Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[t'Sade]

http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/11/29/2058211.shtml
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/jpl-scientists.html
http://hspd12jpl.org/

I saw this rising up a few months ago and considered writing about it. But, like most news things, it kind of bobbed below the radar and I forgot about it. It's an interesting thing when security hits privacy. In this case, JPL is the Jet-Propulsion Labs at NASA, basically the de facto "rocket scientist" type of place to work. They make the big things that send people into outer space.

So, the problem. With the new changes with DHS and the panic after 9/11, NASA changed its policies for people being allowed to work there. These new polices include things like the right to do background checks (no big deal), criminal checks (again), interview your neighbors (what?), keep records of your sexual histories and preferences, drugs, checks on your immediate family, etc. For some odd reason a bunch of people took offense at this.

The entire problem is the mass invasion of privacy for EVERY government employee at NASA. This includes contractors and direct employees, etc. What I'm glad to see is that these 25+ senior scientists and engineers are putting their jobs on the stake to stand up for what is right.

[LT]

Not only do I support these scientists for standing up for their rights, but I question the ones who actually complied with this moronic background check.  As if it wasn't bad enoughto have to think of "people who know you" and crap like that going back 5 years or more, they're actually looking in to your sexual preferences now?  What the fuck does that even have to do with anything?  What, Bush couldn't do that anti-gay marriage ammendment so now he's just trying to keep them from working for the government now?  Thw whole "voluntary" thing would be funny too if it wasn't so moronic.  Um, yeah, let's fire all our best scientists who have put in decades of excellent work because they won't let us dissect every aspect of their life.   

[KK]

Interesting. Or, I should say interesting that these background checks are actually NEW.
I suppose before they were done more secretly and less thorough.

I do remember my background checks when I was in German Airforce Intelligence (which sounds glarmorous, but it was in fact little more than a low-rank secretariat job). I was interviewed a whole morning by 2 Military Counterintelligence agents over the fact that I had a schooltrip to Hungary (which was at the time considered allied with the Soviets) when I was 16. Because, they reasoned, I could have been approached by enemy spies and be recruited by them on the chance that I would join Germany's military later. They also did background checks on me, like asking schoolmates and former teachers about me. I was also asked to give "reference persons" who could prove that I am "really me" (whatever that means). Eventually, I was told that this was a basic routine intelligence check. I shudder at the idea of what these guys consider an "exceptionally thorough intelligence check".

Anyway, what I mean to say is, that in critical fields, these checks are probably normal daily practice and I guess working in the intelligence community for some time means becoming paranoid is mandatory. And, I guess that also means some kind of expanding view on what exactly is a critical field.

On a sidenote: What I like even less are the stories of private companies doing equally thorough background checks on their employees. To some degree I can understand the govt doing it. I think it is generally legitimate to allow the govt the power of doing background checks - arguable are the size and details here. But I disagree that private companies take up this power themselves, too.

[der Wandersmann]

I think that, at least up to 9/11, the checks run by private companies were mainly concerned with criminal behaviour ... theft-type things, although murder might be something that put them off, too.

When any of my friends applied for gummint jobs which entailed security clearance, all their frinds, including me, would get a visit from the FBI asking really very superficial questions about loyalty, etc. These guys were so straight-arrow, they had trouble going around corners. Naturally, to a bunch of anti-authoritarian and (Blush!) somewhat sophomoric college kids, it was an invitation to lie outrageously to them. Which most of us did, at one time or another. I suspect they knew. From speaking to my now-defunct father-in-law, I know that his generation thought it funny, too. I don't know if the FBI thought it was funny. Them sumbitches never cracked a smile.

[t'Sade]

Actually, for the high clearance jobs, this type of background check is actually fairly common. However, for non-secret clearance (which is what the JPL guys are in), it is kind of overkill and a bit invasive. Kind of like them doing that kind of background check on my father. Yeah, he's a scientist for the Department of Energy (DoE), but he works on accelerators and nothing critical to the country. But, the JPL stuff is in the same category as him. In fact, he's afraid that the JPL thing will spread out to the DoE because of "security reasons" when it isn't really cost effective. Knowing the sexual history of a 64 year old man doesn't help anyone.

[MariusVI]

What I find particularly disquieting is that under these provisions my brother, presuming he would be a rocket scientist, would have my privacy in his hand (not a good idea), effectively being able to decide on the yes or no of quite an invasion of it.

[KK]

On a sidenote:
Did anyone hear the uproar in Germany when it came out that a supermarket chain was spying on its employees?
When it came out in the media the boardmembers had to publicly apologize.
Unions suggest to the employees that they should sue the company for breach of privacy laws. There's talk about 50.000 € per case to be paid as reparations. I have no idea how realistic that is (civil law isn't really my field anymore) or how many employees are going to pursue that idea. But it seems the company is quite afraid of the financial and public backlash the event created.

There's also the question of criminal charges, because the employees were not only filmed (whcih can be justified in certain situations) but there are also voice recording. That's a crime (§ 201 German penal code), because you're not allowed to record a conversation without the parties involved knowing of it. It will be interesting to see with what kind of excuse the responsible managers come up.