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The Trump administration said it needed the data to root out waste and fraud and to modernize the agency's operations. Two labor unions and an advocacy group represented by Democracy Forward Foundation sued to block access, saying that much of the information was deeply personal and protected by privacy laws.

The court responded that the agency "may proceed" to allow DOGE access to the records necessary to do its work.

In a second unsigned order on Friday the court handed DOGE another victory, ruling that, for now, the organization does not have to turn over internal records to a government watchdog group as part of a public records lawsuit.

The court's three liberal members " Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson " dissented from both rulings.