A federal judge has refused to shut down the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to human resources files of government employees, saying there was no “concrete evidence” that the DOGE was misusing the data right now.

“Plaintiffs’ fears of future harm are much too speculative,” Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. ruled Friday. 

The Electronic Privacy Information Center had sued the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s chief human resources agency, saying DOGE’s access amounted to “the largest and most consequential data breach in U.S. history.”

EPIC asked the judge to issue a restraining order blocking DOGE’s access to the personnel files at OPM, and to payment records at the Treasury Department.

Judge Alston said it wasn’t clear that EPIC or the career civil servants who sued anonymously had legal standing to sue.

But the bigger problem with their case is that no harm has been done yet, the judge ruled.

EPIC had blamed Elon Musk, who is acting as a close advisor to President Trump, for overseeing the “data breach.”

In fact, it’s not quite clear right now what Mr. Musk’s official role is with the DOGE.

The Justice Department has said Mr. Musk is not the head of DOGE, which isn’t actually a department but is rather an office within the White House. But Mr. Trump said he does consider Mr. Musk the leader of the DOGE.

Judge Alston sidestepped that controversy, instead citing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the man who granted the DOGE access to payment systems.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.