NASA Employees Fight Invasive Background Check 354
Electron Barrage writes "Longtime JPL scientists, many of whom do not work on classified materials, including rover drivers and Apollo veterans, sued NASA, Caltech, and the Department of Commerce today to fight highly invasive background checks, which include financial information, any and all retail business transactions, and even sexual orientation."
Re:Pointless (Score:3, Interesting)
Because in the last year we've seen a homicidal astronaut drive across the country wearing a diaper, a sabotaging contractor, and allegations of alcoholic astronauts. All they need is an astronaut getting busted having gay bathroom sex.
Re:you missed one... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Levers (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it that politicians don't have to undergo the same background check before being eligible for office then? They have far more power in terms of changing laws, setting budgets etc. than the average NASA employee. Of course they also make the rules about who needs to have background checks...
Background checks make sense for people dealing with classified material but not for non-classified, scientific work which in most cases is published. You'd have to be a really stupid "intelligence" operation to try and pressure people to reveal information that you can get by subscribing to an academic journal!
Enough with the FUD (Score:1, Interesting)
Below is my analysis of the issue, but my recommendations are simple:
1) A list of excluding conditions should be posted/linked in any and all federal hiring postings in the same section they state full mental/health record release is required. A link to an exceptions and appeals process should also be included. There is no security risk in posting this information since if you're requiring the records be disclosed, then you're probably doing a full background check and maybe even a lie detector -- "but i dont have any records" isn't going to work.
2) Credit check usage should be linked and explained with CLEAR EXEMPTIONS for disabilities, workforce transition, college students...wait...this list goes on and on. How about they just state what the fuck disqualifies someone and provide an appeals process? After all, if you have poor credit due to external circumstance and a perfect criminal record, doesn't that make you less of a risk?
3) Lie detector requirement should be stated (they usually aren't) and general areas of inquiry should be explained up front. Currently they provide you no information...so you could get hired and could be fired 6 months later for doing pot 4 years ago. Making the general questions public is important to guarantee oversite and avoid racial/class bias in questioning. I would LOVE to see how quick the process changed if someone changed the questioning on theft to include "digital property or works."
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Security check effectiveness is difficult to measure, but that does not excuse the lack of clear guidelines and the near universal requirement for investigations. As a result of the lack of guidance, many of these "security" checks may, amusingly, provide cover for discrimination against the disabled and racial minorities. There is a reason why people are advised against doing credit checks on non-financial positions -- they may lead to a pattern of discrimination that is in violation of federal law. For the uninformed, federal law prohibits any system that _tends_ to discriminate against people based on race.
The problem with these checks is thus that they discourage qualified people from applying and also allow hiring managers significant wiggle room on who to hire/fire. They provide three areas of problems--credit checks, lie detectors, and mental health disclosures.
1) In terms of hiring, most agencies state that they require a credit check--even those that don't do an FBI background. And amusingly, it's usually placed right under the non-discrimination clause. I have never seen any information on how the credit information is used -- How do you deal with persons with disabilities? Persons with no insurance? Poor people that were victims of predatory lending? Anyone with a sudden family calamity? Most importantly, is a credit check relevant at all for someone that has been under or unemployed and is trying to get a job??!
Simply put, the agency provides no information on why the check is necessary, what the appeals process is, or how it will be used. In addition, the agency puts the rating decision in the hands of private companies that have a history of discriminating based on location (redlining, oooo check cashing stores, predatory credit "deals" targeted at the lower class). In addition, a credit check is problematic because lower income people are less likely to watch or contest incorrect information.
2) Lie detector tests. NOTHING is disclosed about what these cover, how far they go back, or what the appeals process is. Grow up in the ghetto? Try crack when you were 15? Are you really going to apply that secret clearance job at 26? Guidelines should be clearly stated to make certain that everyone is on the same level an
Re:Medical records? Finances? Sexual life? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Levers + bullshit = more of the same stupidity. (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, its time for the US population to stop thinking like Miss Carolina and just grow the fuck up. Nobody gives a shit if you're gay, lesbian, bi, or straight, or you cheated on your spouse, or you have debt, or you used illegal drugs, or you have a Britney Speares collection. Nobody. And the sooner the government makes this their official position, and sends a clear signal to the rest of society, the sooner blackmail for this sort of crap will no longer be possible.
Of course, the odds of that happening with Idiot Bush in charge are nill.
Re:you missed one... (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't.
JPL is a division of Caltech. JPL employees have a contract with Caltech and receive a paycheck that says Caltech. Much of the funding comes from NASA (but by no means all of it and the proportion has been shrinking), but the employees at JPL are not civil servants and they are not NASA employees.
Add to this that the people at JPL never signed a contract that said that there will be background checks (but now there are, suddenly, and they're a requirement for continued employment) and you might see where the uproar is coming from...
