Does the government have the right to probe the lives of low-risk contractors?
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comSupreme Court to hear NASA privacy case
Seeded on Sun Oct 3, 2010 6:15 PM EDT (msnbc.com)
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If they want to give me one of those jobs CHECK AWAY.....
ditto, I have a job but heck a government job is secure as heck
Do you really want them to ask open-ended questions about your sexual history? Which if you do any research, you'll find out that's exactly what happened to these folks, and why they're up in arms over this.
The government has an absolutely responsibility to verify someone's education and employment history - I don't argue that. But when someone doesn't work on a classified project, the digging shouldn't go back any farther than it does in the private sector.
It's probably also a witch hunt to weed out those pesky creationists. After all, science and creationism are incompatible. /sarcasm
Digging goes pretty deep in the private sector.
My guess is that it is an attempt to gain more control over people who only work well in an environment of openness and freedom. Politicians never seem to trust openness and freedom.
I had some secret clearances in the past and don't remember any of my neighbors or others questioned by the FBI questioners beilng asked about my sexual history.
Is this saying that JPL now has a Don't Ask Don't Tell policy? If that's true, it should be repealed now because sexual orientation should make no difference anyway.
The world does not care about sexual orientation of people. Only the American super religious far right idiots who are concerned about precious bodily fluids or about guarding everyones souls from satanic influences or whatever. Geez!!!
Can you define past? A lot has happned since I myself last held any type of security clearence and I know that now they DO probe into your sexual history. Why, because we the American people have made the government think they need to. Our own paranoia into how someone acts inside thier own home has lead to the governement prying into our private lives more and more. I honestly couldn't care less what someones sexual preferences are. Its time to start being LESS politically correct.
It's not like "don't ask don't tell" - the issue is that the directive required ALL personnel to submit to this super extensive background check, rather than the normal background check that confirms your education and address, etc.
The misconception is that this is restricted to JPL. It's not - it's supposed to apply across the ENTIRE government, of which NASA is a part. JPL is the only facility anywhere that objected, and what they object to is the part where even if you're not working on anything classified, you would have to fill out a pretty invasive background check. The argument is that requiring that much information for people who have no secrets is inappropriate.
As for the actual environment at JPL and NASA - it's not at all like a culture of don't ask, don't tell. It's still very open and progressive, and they're serious about their no-discrimination policies.
What a waste of the court's time!
I have had a TS clearance and have been through numerous BI's. What is the big deal, the MAJORITY of the info is already in the public domain. Just GOOGLE your name.
Your sexual preference use to be a big deal because of the 'black mail' possibilities. But that risk has passed with the general public acceptance. Maybe the closet guys are afraid of being outed. Ha! Ha!
IMO - If you want to work around classified info and projects. You should have a BI and regular/random security checks.
People that are AFRAID of BI's are hiding something.
Did you read the article? The whole point is, these people DON'T work around classified info and projects, but they're being subjected to intrusive background checks anyway.
If you work in a secure area or facility, you need a clearance, including the janitor.
The Navy requires two locks on a container holding TPI material, inside of a secure vault.
The USAF considers the front gate as one of the locks for the same TPI material.
The question is how secure do you want the classified material and projects to be. Hard to keep a secret if the cleaning crew can see the classified aircraft or project from the parking lot.
These people are working in an unclassified area where Soviet Russian scientists used to come frequently. Back then there was less call for Chinese scientists to participate but I expect they are there now.
Who are we hiding from?
While I have nothing against background checks for top secret clearances, I think the scientists in this case have a good argument. When do we leave our rights at the door once we work for the government, especially our right to privacy? Our government should have all the details it needs in our records (birth certificates, military and arrest records, etc.). To delve deeper to me reeks of something you expect 'other' countries (think Soviet Union or Nazi Germany) do. The good doctor has a good point...if well qualified potential NASA employees see the wall of red tape and personal well-mining questions, they will turn and run. Not even the private sector will make this kind of hassle!
NASA should wise up and realize that their employees are people, flesh and blood, and not expendable machines or pieces of hardware or software. If they get that through their thick skulls, and get rid of some of the other deadwood in government, our country may get back its cutting edge.
That is something most management refuses to see. I mean that employees are not simply replaceable machines.
If you don't want your privacy compromised, don't work for a government agency. If you're one of Putin's sleeper agents, welcome to post 9-1-1 America.
Open-ended questions and intrusive information-gathering for indefinite storage in government computers clearly chills the freedom from government intrusion into our personal lives...
How a court, or our government itself may claim the right to such unwarranted (literally) dominance over our constitutionally protected personal life is a continuting encroachment in a pattern of encroachments which shrinks our areas of decision-making and initiative... Would the gov have approved of my choices when I was 17?
We need to apply the need to know rule to government as effectively as it is applied to us.
We will be watching to see how the newly constituted Supreme Court responds to this search without a warrant.
