China can obtain and how that information can be used to damage national security. It is certainly true that every app allows those administering it to gather information about users. But knowing how many people are watching a dance video hardly seems a basis for endangering the country. Because the federal law is a very significant restriction on speech there must be a real, proven danger, not conjecture.

None of the briefs elaborates this, either. Nor is it the case that the court relied on secret information provided by the government to justify the law. Justice Gorsuch observed: “I am pleased that the court declines to consider the classified evidence the government has submitted to us but shielded from petitioners and their counsel.”

The court should have explained in much greater detail what information China could gain from TikTok users and how China possessing this information could harm the United States.

Ultimately then, what explains the court’s conclusion is not a proven likely harm to national security from TikTok. Rather, it is the court giving deference to the government’s claim that TikTok is a threat to national security. There have been many cases throughout American history where the court has professed such deference. But the crucial question is whether such deference is appropriate when it involves a major restriction on the exercise of a fundamental right.

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Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. He is an expert in constitutional law, federal practice, civil rights and civil liberties, and appellate litigation. He’s also the author of many books, including No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States and A Court Divided: October Term 2023 (2024).

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

A 65-year-old woman in Georgia who worked as a security guard at a senior living apartment complex is accused of killing a 90-year-old resident at the facility, allegedly stabbing him more than 50 times and even trying to insert herself into the murder investigation. Janet Williams was taken into custody last week and charged with one count of felony murder in the September slaying of Chun Ki Kim, authorities announced.

According to a news release from the Atlanta Police Department, officers with APD Zone 2 responded at about 7:48 a.m. on Sept. 25 to a report of a “person down” at the apartment complex in the 700 block of Sidney Marcus Boulevard NE. Once there, first responders said they located a 90-year-old male victim — later identified as Kim — on the floor of his kitchen, suffering from what appeared to be multiple stab wounds. Responding medical personnel pronounced Kim dead on the scene.

The investigation into Kim’s death was taken over by the APD Homicide Unit until Williams was identified as the alleged killer. She was taken into custody on Thursday.

A copy of the arrest warrant obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided additional information about the alleged attack.

In the document, police reportedly wrote that Kim was stabbed in the face and midsection between 50 and 60 times. He was last seen entering the building at about 12 p.m. on Sept. 24, 2024, and taking the elevator to the fifth floor.

In a bizarre twist, authorities said Williams quickly attempted to involve herself in their investigation. Initially, the security guard reportedly stayed in the area of Kim’s apartment to observe the detectives at work before inquiring about the nature of the crime. She even managed to get inside another apartment on the fifth floor, where the resident had a Ring doorbell camera that may have recorded footage relevant to the investigation.

“Williams also attempted to gain insight into the investigation by inquiring about evidence the police had collected,” the warrant reportedly states.

An APD spokesperson told the Journal-Constitution on Tuesday that they could not identify a motive for the attack.

“While it was still unclear what her intentions initially were, Williams stabbed Mr. Kim to death,” a warrant for Kim’s arrest reportedly states.

The building reportedly has surveillance cameras, but none were located in areas that would have shown an individual entering or exiting a specific apartment. However, police said that security footage did show Williams at about 3:15 p.m. on Sept. 24, taking the elevator to the building’s fifth floor. She was reportedly wearing her security uniform, glasses, and a face mask while carrying a reusable red grocery bag.

The footage reportedly showed Williams at about 3:21 p.m. getting back on the elevator. She was no longer wearing the glasses or face mask, and there was a new tear in her pants, which appeared to be stained with a blood-like substance. The warrant also stated that Williams looked “stressed” on the footage and seemed to be walking with a limp, per the Journal-Constitution.

Though the only items reported missing from Kim’s apartment were his wallet and a baseball hat, police say Williams may have taken something else from his home.

“The red Xfinity bag she was carrying also appeared to be fuller as if something had been placed inside during that time,” the warrant states. “Williams got off the elevator with a noticeable limp.”

Williams is being held in the Fulton County Jail without bond. She is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 4.

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Court Security

Federal judiciary seeks more money for security amid rise in threats

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 5, 2024, 2:46 pm CST

The federal judiciary is citing “evolving” risks and a “significant increase in threats against federal judges” as some of the reasons for a requested increase in its security budget.

The U.S. Supreme Court is requesting $19.4 million to expand security and transfer responsibility for protecting justices’ homes to the high court’s own police force, Reuters reports.

The security budget request for other federal judges has increased by $39.5 million to cover “additional security and equipment” and other security needs, according to the fiscal year 2025 budget request.

The request comes amid a Reuters investigation published last week that found an “unprecedented wave of threats” in cases related to former President Donald Trump.

According to the wire service, the annual average of harassing and threatening communications directed at federal judges, federal prosecutors, judicial staff and court buildings increased from 1,180 incidents in the decade before Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign to 3,810 in seven years that followed.

Trump is a defendant in four criminal cases alleging 91 felonies, Reuters points out.

“Trump has fused the roles of candidate and defendant,” the wire service reports. “He attacks judges as political foes, demonizes prosecutors and casts the judicial system as biased against him and his supporters.”

Jon Trainum, who previously oversaw the U.S. Marshals Service’s unit that investigated judicial threats, told Reuters that whenever a case against Trump was in court, “we would see a noticeable uptick in threats directed at whatever judge had the case.”

U.S. marshals investigated more than 1,200 threats against federal judges that they deemed to be serious in the last four years. Reuters identified 57 federal prosecutions involving judiciary threats, 47 of which involved threats against federal judges.

There is no comparable data for threats and intimidation against state court judges. But a survey by the National Judicial College of mostly state judges in 2022 found that nearly 90% were worried about their safety. One out of three had carried a gun for protection at some point.

The wire service spoke with Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia, who said he was unprepared for the amount of death threats and harassment directed at him when he began hearing cases of defendants accused in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. Lamberth received threats on his home phone and his chambers voicemail.

U.S. marshals found the man calling Lamberth’s home and warned him to stop. They also upgraded Lamberth’s home security system.

“Living this way, it does change your life,” Lamberth said.