Defense Attorneys In Civil Cases Do The Same Check (Score:1, Interesting)
The only reason it didn't bother her was that she's one person in this world who has absolutely no dark secrets, and the drug company eventually settled out of court, because they couldn't find anything to use against her.
Re:That is nothing (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't hold a secret (or better) security classification myself because my job doesn't need one. I do however have several friends who do or have in the past had such classifications. And I have been interviewed several times as part of my friends gaining their clearances. As a consequence, I have to assume that I, myself, have some sort of security dossier.
The questions I've been asked include 'how long/well do you know this person"? (Old friends are good in this context). Are they mentally unstable, or do they engage in activities such as drug use that might lead to mental instability? Are they in debt, or do they engage in activities like heavy gambling that might lead them into debt? Are they likely to place the interests of a foreign power over their country's?
In short: are they mad, vulnerable to blackmail, or a traitor?
If you are a drug addled loony with gambling and anger management problems, they'd like to know. If you are a militant fungal rights activist, they'd like to know. If you are a trans-sexual typewriter fetishist, they really couldn't care less. I don't recall ever being asked about anyone's sexual, political or religious orientation.
Bear in mind that security is no more than risk management. One friend 'failed' because of a foreign spouse, which placed an element of risk into the equation. Note that, despite this, a job offer was made and accepted. The risk had been identified, acknowledged, and managed.
Not worth getting your panties in a bunch (Score:3, Interesting)
Every government position that has access to dangerous materials, sensitive/proprietary information, or responsibility of human life requires such checks, and rightly so to protect the public and the Union. Anyone who has worked in the government is quite used to the clearance process. To make matters "worse" for you privacy doom and gloomers, it occurs at regular intervals-- every 10 years for Secret, 7 years for Top Secret, and 5 years for clearances beyond that.
Sure, its uncomfortable to have a stranger rummage through your life as everyone has skeletons they'd prefer to hide, but its not worth sweating bullets about. Considering that the goal is to exclude obvious risks to the public, I'm more or less okay with the occasional privacy reinvasion to maintain my clearance knowing that the same process is going to hopefully keep John Q. Smackhead from becoming a reactor safety manager at the nuke plant in the next county.
Maybe if people understood the process...
After completing the encyclopedic questionnaire, a team of investigators is sent to verify your answers-- very often these will be local people that have retired from law enforcement who are contracted by DSS. If its your first clearance, an upgrade, or if clarifications are needed after the precursory review, you'll also sit down with an investigator for an interview where the two of you go over the questionnaire. They'll proceed scour PUBLIC record and talk to your references, neighbors, and acquaintances (heck, during my first TS clearance, the investigator spoke to my 2nd grade teacher!) Once all of the information is assembled, you are assessed as a whole person by DSS. Adjudicators (employed directly by DSS) look at the following in order of importance:
-Honesty in answers versus the investigative findings (you didn't report that you had declared Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in 1997? Whoops!)
-Accuracy of your answers versus the investigative findings (correct addresses, date ranges, employment history, account numbers, etc. mostly to determine if there's a deliberate attempt to misdirect or hide aspects of your history)
-Immediate red flags (habitual substance abuse, uncontrollable debt, felony convictions, etc)
-Travel/residence for the scope of the investigation (frequent visits to a 'non-friendly' foreign country not of your origin or without familial association)
Its the adjudicator's job to generate a mean risk assignment to your case based on these criteria. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to have a spotless history to obtain a clearance. As long as you are HONEST and UPFRONT about your history, there's little that will stop you from obtaining it. 75% of clearance requests that are rejected are due to that alone. Many of those rejections get a second chance to come clean, as it were, and ultimately receive a clearance assignment.
Regardless of rejection, you are entitled to appeal the final decision. ALWAYS. In that event, I believe a team of 3 adjudicators (not including the original) independently assess the package with the majority ruling.
Its a rough approximation of how trustworthy a person you are. That's all.
Now, that's all fine and dandy for the government sector, but what about the corporate world?
I don't necessarily agree with some of the extensive garbage that is foisted upon corporate folk, especially for positions that don't justify such extensive checking, but it comes down a point that I mentioned earlier.
Investigations are EXPENSIVE. A potential employer isn't going to i
This happened once before (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the people who had their clearances revoked was the first "Robbert Goddard Professor of Jet Propulsion" at Cal Tech, Dr Tsien. I'm sure I don't have to explicitly mention that he was a total genius. They arrested him and then wouldn't let him leave the country for five years so that his scientific knowledge would be obsolete. As soon as he was allowed to, he moved back to China.
In China Tsien was very well respected (respecting intelligence is an archaic custom of some Asian cultures), he became Chairman Mao's tutor in science, and went on to supervise the development of China's ICBM program. So when the US gets nuked by the China, we'll have American paranoia to thank.
That's one thing that the US can make better than the Chinese ever will. We are great at making enemies out of friends.