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

Go JPL

[colinrichardday]

I hope the JPL scientists win!

Re:Go JPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama? He's busy loading the Justice Department with RIAA lawyers. Really, I don't think you want to call on him for this.

Re:Go JPL

[Peach Rings]

Insightful, really? Where's the patriot act rage? The DMCA rage? How quickly people forget that Bush told us there were weapons of mass destruction (there weren't) and waged a war of aggression that cost us nearly 50 times the original estimate of $60 billion dollars. That high-level Bush administration officials were personally responsible for suppressing evidence of human rights violations in overseas American prisons. That people are only now being released with our apologies for being held without trial for almost 10 years. That civil rights were eroded beyond anyone's wildest imagination in the anti-terrst frenzy after 9/11.

And what about the financial crisis? Which would you rather have, Obama stealing thousands from the pockets of millionaires or a downward spiral of economic peril that was the consequence of a presidential administration's pathological revulsion to reasonable regulation.

Re:Go JPL

[chrisG23]

You make it sound like the economy is a simple entity that immediately responds to the actions of those in control of the purse strings, budgets, and most importantly, the fiscal policy. It is not that simple. The seeds for the recession that officially began in December 2007 (National Bureau of Economic Research) were laid in place well before the Congress shifted to a Democrat majority in January of 2007. It would have happened regardless of who was in Congress for the 11 months prior to the start.

Re:Go JPL

[causality]

Really? Is that all you care about is downloading free music?

The point is that he had a choice between representing a monied interest and representing the people in the form of no such cronyism. He made the same choice that any politician with any distant hope of high office has learned to make.

The born again Christian paranoid Texan who left Obama one fuckwad of a mess to clean up was selling you out far further than trolling IP addresses for illegally sharing content.

Absolutely. Now, consider this: the same sponsors, corporate interests, vested interests in the status quo, and, if you like, the same Establishment brought us both Presidents. This system is sometimes called the "military industrial complex" after a speech given by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961. Meanwhile, two parties with a complete duopoly on any important public office means an affordably low number of factions to buy off, err I mean to support their campaigns. Do you see the problem?

As an outside observer who is not American, when I look at the mess GWB left for BO to deal with I have to say he's doing one hell of a job. The USA would be a third-world country by now if it wasn't for the crazy hard decisions Obama had to make to keep the US from tanking more than it did!

You're talking about a man who hires staffers with opinions like "never let a good crisis go to waste." If that were me in charge I'd have fired that person immediately as a public service. That's an attitude that is unworthy of proximity to power and not to be trusted with it.

He's not a God or the second coming of Christ, but he's doing a pretty good job leading the US out of the tar pits.

He's a puppet but he's a really charismatic one. The whole skill of politics is to adopt a position because of the way that the wind blows and then wear it so naturally that you must have felt that way your entire life. The author of the script he's always reading from a teleprompter is the one you should be looking at.

None of this is new, it's just that Presidents in the past would speak extemporaneously at least some significant portion of the time. The basic motivations that determine their choices remain extremely similar, with insignificant differences to which much attention is called. That's why the whole "Left" and "Right" deal is just two forms of Statism. Their differences concern only implementation details. But the constant bickering over those "ideological differences" distracts from the realization that they are indirect paths to Statism. The name for this effect is "divide and conquer".

The only interesting question is to what degree this arrangement is deliberate. Is it the product of a great deal of intentional engineering, or is the political environment more like an evolutionary pressure in the sense that politicians who aren't like this have no hope of competing with politicians who are? The very high incumbency rate of Congress gives one the impression that failing to really represent the interests of the people carries negligible political consequences.

Re:Go JPL

[causality]

I'll add one more thing. Study and thoroughly understand the meaning of something terribly important. There are three names for this one technique. It is sometimes called the "Hegelian Dialectic" named after the philosopher Hegel. It is also called "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis." More colloquially, it is known as "Problem, Reaction, Solution".

This technique in combination with what the ancient Romans called "bread and circus" are the two main methods used to subvert the will of the people.

Another thing a healthy republic or "democracy" needs is a thorough and widespread understanding of critical thinking, logic, and how to recognize propaganda techniques such as the "Big Lie", repetition, and fallacies such as the excluded middle. Government-run educational systems consistently fail to produce a population who have mastered this knowledge, and that's not a coincidence.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Said Sir_Lewk to the NSA job interviewer, who had asked about Sir_Lewk's sexual history.

