US Supreme Court Says NASA Background Checks OK 172
coondoggie writes "In a long-running dispute about privacy and security, the US Supreme Court today sided with NASA saying its background checks were not invasive and that the information required for not only NASA but most government positions was a reasonable security precaution and that sufficient privacy safeguards existed to prevent any improper disclosures. You may recall that in this case, 28 scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory filed suit against the US government and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2007 saying that NASA's invasive background investigations as required by government regulations [inappropriately violate workers' privacy]."
They only ask important questions (Score:5, Funny)
Questions like "Are you now, or have you ever been a Communist--or voted Democrat?" "Have you ever criticized NASA, one of its employees, or a relative of one of its employees?" and "Does the movie Red Dawn give you an erection and, if not, why?" are vital in assessing the security risk of a new employee or contractor. Otherwise, they had might as well put a sign out that says "Pinkos and homosexuals welcome!"
NASA is the first line of defense, people. Their job isn't to hire good engineers, it's to hire good AMERICANS!
Re:They only ask important questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Their job isn't to hire good engineers, it's to hire good AMERICANS!
Wasn't our early space program staffed with Nazis?
Re:They only ask important questions (Score:4, Funny)
You're not getting hired, buddy!
Re:They only ask important questions (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:They only ask important questions (Score:5, Funny)
Sort of, some were ex-Nazis, but point taken. That was the whole point of operation paperclip. [wikipedia.org]
They were Nazis but they got better? ;-)
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Re:They only ask important questions (Score:4, Funny)
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Wasn't he Speaker of the House?
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Dr. Merkwürdigeliebe, is that you?
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for the Aryan Race
or Ben Franklin put it, "dirty white people".
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yes, but they said they were very sorry and that they wouldn't do it again.
Re:They only ask important questions (Score:5, Funny)
They were aiming for the stars, but accidentally hit London.
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Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department.
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Don't say that he's hypocritical; say, rather, that he's apolitical.
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> They were aiming for the stars, but accidentally hit London.
That's not too far from the truth.
There's actual a classic Battlestar Galactica episode that touches on this sort of idea.
Tom Lehrer, "Wernher Von Braun" (Score:2)
For those unaware, I figure I'd make it clear that people were making references to the song "Wernher Von Braun", one of Tom Lehrer's classics of satirical songwriting - it refers to the oddity of that case, but its deeper meaning is the problem of science becoming decoupled form ethics.
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I wish I kept a copy of the questionnaire to stay in the US I had to fill out, some of those questions were just hilarious.
"Hello, I would like a green card and, oh well shoot, yes I have participated in genocide. Sorry fot taking up your time."
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The Lost Boys participated in atrocities? You call being the victim of the murders of your parents and rape and murder of your sisters and every other female relative being "a participant"?
Wow. Simply wow. Is english not your primary language? Or are you trying to be funny and are referring to the vampire movie?
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Werner Von Braun (Score:2, Interesting)
See subject line, & this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun [wikipedia.org]
APK
P.S.=> His background, Nazi Scientist, didn't stop him from being utilized in the name of United States Progress in Sciences & Military applications... why? Because he was a pre-eminent scientist in the field of rocketry so, especially at that time, pretty much everyone wanted what he was good at so, there you are! apk
Re:Werner Von Braun (Score:4, Insightful)
See subject line, & this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun [wikipedia.org]
APK
P.S.=> His background, Nazi Scientist, didn't stop him from being utilized in the name of United States Progress in Sciences & Military applications... why? Because he was a pre-eminent scientist in the field of rocketry so, especially at that time, pretty much everyone wanted what he was good at so, there you are! apk
It was a question of not letting the enemy have them instead.
Thing is, replace Soviet Union with Taliban and you still have the same issues. It's just not being handled as intelligently anymore. Instead we're letting political correctness run rife.
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"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That is not my department!" says Wernher von Braun.
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So NASA Godwinned itself right from the start?
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> Wasn't our early space program staffed with Nazis?
Everyone's was.
There is a great deal of postwar tech that looks like blatant plagarism.
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Wasn't our early space program staffed with Nazis?
I'm fairly sure they would have passed the Communist/Democrat question....
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You might be surprised how many people fail that.
