Courts rule in favor of JPL scientists

Nearly two years ago 28 scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) went to court to block implementation of new background security checks at the lab. If they didn’t agree to “volunteer” to the checks they would be fired. On 4 June the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor.

Background check

The new checks were based on Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 , which stated that all employees at federal facilities, including contract workers, must undergo the checks by the end of 2007.

At the time of the lawsuit, JPL physicist Robert Nelson —who is one of the plaintiffs and is leading the Cassini mission to Saturn—said that NASA’S version of HSPD-12 is unduly invasive and “is an invitation to an open-ended fishing expedition.”

HSPD-12 violated their right to hold personal information private, said Nelson, and constituted an unreasonable search under the 14th Amendment .

NASA was 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 had to waive their privacy rights and give permission to the government to obtain additional information about them from other sources.

JPL’s internal website had an “issue characterization chart"—since taken down— that indicated that security officers would be looking for a “pattern of irresponsibility as reflected in credit history ... sodomy ... incest ... abusive language ... unlawful assembly.” It also said homosexuality could be a security issue under some circumstances.

Although many workers complained about the checks, only the JPL staff took legal action against them.

In 2007, William Jeffrey —who headed NIST when that organization set the standards for HSPD-12—said that only a fingerprint and a few other details are required as a background check. “There is no requirement for the review of the financial or medical history of any federal employee or contractor,” he wrote in response to a query from Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), who had been contacted by the JPL scientists.

Jeffrey’s letter also states that former NASA administrator Michael Griffin has wide discretion in how he implements HSPD-12. “Some other agencies have elected to do nothing at all in response to HSPD-12,” Nelson wrote.

The June ruling

The federal government had previously lost one ruling on the case—which had ruled unanimously in favor of the JPL employees—and had appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court to overturn the injunction issued last year against NASA and the California Institute of Technology.

The votes,in denying the appeal, was not close.

Writing for the majority, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw noted that JPL is traditionally an open facility that has thousands of visitors and foreign scientists. “The success of their scientific mission, which has been operating since 1958 without background checks, is renowned,” Wardlaw wrote in rebuffing the Justice Department’s claim.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr now has 60 days to decide whether to appeal the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

Paul Guinnessy