Probing backgrounds

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 when that organization set the standards for HSPD-12, 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 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 says.

By 5 October all 5000 JPL employees must start the security checks or be fired three weeks later. “We will miss those folks who do not comply with the order,” Griffin told JPL’s staff in June.