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"Have you ever had sex with an animal?"
I bet they wouldn't find it amusing if I responded with "Does your director's wife count?"
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That depends on your definition of "is".
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You might be surprised how many people fail that.
By far, most questions are not about passing or failing the background check. The primary purpose is to allow for full disclosure so as to avoid extortion down the road. Now then, the answers may dictate what level of clearance as well as the types of projects you're ultimately allowed to work on, but the answers to those types of questions, in of themselves, typically don't exclude.
In other words they want to create this situation rather than one even worse:
1: "If you don't give us secrets, we will let NAS
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FTFY.
OTOH, at least you died a valuable contributor to a project absolutely vital to the security of the Nation, and your odd little secrets can stay safely hidden until they're declassified and outed. Or wikileaked i
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"Have you ever had sex with an animal?"
Aren't people animals?
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Puts a whole new spin on the group People for the Edible Treatment of Animals.
What? Ethical? Oh, never mind.
Re:They only ask important questions (Score:4, Informative)
Aren't people animals?
Most sadly are not animals in bed. At least not the ones I've been with.
I think GP's example question maybe was supposed to be "barnyard animals."
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Since humans are animals, and I'm Married With Children, the answer in an unqualified "Yes!!!"
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Re:They only ask important questions (Score:5, Interesting)
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Really, you think I remember the dates, types and quantities? -- That's what they wanted. I just laughed. He got the clearance anyway. Whatever....
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There's more than one type of investigation. If you get a clearance which requ
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As a GERMAN, I might recall the times when they where better while hiring GERMANS.
CC.
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If by hiring germans you mean saying yes when the germans went "Please please don't let the russians have me, I'll work for you as best I can) then yes.
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NASA is the first line of defense, people. Their job isn't to hire good engineers, it's to hire good AMERICANS!
Just like the ones who understand don't the difference between a yard and a metre.
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Tare?
Dew knot truss yore spil
What was the suit? Wool? A blend? (Score:5, Funny)
...28 scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory filed suit against the US government and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2007 saying that NASA's invasive background investigations as required by government regulations.
Perhaps you meant to finish that sentence with a verb or two? I am forced to guess... Did the background checks insult their mom and kick their dog?
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TFS/TFA misleading; not about govt. employees (Score:2)
The issue in this case was not "background checks required for government positions", it was "background checks required for employees of firms with government contracts".
Re:TFS misleading; not about govt. employees (Score:2)
Um, sorry: TFS is misleading; TFA is not.
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so its essentially the same clearance if your in the army or work for a defense contractor
Which is pretty much irrelevant, since this isn't for a security clearance, and the issue wasn't about a defense contract.
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so its essentially the same clearance if your in the army or work for a defense contractor
Which is pretty much irrelevant, since this isn't for a security clearance, and the issue wasn't about a defense contract.
The rocket system-du-jour is the shuttle, which does carry military and defense related payloads from time to time..
Re:TFS/TFA misleading; not about govt. employees (Score:4, Informative)
Caltech/JPL employees don't work on the shuttle. No one was objecting to clearances for anyone who needs one. The objection was to an open-ended background check for jobs that don't deal with sensitive data or need a clearance. The folks who do that had to get clearance anyway. The Soops just pretty much said that if you get paid by the government in any way, shape, or form, even twice removed, the government has the right, nay the duty, to investigate your background. For instance, JPL employees are not government employees: they work for Caltech (once-removed). And JPL contractors don't work for JPL, they get paid by their contracting firm (twice-removed).
Again, JPL employees typically don't deal with classified or sensitive data; most NASA data and inventions are required by law to be released to the public eventually (pick up a copy of NASA Tech Briefs sometime). This will propagate; the DOE doesn't have to do this now, but they will. As will the DOT and DOEducation, and every other government organization and contractor. How many of you will be free from this? How many of your jobs depend on government money at some stage?
Not in the headline is Scalia's concurring opinion, where he comes right out and says that there is no right to informational privacy. Good luck with that too.
Adios, Fourth Amendment.
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It takes up to a year to complete a clearance. Maybe there was something else coming up that these guys aren't going to be working on, at least not now.
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It takes up to a year to complete a clearance. Maybe there was something else coming up that these guys aren't going to be working on, at least not now.
