Twenty-eight scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) went to court last month to block implementation of new background security checks at the lab. By the end of this year, all employees at federal facilities, including contract workers, must undergo the checks required by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. NASA'S version of HSPD-12 is unduly invasive and “is an invitation to an open-ended fishing expedition,” says JPL physicist Robert N. Nelson, one of the plaintiffs.
NASA is requiring all its employees to disclose where they have lived; their school, medical, bank, and criminal records; previous employment; and illegal drug use over the past five years. Employees also have to waive their privacy rights and give permission to the government to obtain additional information about them from other sources. While other NASA employees are grumbling, JPL's are the only ones with pro-bono legal representation.
According to William Jeffrey, who headed NIST...