Biff
While these workers may not be directly involved with classified subjects, however you know they are working within spitting distance from matters that are.
I'm all for personal privacy, but in a matter like this I'm going to side with NASA. I'd be willing to venture that the SCOTUS is going to rule against the scientists.
Under the takes one to know one hypothesis, you are not all for privacy. You do, however, have the paranoia of a scientist. Nonetheless, I think the scientists have the right of it in this case.
If the supreme court finds for NASA here, they will find all their best minds going to the European Space Agency or somewhere else like that. These people are more needed than they need this particular job. They hold the controlling hand. If NASA is allowed to win they will find themselves with a useless organization filled with time servers with nothing real to offer.
Look... if you want those jobs... you do it.... or get another job.....
I've been retired for 5 years and prior to retirement I held a T/S for 18 years and went through the BI every five years. For the Secret Clearance which is at best all they need it was nothing and for these people to wine about it they should look for employment elsewhere.
I'm Irish, but used to work for a US company, sometimes on "sensitive" sites - I had no problem whatsoever with the security checks that were required - as far as I was concerned, they were "part and parcel" of the job.
If there is some particular question that these gentlemen have a problem with, then I might have some sympathy with them - but their "blanket" no to any form of check is worrisome.
I don't want to inadvertantly find myself working alongside some Al-Queda yobbo - so I would quite happily, were I Uncle Sam, forego the pleasure of employing these d*chkeads in the first place - then - no problem???
Eamonn, Dublin, Ireland
If there is no top secret reason for the background check, then no, nobody should be subject to this kind of bunk. An employer needs to know pretty much two things: is the employee capable of doing the job and is he reliable as it relates to the job. I don't care if it's NASA or the local gas and go.
Employers have far too much lee-way in what they are allowed to know about employees. What anyone does on their own time, is their own business.
There are no security clearances involved and Russian and Chinese researchers collaborating are not uncommon in open research like this. I didn't work at JPL but did work at a major physics research lab and I worked with SOVIET and Chinese scientist fairly often as instructed to by my management.
Just who are we hiding things from?
The government will tell us that they are acting in our best interest. And then slowly, in the name of "safety and security," our individual liberties will be stripped from us one by one.
I don't know why they really are complaining any good job does a decent background check these days. You don't want people who have debt up the wazoo who may be bought to have important jobs. I work at one of the five largest banks in the country and we get what feels like every kind of check and probing to get a job. It's just precautions many companies have taken so why can't the government take them if they're the ones employing the people they have the ability to choose what criteria they need to know about. If you have nothing horrible then it really shouldn't matter.
I am one of those people at JPL. We do not work on anything classified. I have no problem with having my identity "verified" - I have worked here for over 20 years. But one of the reasons many of us work here is specifically for the academic environment - in industry we would command much higher salaries. None of us ever agreed to anything like this when we came to work here.
Here's what we are facing: instead of verification from our actual employer (we are not NASA or government employees, we are Caltech employees), we instead turn over everything to an entity in Washington. We are not allowed to know where that information goes. We have no idea what it will be used for. We are expected to turn over all our medical records, bank records, etc, and sign away our privacy rights so that the government can search, in their own words, "all sources of information". We must supply lists of our friends, neighbors, and people who have seen the insides of our houses. We are not allowed to know what they will be asked - apparently everything is fair game. We get to sign documents worded in such a way that we incriminate ourselves. We get to be personally interrogated. If we refuse, we are "voluntarily retired" and lose our unemployment benefits.
How does any of this relate to "verifying our identity" for purposes of issuing a badge?
Even though I do sympathize with your stand, I must submit to ideal of the back ground checks. I remember when I joined the military my background check paperwork was 10 pages long that had to be typed out, and it included everything you are complaining about. They wanted to know everything about me. This is not to just "know" but it is there to understand the type of person you are. They want to know that you are a moral and ethical person, at least on paper, and can be trusted with information at a time in which you receive it. I understand you are not working with classified materials, but the chance always will arise that you may inadvertently come into contact with such materials or over hear something "classified".
The point to this is to make sure that people who work on government property have the integrity to keep the information where it belongs. Even working in a non-classified position you are in close proximity to classified programs. Without the back ground check, the government will not be able to verify that you are an upstanding citizen of the US. They want to make sure that you are not a sleep agent for a terrorist group being paid for by an outside source (band records). They want to make sure you are not collaborating with any terrorist organization or people (who have been in your house) and so forth.
A lot of the people here share the same view as I do, it is usually the people who have something to hide scream the loudest in protest to any investigation.
If the government wants to know how my women i have slept with or how many times a day I pleasure myself, I think it is creepy but what can the government do with that information other than define my personality and my moral and ethical behavior.
As I do sympathize with your stand I do believe that anyone who holds a government job that has a remote possibility of coming into contact with classified materials should be held to the same back ground checks as for someone with "secret" clearance.
So - JPL cannot be classified as belonging to "Industry" - amazin' . . .
