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NASA Employees Fight Invasive Background Check

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the watching-the-watchmen dept.

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."

5 of 354 comments (clear)

  1. thats the stupidest thing ive heard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    they must fill out a form online about employment history, past residences and any illegal drug use.
    which illegal drugs do you currently or in the past partake? [ ]pot [ ]crack [ ]meth [ ]heroin [X]all of the above ya right
  2. Re:The issue of access by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: -1, Troll

    If you work on the same floor as someone handling classified information, you obviously have more chance to steal it than an outsider. If you work for the same company as someone handling classified information you obviously have more chance to steal it than an outsider. So hand over all your personal information and get a new job if you don't pass muster.

    If you work in the same neighborhood as someone at a classified facility you obviously have more chance to steal it than an outsider. So hand over all your personal information and get a new new employer if you don't pass muster.

    If you live in the same city as someone working at a classified facility you obviously have more chance to steal it than an outsider. So hand over all your personal information and get a new home in a new city if you don't pass muster.

    If you live in the same country as someone working at a classified facility you obviously have more chance to steal it than a foreigner. So hand over all your personal information, and get a new home in a new country if you don't pass muster.

    The point of this reductio ad absurdum is to show that you don't understand a thing about the handling procedures involved. The level of risk at all the steps above, including your own, is roughly equal.
  3. Weeding Out the Non-Republicans by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 0, Troll

    This is an application of all the government collected and cross-referenced data (including Echelon, Carnivore, Poindexter's MATRIX and TIA, Gonzales' TSP, and all the rest we never heard about) plus all the "accidentally" leaked personal info, data mined to determine by association whether someone is a reliable Republican voter droid. They get your "background check" info, and then you stop getting promoted and eventually leave if you're not a "loyal Republican".

    Hello, Karl! Go Cheney yourself!

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  4. Re:you missed one... by geekmux · · Score: 0, Troll

    A "privilege"? Tell that to the thousands who were drafted to go to war during Vietnam and those lucky few who managed to come back to a country who hated them. While perhaps an employee of NASA, obviously yet another ignorant statment from a true civilian who has never really served his country. If he has, then he's developed a serious case of cranial-rectal inversion over the years of driving a desk. Regardless, his excuse is weak for the level of investigations purported here. Anyone else feel like the terms "US Citizen" and "Born in the USA" don't mean shit anymore? The term "rights" shouldn't even exist outside of the definition of a series of directional turns.

  5. Re:The issue of access by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 0, Troll

    Slippery-Slope You are using that word which does not mean what you think it means.

    It's much easier for me to overhear/steal/tcpdump something on the floor where I work all day than to compromise a secure building with badge+biometric Which has nothing at all to do with closed areas. You've clearly never worked at one or you would understand that a closed area is essentially walled off, behind a minimum of two-factor authentication, closed space with no interconnected networking and no network cabling that traverses an open area. You can't hear through the walls and you can't see anything through the windows.

    What you consider 'much easier' is in reality marginally easier. Which was the point of my illustration.