Re:It's about blackmail

[Dyinobal]

You know I never really thought of it like that, damn I hope that raw chicken doesn't talk.

Re:It's about blackmail

[Nyder]

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...

Maybe people should just stop be ashamed by crap they do and not worry about it?

We all have gotten together with people we didn't want people to know. Chances are, people already know and don't care.

Seriously, blackmail only works if you let it.

You want to blackmail me? go for it. and good luck!

Re:It's about blackmail

[Anonymous Coward]

The "sexual history" questions will unfortunately remain relevant in background checks for highly important/secret positions

The question is whether intrusive background checks are appropriate for scientists working on unclassified projects. I don't see what the "importance" of the project has to do with it. If they don't have access to national security secrets, why should the government be allowed to go on a fishing expedition through their private lives?

Re:It's about blackmail

[Concerned Onlooker]

"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."

Yes, but blackmail for what? The latest images from Mars? The shoestring budget numbers for a project? The motor control code for actuators? I think people have the perception that what goes on at JPL is top secret stuff when in fact just about all of it gets released to the public sooner than later. We're talking research-y stuff here. Not DOD. And where people might be working on DOD stuff then the security clearances come into play.

These abusive background checks might make a little more sense for those pursuing a secret clearance, but for the day-to-day activities at JPL they are just that. Abusive.

Re:It's about blackmail

[vux984]

We all have gotten together with people we didn't want people to know.

Infidelity and other sexual indiscretions can easily damage or even ruin marriages and political careers. It doesn't really matter whether or not YOU are ashamed of what YOU did. What matters is what EVERYONE else thinks.

Blackmail will continue to work as long as your spouse and/or the voters care about what YOU have been up to.

Re:It's about blackmail

[Sir_Lewk]

More accurately, people should stop caring about the crap other people do. Blackmail works if the people around you (your boss, your wife/family, your coworkers, your friends, your neighbors...) let it.

The spouse one is a big one. There can be big financial consequences involved there.

Re:It's about blackmail

[AnonymousClown]

That's his point.

If one is in the closet, it is usually for a pretty good reason. When you have people in this society that will literally get violent if they find that one is gay, one would have to be very careful who he tells in order to not get killed. Gays are still being murdered in this society. And if you get a boss who's belief system thinks that homosexuality is an affront to God or something like that, he has to cover themselves to have employment.

Everyone has something to hide - or I can make anything about you be turned into something that needs to be hidden.

Re:It's about blackmail

[dbIII]

Seriously, blackmail only works if you let it.

It's not just blackmail. Stupid HR people may rarely work, but when they do it can be preventing people from getting jobs due to trivialities on their files. You'll even get a "40 and still a virgin - can't have him working here" response if that sort of thing is on file. Anything other than what the HR people consider ideal from their own personal background puts you at a disadvantage if it's on file. The only real answer is to never let them see this stuff if it is collected.

Re:It's about blackmail

[jackbird]

That's what actual security clearances are for, and not the subject of this lawsuit.

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.

Re:It's about blackmail

[Jafafa Hots]

This would require that people aren't what they are - ignorant, hypocritical, self-centered, immature idiots who hold every other person on the planet to a standard orders of magnitude higher than that to which they hold themselves.

We are a country that impeached a president over a consensual sex act.
(Oh don't start whining wingnuts, yes it was technically for "lying" about a sex act after his perfectly legal consensual and private sex life was the subject of a multi-year, multimillion dollar taxpayer funded investigation. You should thank me instead of whining - the reality actually makes you look MORE pathetic, craven and childish.)

We are a nation of six year olds.

Catch-22: the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade

[Required Snark]

Catch-22 http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=7225

Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it. He had really hit on something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed. They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay from the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers. To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day to keep one step ahead. He would stand second to none in his devotion to country. When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced the pledge of allegiance, and after that “The Star-Spangled Banner,” one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses. Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them scornfully for their failure to follow his example. Each time they followed his example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again.

Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to. And to anyone who questioned the morality, he replied that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was the greatest piece of music ever composed. The more loyalty oaths a person signed, the more loyal he was; to Captain Black it was as simple as that, and he had Corporal Kolodny sign hundreds with his name each day so that he could always prove he was more loyal than anyone else.

Re:Catch-22: the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade

[Anonymous Coward]

American, huh?

Suitability Matrix

[CheshireCatCO]

By the way, here's a copy of the suitability matrix.

