JPL Scientists Take NASA To the Supreme Court

CheshireCatCO writes "Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, concerned about background checks now required of federal employees, sued NASA to suspend the checks back in 2007. The case has now worked its way up to the Supreme Court. At stake: whether all federal employees can be forced to undergo open-ended background checks whether or not the employee has exposure to classified or sensitive information. The background checks, which can include interviewing people from employees' pasts such as landlords and teachers, may seek, among other things, sexual histories."

Comments

It's about blackmail

[Sir_Lewk]

The "sexual history" questions will unfortunately remain relevant in background checks for highly important/secret positions so long as sexual history related topics remain highly taboo in society. The (intended) purpose of these questions is to determine if the applicant has anything in their past that would make particularly them subjective to blackmail.

They leave a bad taste in my mouth too, which is why I avoid those sorts of jobs...

Re:It's about blackmail

[Nyeerrmm]

No. I work at JPL. I've done classified work before. Just because I have done it in the past or might in the future implies nothing about whether I should have a background check for my current job. If I were to do classified work in my current job, I would need to regain my clearance. This is the same as if I decided to go work minimum wage at a fast food chain then went back to classified work.

Though I dont care for my own sake, since I've already gone through it for legitimate reasons, making all employees here go through it is absurd. My best understanding (I started well after they stopped issuing the badges, so I'm not certain of the details) is that it was an unassuming attempt to put a generic federal badging procedure, which normally applies to DOD contractors, for which the background check makes sense. However it should not apply to JPL or other NASA centers, and to me this lawsuit is against the idea that more security is always necessarily better, and should be applied without consideration for the civil liberties of federal contractors.

How you can help

[ScottMaxwell]

As a named plaintiff in this lawsuit, I'm awfully happy to see the widespread support here on Slashdot. I'd like to be able to keep driving Mars rovers around without having to sign a form that says NASA can interrogate my priest, my doctor, my lawyer, my accountant, and my ISP to make sure I'm sufficiently uninteresting.

If you'd like to help, please consider donating to keep our amazing legal team afloat. The privacy you save could be your own. Thank you!

Re:How you can help

[Geoffrey.landis]

An important thing to note is that the administration lied about the background checks. They stated that invasive personal background checks were required by a presidential directive called "HSPD-12". This, as it turns out, is incorrect.

The full text of HSPD-12 is available on the web. In fact, what it says is that the government identification cards should be difficult to forge. As a part of that, it said that the government should verify the identification of its employees before issuing identification cards. That's it. The only background check required it "check their ID."