Thank you for standing up for America. You are a freedom fighter just as much as those in the trenches... The world you ask for is one of integrity, commitment to excellence, and value. A world where we are allowed to care for others and to develop our talents through discovery to the common benefit. Many others have lost their way. Keep up the good fight! And don't you dare give up.
I understand, having worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (part of Stanford University, for the department of energy). I think the difference is that the management at SLAC threatened to walk off to other labs in other countries when the same was threatened there. Scientists prefer open academic environments and the best work is always done there.
S.C.---Your post was hilariously sad. To think that we have not learned from our own history, and someone as young as you are doomed to repeat it. If you would like to see a result of your way of thinking, I suggest you GOOGLE any ,or all, of the following: Red Scare; Sen. Joseph McCarthy; McCarthyism (an informative article can also be found at Wikipedia); House Select Committee on Un-American Activities aka House Un-American Activities Committee. The era described was, and is, a blot in American History. I think it's imperative we do not make the same mistake. However, according to the government, and your feelings about the subject, we have never learned anything.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
By me from a past life.
To hell with them. Rocket scientists are a dime a dozen, and the exits are clearly marked.
Dabney Eats It.
("What do you get when you cross a flea with a mountain climber? Nothing. The mountain climber is a scaler." Signed, "The Unit Toad" from Lloyd House)
Are they really? In my observation, creative scientist are NEVER a dime a dozen in ANY field. They are a priceless commodity that are unfortunately easy to offended (the best tend to be eccentric). When they are offended they have the tendency of walking off and finding people who seem to value their contributions. The loss of such people set Nazi Germany far back in the nuclear race. Acquiring those people the Nazi lost gained us the atomic bomb.
Well said S.C. = totally agree with you.
Eamonn, Dublin, Ireland
It amazes me that the Naysayers have a problem reading. Makes me wonder if you are truly literate. They are not government employees as many keep referring to and they are not denying the rights of an employer to know who they are.
I am a contractor who teaches basic traffic safety for the Navy/Marine Corp with no access to confidential material, or locations and have worked in one way or another for the Navy for 24 years including Active Time, so why would (As is required) I need such an intensive Back Ground Check Every Two years as required by current regulations.) I hope you win for all of us in the same situation.
I would answer every question they asked. My answer would be NOYFB.
First off, they believe that if you have traveled to a Communist country, you are a spy - nice! Not to mention it, why do you need a security clearance to help shoot rockets to the Moon and Mars? I thought we were cooperating with the Russians and other countries for these major projects. Not to mention it, we've had to ride on the Russians coat tails borrowing their ships and equipment because of our own budget cuts!
In many fields of basic research, collaboration is required to optimize scientific progress. Many of the physicists I worked with had visited Soviet Russia and China repeatedly and I personally worked with Soviet and Chinese scientist and technicians. This is normal. Your comment about the lack of trust for those who have returned these visits is unfortunately true.
First of all those people are not government employee's. Their paychecks (which by the way are quite hefty), are signed by CalTech. Any privately owned business has the right to do whatever security checks they choose to do on their employees. Now the government has stipulations if a privately owned business wants to be awarded government contracts. Anyone who objects is free to look for employment elsewhere. People complain that drug testing is a privacy violation as what a person does in their home is unrelated to their job. When the drug testing craze started people who worked for years at a company had to submit to random drug tests in order to keep their job. Back then at least there was a semblance of privacy, unlike these days where someone has to physically watch a person urinate in a specimen cup to ensure its "authenticity". Nobody likes it, but they either submit when asked or face consequences. Has anyone successfully sued CalTech, or any other prominent business, to stop a drug testing procedure continued to this day? Seems to me someone watching you urinate in a specimen cup for a temperature reading is a heck of a lot more of an intrusive violation of privacy than any records check. Talk about a hypocrisy! I hope this guy is laid waste in financial ruin or worse; a loss of his membership to the club he goes to everyday for his morning workout!
Are we that darn stupid. it appears that most of you do not give a dam that our government is slowly taking away our right to privatcy in the name of security. The people working at JPL (as I can tell) do not need a security clearance to perform their jobs. And if they do then those individuals will have to submit to a security clearance check. Also I know (first hand) that if you required a security clearance for a job, then the area inwhich the security clearance is required, is normally a secured area. So with that said, if it is not then JPL needs to revamp their physical security measures to handle it.
We are so quick to think that our government has our best interest at heart. They do not because we do not require them to. We are to buisy running around like scared children and crying wolf than to stand up and challenge the actions of our elected officals. We all for get that the government is suppose to do our work and not their self interest. We turn a blind eye to the stuff that it does and complain about after they do it.
If we look at the actions of the people we put in charge we can see how our liberties are slowly falling to the wayside. JPL issue is just another way our government Knee jerks in response to situations.
I say we stop name calling and stand up for our rights given to us from our constitution and never for get that the government works for us - and not the other way around.