This wasn't about security clearances, it was about intrusive background investigations (that required signing a very broad waiver/release that is essentially unlimited in scope and duration) for people who are in positions NASA deems "low risk"-- i.e. handle mostly scientific data that's going to be released anyway, or do editing, or engineering on completely unclassified things, or work in the cafeteria, or are janitors, etc. The waivers for clearances have a time limit that they're usable for, but this
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You know, that Feynman guy did seem to know a bit too much about the failure of that shuttle SRB for a civilian. He was a foreigner, wasn't he? A name like "Feynman" has to be foreign. And I hear he went around breaking into locked filing cabinets at LLNL, or was it LANL?
I'm suspicious, and I don't care what other people think.
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No wonder NASA can't build anything worth shit anymore: our "best and brightest" can't subtract 4 digit numbers!!
Idiocracy [imdb.com] here we come...
Re:TFS/TFA misleading; not about govt. employees (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:TFS/TFA misleading; not about govt. employees (Score:4, Interesting)
You missed the part where the issue being decided was whether or not employees termed low risk (i.e., have no access to mission systems) had to submit to an open-ended investigation. My wife doesn't even have access to the computer room with her machine, much less any flight stuff, and she had to "volunteer" to be investigated more thoroughly than for a DoD secret (trust me, I know). It's the ability of the government to simultaneously call someone low risk and demand an intrusive background check that's so... impressive.
No surprise really (Score:3)
Did you seriously expect the current incarnation of the US Supreme Court to do anything other than uphold more government intrusion? The only interesting part of this case is that it was basically unanimous.
That's Too Bad (Score:5, Interesting)
I would wager that this ruling had to due with ITAR technology though. ITAR agreements tend to apply to just about any space technology in the U.S. (which, incidentally, is hampering progress to a degree). So exposure to many advanced technologies must be heavily regulated and monitored. Hell, I plan to take a tour of JPL Tuesday, and I will be required to show proof of citizenship just to enter the facility; a facility that is entirely and completely funded by our tax dollars.
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It's kind of a bummer, but engineers (speaking broadly, including e.g. C.S. but especially aerospace) can't do much R&D without making that particular deal with the devil. The vast majori
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Probably just as well. NASA has been heading for a political cliff for the longest time. The senator for the state that builds the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) is the one that holds NASA's purse strings. So, no SRBs, no money for NASA. Use SRBs and the launch vehicle is too expensive.
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These smarter-than-everyone 22 year olds must not have realized that taking some drugs or being gay does *not* preclude you from getting Clearance...
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For some reason, that instantly brought to mind the Merle Haggard lyrics "They love our milk an' honey,/But they preach about some other way of livin'."
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opting, instead, for places like Loral and SpaceX
So, this is good news then. The security clearance thing is merely symptomatic of how top-heavy NASA has become. I used to be bummed by this kind of stuff, the Shuttle cancellation, etc. but then I saw what Elon Musk was accomplishing.
It's sad to see NASA decline and go, but we'll come out of this stronger on the other end.
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How is that relevant to them being required by law to pay taxes to the USA and banned by law from voting in elections for the government those taxes go to?
There is a route to citizenship. It's unnecessarily onerous and pathological. I guess wasting everyone's time is constitutional.
well do you Barney "Let's crash the rocket into th (Score:2)
Well do you want Barney "Let's crash the rocket into the White House and kill the President" Gumble working at NASA?
NASA and security of data (Score:4, Interesting)
A friend of mine used to be a contractor to NASA and he used to tell me stories about how you could get into trouble if you queried the wrong column in a database table. His background check was so extensive that it went on for 3 months, while he just sat around and brought home paychecks for doing absolutely NOTHING.
He also said that if you pushed the wrong number on the elevator and got off on the wrong floor, you would be interrogated and possibly fired. If you did it more than once, you would definitely be fired.
Those gubment folks are pretty strict.
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His background check was so extensive that it went on for 3 months, while he just sat around and brought home paychecks for doing absolutely NOTHING.
In the US Army in the early 90s, we certainly were not allowed to do our job, but we did not do "nothing". I became quite skilled and the operation of a lawnmower, broom, and lawn rake. Luckily for me if you signed up early, the army began the research early, so I only had about one weeks experience.
