Looking over judges' shoulders at the Next Frontier: The Saga of Big Balls.

The Law: Federal Courts review when federal agency action, findings and conclusions are "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law."

Judge's Gavel.

Wikimedia Commons, Courtroom One Gavel-Flickr-Joe Gratz)

This is the stark reality of the present moment: Big Balls now can get ahold of all your personally identifiable information that was ever stored on computers once owned by the federal government, information that includes your Social Security numbers, your bank accounts, your military service records, and who knows what else.

The current federal government will argue that it is not arbitrary or capricious to make this information available to a 19-year old intern nicknamed Big Balls.

Now the story continues.

It will be interesting to hear and read how lawyers for the federal government will argue in the next few days and weeks that multiple actions of federal agencies are "reasonable" which is the opposite of "arbitrary," or that the agency actions are "stable" which is the opposite of "capricious."

Or that what actions have been taken or remain to be taken by federal agencies are really not "an abuse of discretion." Or that the challenged agency actions are actually "otherwise in accordance with law."

It will also be interesting to see what federal government lawyers will have to say about federal agency findings and conclusions, as I for one have not seen any such things as yet. Perhaps I have not been paying close enough attention to see their findings and conclusions. I have had no problem, however, in seeing their actions.

Federal agencies have been used like dancers in Kabuki theater to show us what we should think. The reality is that federal agencies having now been taken over are dancers in a play written by people some of whose names we are only now beginning to learn. Other authors of this pageant of excess remain nameless and unknown to us. They apparently have an aversion to publicity or at least to being known; witness their very negative reaction to the exposure of Mr. Musk's Minor Minions recently.

In any case, this play that has begun was written not for us, but for the people who wrote it. It is not like a usual play in that respect, as it was not written for us but for them. The authors' plan is a big one. Their goal is to take over the United States.

In hatching this plot, these chickens (forgive the metaphor) have planned all along on opposition coming piecemeal, which is how the law moves. The law moves in one case at a time, on one claim at a time. Judges do not make policy. Lawyers who practice law do not make policy, either. The results they produce come in one case at a time.

The architects of the current massacre of statutes, rules and regulations knew that, counted on it, factored it into their thinking. That is where we stand now: Death or at least attempted murder of many things, confronted for weeks not at all, until very recently the law came alive to challenge their actions, one at a time.

Except the architects, the plotters, the gangs are wrong. There have been protests and demonstrations and petitions and resistance, and there will be more. Some but not all of that reaction to their plan is coming from lawsuits filed in federal courts.

When a federal agency takes action, or makes findings and conclusions that are "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law," federal judges are empowered to invalidate them.

Agency action which has drawn increasing publicity is being repeated at various federal agencies: access given to private individuals to the federal agencies' computers including our personally identifiable information. This is information about us, you and me, which we gave to the federal government back in the day when there was such a thing, long before interns with names like Big Balls roamed the agency codes and locked out actual employees of the pre-existing federal government.

Speaking of Big Balls, one of Mr. Musk's Gang of Goofy Guys, have you ever seen a picture of this guy? He sure doesn't look like it.

But I digress. The current federal agencies have given computer access, really have turned over their computers with our information in them, to private individuals who have no apparent federal government role or any known federal office. This has happened at more than one of the current federal agencies that still go by the old names, such as "the Department of Education" and the "Department of the Treasury." Pushback has surfaced in the courts and publicity has mushroomed about it, not because of the press, but in spite of it.

The lawsuits have been filed very recently, of course. One such lawsuit was filed on February 7, 2025 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia over the Department of Education's surrender of its computer systems containing sensitive internal information related to federal student aid.

I do not know what the intent of making this computerized information available to people like Big Balls may be, actually. I have not seen any findings of fact or conclusions issued by the Department of Education about the access of any private individuals to the sensitive information that is contained in the Department's computers about student loans. So I do not know the intent behind allowing the access.

The students who are among the people suing the Department of Education in this lawsuit allege that the Department's newly-implemented-open-access action is arbitrary and capricious. They also allege that the Department's action in allowing access to sensitive information stored on the Department's computers about students who applied for and received student loans, is contrary to law, violates their privacy rights, and exceeds the Department of Education's statutory authority.

It will be worth following the development of this case and other cases like it, as they all chug along. It will be particularly worthwhile to follow the "arbitrary" and "capricious" issues raised in all these cases, but there is more to follow that makes the following worthwhile.

Perhaps most interesting of all, wait for the government lawyers to contend, if they can, that the Department's action is "reasonable" or the opposite of "arbitrary," or that the Department's action in this regard is "stable" or the opposite of "capricious," especially when their actions have never been taken before now.

And especially that giving Big Balls access to your information on their computers is reasonable and stable.

In the United States of America.

To be continued in the next installment of "Reviewing the Judicial Review."

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Thanks for reading Claims and Issues! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and follow my work here. I also published an article on this topic on February 11, 2025 on Claims and Bad Faith Law Blog.