Slashdot Mirror
JPL Background Check Case Reaches Supreme Court
Dthief writes "A long-running legal battle between the United States government and a group of 29 scientists and engineers of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has now reached the US Supreme Court." At issue: mandatory background checks for scientists and engineers working at JPL, which they allege includes snooping into their sexual orientation, as well as their mental and physical health.
JPL employees do not work for the government; they work for Caltech. NASA data is not classified; just the opposite. By law it is required to be made available to the public (subject to ITAR restrictions). Very few projects at JPL require any kind of clearance. 5% of JPL works on non-NASA projects, i.e., something that could be classified, so 250 people of 5000. Of those, probably less than 100 need a clearance (most non-NASA projects at JPL are not classified, rather the money comes from NSF or industry or some other grant). Those projects that are sensitive, are not "highly" secret, as those things go. It just isn't that kind of lab. On those that are sensitive, the people working on them do go through the background checks. On the usual need-to-know basis, why does that mean that everyone else working there (4900 people of 5000) need to have a clearance or this sort of intrusive background check? If the 100 people with clearance do their job, no one else has access to anything classified. If they don't, having the other 4900 people have a background check won't help because security has already failed. I've had a clearance elsewhere so I'm familiar with the drill. If you have clearance to one thing, that doesn't mean you have clearance to anything else, whether at that level or below. One of the reasons I took this job is because it had no background check.
These sorts of checks haven't been required at JPL for the last 50 years, through wars cold and hot. Why now?
Or are you suggesting that anyone who works for the government, directly or indirectly, be subject to this sort of background check? Teachers? Dept. of Interior? Fish and Wildlife? USGS? Highway subcontractors? After all, it's all federal funds. No one has a right to government money. Do your rights go out the window if you get paid by the government first, second, or third hand?
Clearly it's ridiculous to suggest that USFS employees go through a background check, as it is the guys pushing shovels on the highway. So the question is, where is the line drawn? For the past 50 years, it's been drawn on the other side of JPL employees with no issues. Why so eager to toss our rights down the drain, and for what benefit?