Obama's Busy Defending Bush Admin. Policies

[billstewart]

I care much more about issues like illegal prisons, torture (whether or not by that name), secret kidnappings, state secrets, assassinations without trials, warrantless wiretapping, and policies like that than I do about downloading free music, but Obama's Just-Us Department is defending the Bush Administration's policies on all of those things. Instead of Hopey Changey Stuff, we've been getting Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss. And the kind of people who want the uncontrolled spying on people's music download habits get along really well with the politically-motivated spooks who want the same powers and same infrastructure.

As far as the economy goes, Keynes himself was smarter than most people who use his name to describe themselves - it's not surprising that the Obama Administration tried to fix Bush's massive economic damage by borrowing and spending lots of money, but if that were all it took, the way Bush racked up deficits by spending money like a drunken sailor with a bunch of stolen credit cards should have helped things instead of hurting them. It's certainly better to spend them on domestic pork-barrel projects than on wars, but Obama hasn't slowed down the wars by much either. There's a better excuse for it (naive optimism instead of cynical irresponsibility), but I don't see it getting us out of the tar pits, since we're still going to have to pay that money back, and with the demographic hit of all the boomers going on Social Security in the next decade, the general budget will need to start running surpluses, not deficits, which will be tough with fewer actual workers.

(And religious bigotry's not pretty even if you are attacking politically correct targets. Blamin' Texans is ok, though...)
(Also, I once pulled a bird out of the La Brea Tar Pits; it was still alive, but the folks at the museum said it was unlikely to recover from getting stuck in that stuff.)

Re:Obama's Busy Defending Bush Admin. Policies

[salesgeek]

Sir, you are offending drunken sailors everywhere with this.

Re:Obama's Busy Defending Bush Admin. Policies

[Firethorn]

Obama is not the same as the Old Boss. Educate yourself.

Sure, he's not identical. Sure, he changed a couple policies. Policies that studies were showing were ineffective. But he's held the same course in so many OTHER areas that you can stay he's much the same.

For example, we're still in Iraq. We're still in Afghanistan. We're still spending borrowed money like crazy. Gun control hasn't changed, and don't ask don't tell still stands.

Personally I think that we need to 'finish the job' in Iraq and Afghanistan, which to me means a functional government able to defend itself from extremists and foreign powers. Able to represent the people, etc... At this point the reason we went in is almost moot.

I'm very much FOR balanced budgets. I think that gays should be able to openly serve in the military, it's only a source of friction right now. As for gun control, well, check out my sig for my thoughts on that...

For the record, I'm not happy with either party.

Re:Obama's Busy Defending Bush Admin. Policies

[Firethorn]

The NRA has had a history of supporting pro-gun rights candidates irregardless of party. I've paid attention. While there hasn't been a lot of movement on the federal level, there's been quite a bit at the state level. We're down to, what, 2 states that don't allow concealed carry at some level? Then again, speaking of federal level there was the strike-down of the DC gun ban. But I wouldn't associate supreme court judges with parties...

The problem, as I see it, is that the Democrats for the longest time seemed to insist on putting gun control advocates up for election, not to mention making gun control a party plank. I can't blame the NRA for taking the party at it's word and assuming that a candidate, unless he or she has stated differently, follows their party's platform, to include the gun control bits. You have some of the most vehement gun grabbers in the democrat party. Feinstein, for example. Kennedy, before his passing, was recorded proposing banning all rifles capable of penetrating soft body armor - He listed the '30-30' as an example of a gun caliber to be banned. The .30-30 was developed on the cusp of the widespread replacement of black powder with smokeless. It's primarily for lever action rifles, and was never intended for military use. It's generally considered on the bottom end of cartridges suitable for deer hunting today. Yes, it'll cut through soft body armor like butter, but so won't pretty much every other center-fire rifle round.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Obama hasn't touched gun control stuff. Because, frankly speaking, he's a politician from Chicago and doesn't have the best record.

Re:idiots

[CheshireCatCO]

Everyone is put through normal background checks that should turn up things like "axe murder". And everyone is also at least obligated to pee in the cup if asked to. (I'm not sure if JPL runs randomized screening or just waits for probable cause.) But unless IBM is digging unusually deeply, your sexual history wasn't consider, nor were the histories of your friends and family. That's what's being disputed here.

Also, note that the scientists in question do no work on "gigantic bombs" or even on the rockets. They work on the robot probes which are in the vicinity of entirely different planets. There isn't much that they can to do you, even if they do snap and decide to hijack the probe. There's also very little that they know that any foreign government would pay for, in as much as said governments could wait a few months for the publication of the findings anyway.

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."