Slashdot Mirror
NASA Employees Fight Invasive Background Check
Electron Barrage writes "Longtime JPL scientists, many of whom do not work on classified materials, including rover drivers and Apollo veterans, sued NASA, Caltech, and the Department of Commerce today to fight highly invasive background checks, which include financial information, any and all retail business transactions, and even sexual orientation."
We must not underestimate the bounds and abilities of the terrorists, they may have infiltrated any and all parts of our government, and it our responsibility. . nay, our duty, as freedom-loving Americans to find them and bring them to justice. These background checks are only a preventative measure, to ensure that government employees have the utmost integrity and loyalty. So long as nothing suspicious shows up on these reports government employees have nothing to fear, we must all sacrifice something in the battle against terrorism.
.)
(I pray that I never hear anything like this. .
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
How the hell asking those kind of things helps prevent terrorism?(which is the stated goal according to the article) And anyway, even if it did help I wouldn't agree.
That a McCarthy quote (s/terrorist/Communist/)?
If you work on the same floor as someone handling classified information, you obviously have more chance to steal it than an outsider. And if you have a large gambling debt or are having a clandestine gay (or straight) affair unknown to your spouse, you are more likely to be motivated to sell some of your knowledge or reveal it to avoid damaging exposure. Basically to work on - or around - government secrets you better not have too many secrets of your own.
I don't know what it's going to take to get people to understand the extent to which the US government is being destroyed by conservatives.
The conservative movement is, was, and always will be about destroying the US government, by any means necessary. The fact that their junta has seized control of the White House makes it all the easier to persue their anti-US agenda.
When you realize the extent that they hate America, everything they have done since Nixon (and especially since 2000) makes perfect sense.
It's a shame that eventually anyone who doesn't want to allow the FBI to open a dossier on them and start monitoring all their past and present communications will only be allowed to flip burgars or clean toilets for money to live in this society. This is exactly the kind of treatment by society that breeds radical islamists. If you treat someone like a radical islamist, then that's what they will become.
everyone who wants to be a government employee should have a background check done. but first every political figure, all their staff, families, pets(why not) go first. and all made public. a sound policy. i like it.
'Got any dragons you need killed?'
This is a BS excuse. Anyone wanting to blackmail someone can always either dig up a truth, or manufacture a lie, that is good enough to "get the job done."
Want to make someone look like they're on the take? Deposit 20k in their bank account in cash. Then, a week later, before they get their bank statement, meet and greet them, and tell them what you've done, and how "gee, its going to look like drug money - do this shit for us, and we'll "fix it"". Better yet, make a lump-sum payment on their mortgage for them, when they're swimming in debt over their heads.
Want to make someone look like they're cheating on their spouse? Photoshop to the rescue. Especially if you have some unshopped pictures of the victim and the "sex object" elsewhere - for example, approach them in a restaurant, sit at their table for a minute asking for directions, and getting them to make a sketch.
Want to make someone look like a pedophile? Dump pics on their computer at work. (boot off usb, copy pics to drive, mission accomplished. Worst-case scenario, you'll have to connect the drive's cable to another machine as a slave for a few minutes).
There are ALWAYS ways to blackmail someone. If NASA believes that these sorts of background checks really work, they've been breathing too much vacuum.
Well, if you say you've never used illegal drugs, and then later they find out you used to smoke the occasional jazz cigarette with your highschool buddies, they can nail you for signing a false statement when they decide they want you in jail. Perfect! Just like that green form I fill in when I go to the USofA on business that asks if I'm a spy for a foreign government, or if I'm entering the US with the intention of committing a crime - like anyone would ever answer "yes". It's just so you have one more thing to nail you for (i.e. you didn't just enter the US with the intention of committing a crime, you also signed a false declaration) if they need to.
The biggest problem with our current administration is they have never been after the "terorists" as the call them their real agenda is findling the "enemy". For them the enemy is anyone who doesn't agree with them. That does include terrorists but it also includes many of their own people, Republicans that disagree on specific issues. NASA has been a thorn in their side lately because a few have complained about supressing facts and have spoken out in support of global warming. I think this is far more about towing the party line than about terrorists. They want dirt on everyone. There's an underlying paranoia in everything they do. Freedom isn't about free to think like they do but that's the interpretation. It's not whether potential terrorist can influence them but can the government yank their chain when they need to. We live in very scary times and it's not the country I grew up in. In some ways it was actually far more conservative but ironically there was far more freedom in the 60s. We're increasingly under a microscope and knowledge is power and it's always about power. The factions in Iraq claim it's about religion but even the factions are dividing into smallwer and smaller sub groups fighting among themselves but at it's heart it's about power and control.
Asking about this stuff is Catch-22, though.
If our society (and its individuals) can get past feeling shame at normal human activity, then all leverage goes out the window.
For example, if Senator Craig had owned up to being gay and simply led a gay life, he'd stay in the Senate. But it is precisely because he tried to hide it that he is in trouble.
That's why I absolutely *love* our let-it-all-hang-out, tell-all culture. The more outing that takes place, the more normal all that hidden behavior becomes, the less hung up and twisted we'll all be in so many ways, including being subject to shame and its destructiveness in so many forms (suicides; political leverage; etcetera).
It's not just government agencies, and not after 9/11 either. This kind of practice happened even before 9/11 in corporate world.
