Cite as: 537 U. S. 371 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
ploying an "execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process" within the meaning of § 407(a).6 For obvious reasons, respondents do not contend that the depart-ment's activities involve any execution, levy, attachment, or garnishment. These legal terms of art refer to formal procedures by which one person gains a degree of control over property otherwise subject to the control of another, and generally involve some form of judicial authorization. See, e. g., Black's Law Dictionary 123 (7th ed. 1999) (defining "provisional attachment" as a "prejudgment attachment in which the debtor's property is seized so that if the creditor ultimately prevails, the creditor will be assured of recovering on the judgment . . . . Ordinarily, a hearing must be held before the attachment takes place"); id., at 689 (defining "garnishment" as "[a] judicial proceeding in which a creditor (or potential creditor) asks the court to order a third party who is indebted to or is bailee for the debtor to turn over to the creditor any of the debtor's property"). The department's efforts to become a representative payee and to use respondents' benefits do not even arguably employ any of these traditional procedures.
Thus, the case boils down to whether the department's manner of gaining control of the federal funds involves "other legal process," as the statute uses that term. That restriction to the statutory usage of "other legal process" is
6 Respondents have apparently never argued that the reimbursement violates the § 407(a) bar to "transfe[r]" of benefits; nor would such a claim seem to hold any promise on the facts here. Respondents do, however, contend that the department's budgeting in anticipation of receiving Social Security benefits constitutes an "assign[ment]" prohibited by § 407(a). Congress could hardly have intended for this sort of budgeting, done by private and public representative payees alike, to run afoul of the antiattachment provisions of the Act, particularly since the Administration makes OASDI payments with a 1-month lag. See infra, at 387. To the extent that the text of § 407(a) is ambiguous on this score, the Commission-er's interpretation of the provision to permit such budgeting requires deference. See Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 139-140 (1944).
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