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Yes, the things about the database and elevator are indeed stupid, but paying someone for 3 months to do nothing is absolutely not. Here's why:
Suppose you're running a government agency, and your employees have to get a clearance to start working there. You want to hire some experienced employees. So you put out a job ad, soliciting resumes. Some people apply. Now, being experienced people, they were working somewhere else, and obviously want to leave for some reason. They might be out of a job, and n
As one who just turned down a job offer... (Score:2)
As someone who just turned down a job offer at a "big company" because I felt the background check was becoming too invasive, I now worry about how much control big employers have in defining candidates' eligibility to be employable.
It was much more about security theater than security. And, I'm troubled that the definition of employability is now the willingness to send one's tax records to outsourced fact checkers on the other side of the world.
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right on brother! I, too, have turned down a HANDFUL of offers due to invasive employer tactics (driving record checks (for software? really?), employment/slavery contracts that are too 1-sided, being told who your OWN references will be, stuff like that).
companies have been very surprised to see me walk away from their offers. yes, in this economy, too.
its not easy but for as long as I can, I intend to resist those companies who cross the line. we know what that is and we can tell when the company is j
Background Checks (Score:2)
Anyone who has worked for the government, a contractor to the government and is/was employed by a company has had a background check done. You don't think said entities simply file away your personal information, do you? You've seen the many stories on /. about people not being hired or getting fired because of their Facebook/My Space/etc account. Well, you also invite the government/employer to use the rest of the information they collect from you to find out who you really are and not the prim and prop
NASA is quasi-military (Score:2)
NASA has a sort of close working relationship with the military. Sort of like the Department of Energy and nuclear weapons. See http://www.energy.gov/nationalsecurity/nuclearsecurity.htm [energy.gov] for more info. NASA often develops and tests tech that the military wants. The military looks at space as the "high ground" critical for national security.
Some people think that parts of the DOE and NASA budgets should be considered part of the US defense budget.
Is NASA actually hiring? (Score:2)
The Shuttle is retired, and the replacement launch vehicle has been canceled, what is there for NASA to hire people for? I Can't see the new Congress giving them any more money either...
A Conundrum (Score:2)
As for the argument that a background check is necessary and why should you object if you have nothing to hide, for a position in the government that requires you to hide information seems a bit uneven in concept. I guess its true if they do not find anything about you they should definitely hire you because, either your clean or your already good at hiding information.
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A plaintiff's view (Score:5, Informative)
(Disclaimer: I'm a named plaintiff in this lawsuit.)
I'm only about halfway through the ruling, but it's hard for me to know where to begin criticizing it. Here are some choice bits:
* The ruling says that we shouldn't be worried because the government promises to protect our privacy. That's fatally absurd in the era of Wikileaks: if the government can't keep its own secrets secret, what are the odds that it'll keep my secrets secret?
* The ruling says that the government needn't show that its questions must be crafted as narrowly as possible to further its interests. This seems to ignore an interesting distinction between the government and private employers: the government can now ask you anything it wants, and jail you if it doesn't like the answers. Worse, the government can change its mind about what you get in trouble for, as a lot of people discovered unpleasantly in the 1950s, so something that's perfectly safe to admit now can get you in trouble a decade from now.
* It's a special irony that Justice Thomas held (in a minority view) that there's no right to informational privacy at all. (Fortunately, the majority explicitly refused to rule on that point.) Perhaps Justice Thomas would like to tell us what really went on between him and Anita Hill, then? Or maybe privacy is good for the gander, in his view, but not so much for the goose.
* Remember that this ruling is only on a preliminary injunction. We haven't even gone to trial yet. The legal system is as intricate as only a centuries-old piece of code can be, and we have a long way to go yet. (Contrary to a highly misleading internal all-hands JPL email message issued after the ruling, incidentally.)
I have lots more to say, but I'm going to meet with our lawyers now. Grr.
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* It's a special irony that Justice Thomas held (in a minority view) that there's no right to informational privacy at all. (Fortunately, the majority explicitly refused to rule on that point.) Perhaps Justice Thomas would like to tell us what really went on between him and Anita Hill, then? Or maybe privacy is good for the gander, in his view, but not so much for the goose.
Just releasing the sources of money for his wife's lobbying organization (Liberty Central) would be a good start... there's more than a little potential for conflict of interest there.
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Likely the issue was not that the background checks were too invasive but that the people who had access to the information gathered from the background checks did not have the self-control to keep their mouth shut...
So once you have a background check pretty much the entire world knows about that time that you crapped your pants in third grade because your Mom forgot to wash her hands before she packed your lunch.
Background checks for security... sure. Background checks used to humiliate and intimidate...
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It's funny you'd say that.
I'm a military contractor. It took about 8 months to get my clearance so I could get onto the base, but so far (and I'd like to keep it this way) I don't know anything Classified. Obviously that's private industry, and while you're right that a lot of innovation is happening in the private places, they are incredibly unstable and I've worked for four places that have gone bankrupt. Your best bet is to find a place with a generous personal IP policy and hone your skills at a plac
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I suspect they checked your record for child and/or sex related crimes. You know, the things that the little darling's parents would sue them for if they let you near their little Johnny or Suzy and you touched them.
Think of the children!
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However, the most extensive check was for volunteering at the YMCA.
Mine was for teaching an Astronomy course at a community college. Fingerprints, photos, and various criminal record, background and credit checks that I got to pay for. All for $125 a week in salary. (And they say public employees are so much better paid than private employees.) And after that: no ID, no guards, no security. Anyone could just walk off the street and into my classroom (which was fine with me).
Welcome to the post 9/11 world.
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They're smart guys. They don't have to work for JPL. They do so because the really like to.
Well, that and the money. Probably more the latter. That's the reason I go to the office.
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I work at JPL. The pay is good enough, but it isn't stellar, especially when you look at housing prices around here.
I do it because I really like it. Its still a job, but its one I enjoy most days. If I was in it for the money I'd be working for an oil company in Houston. Thats where many of my classmates are.
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> They don't have to work for JPL
Are you only joking, or really implying that if they don't like the policy they should just go somewhere else?
Leaving may be great advice for minimizing their personal troubles, but it's lousy advice for fixing a paranoid and stupid bureaucracy. Some people fight evil/stupidity rather than running away from it.
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Are you only joking, or really implying that if they don't like the policy they should just go somewhere else?
I think he was saying that if the policy becomes too annoying, then they WILL go somewhere else, which will be bad for the US. This country talks a lot about science and innovation, but if they don't back up those words with actions, more and more people are going to go someplace where the grass is greener.
Leaving may be great advice for minimizing their personal troubles, but it's lousy advice for
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They don't care if you're gay, they care if you're ashamed of it.
"Oh, wouldn't it be terrible if your boss and dad found out that you were gay? If you got me a copy of MIL-TFD-41 I'd be too busy reading it to mail this picture to them."
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In light of [my Hungarian experience] in doesn't seem so harsh, does it?
I'm not sure former Soviet satellites are the gold standard here.
Therse background checks are stupid/wasteful because they ask the wrong questions of the wrong people. And they are invasive because the government really doesn't need to stick its nose up scientist's pants.
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> If those scientists can be blackmailed
The plaintiffs claimed
1) to have no access to national secrets, and
2) that all scientific work at JPL is public.
> I'm not sure a country with an agency like the ...is the gold standard here.
> TSA
I'm with you there, thunderbird.
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As for gold standards, I'm not sure a country with an agency like the TSA deciding who can fly and harassing passengers is the gold standard here.
No one here has touted the USA as a "gold standard" for privacy, they're complaining that the NASA JPL's questions are too personal. You're the one trying to make a comparison to Hungary and say "it's not that bad".
If anything, the only comparison the other posters here are making is to an ideal, not to any existing country's current practices. Stop being defens
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Lots of that stuff is subjective. And when they come around to check up on you, they don't limit themselves to the contacts you have listed.
When I was a kid, my dad worked on some aerospace stuff for Boeing. So did our next door neighbor. But we didn't get along with them very well. The guy and his wife were alcoholics and have one (maybe two) kids suffering from fetal alchohol syndrome. My folks just didn't care to associate with the riff-raff. But they didn't mind venting about us. At one point, my dad c
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