.... yada yada. Whatever you can name it, it's on that piece of paper. The whole piece of paper is filled with these items. And the funny part was, for some checking, I had to foot up the expenses too, although it didn't say which ones.
In early 2001 (pre-9/11), the investors pulled out of our company and we went belly up. Two weeks later, I got an offer from a new startup, developing high-end IDS. I would be the second software engineer there. The offer was really good, with a good amount of stock options, and 3 weeks vacation. Except one thing: the background check.
The wording of that agreement was amazingly terrible. It is more than invasive. I kept that page until two years ago, finally threw it away with other junks. Basically, it stated that the company could do any background check, any time, on any thing, including but not just my previous and future phone logs (including personal phone), email log (including personal email), bank accounts, trading accounts, 401K, IRA, credit card expenses, credit check, newsgroup, web postings,
I didn't sign, and went to the president, had a nice and polite discussion with him. I told him that I understood their concern about security, but this agreement obviously went overboard. I don't mind "normal" background check, but not those mentioned there. He also agreed that it went a little too far. So he asked me to re-word it so that I could accept. I rewrote the agreement, using standard background check format and wordings from other companies which I could accept. The president thought it was fine with him.
But the corporate attorney, with the support of the investors, didn't want to hear about it. He said that engineers and technical people had too easy an access to implement backdoors in the system. It is this way, or the highway.
I chose the highway. The company recruiter (external hired recruiter, actually) kept calling me for two months, but I already started working at other place for almost two months by then.
"employment history, past residences and any illegal drug use."
Hmm. Yes, "the slippery slope" -- my favorite logical fallacy. "You know, there's actually nothing wrong with what's being proposed, and no harm will come of it, but there's this other thing that would be very bad, so we should oppose *this* because we don't want *that*." It's truly amazing, and a testament to the stupidity of Man, that such arguments have any traction at all... but they are surprisingly common and effective. :(
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Your right, because when an additional fine was proprosed for not wearing a seatbelt, it was accepted as that, and it never went from an additional fine to something that you could be pulled over for all by itself. Also like the DUI laws, no one ever would continue to lower the limit to the point where you can be jailed for not even being drunk. And the PATRIOT 2 act will rollback some of the absurd police powers.
You may call it a logical fallacy all you like, but then you're ignoring history. Give a little power, and more WILL be taken.
The slippery slope is only a logical fallacy if you apply it to outcomes which are not influenced by external forces. What happens when one group is not satisfied?
Traditionally, the slippery slope arguement is used to describe restrictions to liberty as having a snowballing effect. One restriction will lead to others. On its own, this is not necessarily true. Yet simply dismissing the argument as a slippery slope fallacy without understanding the motivations of all players is foolish.
Basically, an arguement suggesting that a slippery slope exists isn't false simply because of the assertation. Of course, evidence must be presented to suggest that a slippery slope does exist.
Precedent is the principle in law of using the past in order to assist in current interpretation and decision-making. Precedent can be of two types. Binding or mandatory precedent is a precedent under the doctrine of stare decisis that a court must consider when deciding a case. Advisory precedent are cases which a court may use but is not required to use to decide its cases. In general, binding precedent involves decisions made by a higher court in a common law jurisdiction.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent
One could use precedent from previous examples where 'A' led to 'B' in one situation, where in all other situations 'B' never spontaneously occured. This would suggest that 'A' makes 'B' possible, maybe not inevitable, but possible and potentially probable.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Hello Mr Griffin. It is a privilege to employ these exceptional engineers, not a right. If you make their lives difficult, they will leave.
Employees are not sheep to be slaughtered. They are stakeholders of your organisation and you have to take their views into account when you draw new policies.
I recently was on a plane coming from a trade show and I got into a long conversation with the guy next to me, who worked for this company at about the same level as I was applying for, and also in engineering. I told him I had turned down a job offer and that the IP clauses in the employment were one of my main concerns. His response was "But isn't that the industry standard?"
This is a phrase I hear from most people when I tell them this story. Yes, it may be the industry standard. But it's an industry standard because no one complains about it, or protests it, or turns down jobs because of it. The thing is, it mostly affects the most talented, energetic, and entrepreneurial engineers - who might actually create something of value outside of normal business hours.
I applaud these people for pushing back. Sure, working in the federal system is a "privilege". But the employers have an obligation to run the federal system in a way that produces the best results for the country. If you treat your employees like mechanical cogs, to be inspected and tuned and replaced, your not going to get those kinds of results.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Or like when Carter lowered the speed limit to 55 miles per hour, and now it's 40 miles per hour!
Its much, much rarer for goverment to relinquish power on their own. There are many more examples where this doesn't happen. Local governments more and more are "cracking down" on speed enforcement and lowering limits, even when studies show this will increase the number of accidents.
Or like when Linux started using Bitkeeper, and now almost all open-source products use it!
There's no government power involved here. Try to stay on topic.
Or like how in the Netherlands they tolerate marijuana, and now the entire country is addicted to crack cocaine...
Again, stay on topic. We're talking about increasing government power, where the argument DOES apply many times. If you want an example, take the War on Drugs. We're now at the point where if you sniff glue, you're breaking federal antidrug laws.
To sum it it, the slippery slope applies to government power grabs. The very real historical trend is that government will TAKE more and more power, not give it back.
Actually, +5 Informative would have been frightening (if anything would). One can actually originate insight from time to time ...
--
See? That deserves a +x Insightful even though I "made it up"
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever