You're Violating My Personal Space!

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists and engineers sued NASA last week, challenging extensive new background checks required by the space exploration center.

The lawsuit says NASA is violating the Constitution by calling on employees - everyone from janitors to visiting professors - to permit investigators to delve into medical, financial and past employment records, and to question friends and acquaintances about everything from their finances to sex lives. Those who refuse could lose their jobs, the suit says.

"They don't tell you what they're looking for, they don't tell you when they're looking for it, they won't tell us what they're doing with the data," said plaintiff Susan Foster, a technical writer and editor at JPL for nearly 40 years.

JPL employees have until Sept. 28 to fill out forms authorizing the background checks. Those who don't will be barred from JPL and be "voluntarily terminated" as of Oct. 27. A request for a preliminary injunction blocking the requirements is to be heard in court Sept. 24.

In June, workers aired their complaints before NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. At that meeting, Griffin said that it was a "privilege to work within the federal system, not a right" and that he would carry out the order unless it was overturned in court, according to a video of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press.

Attorney Dan Stormer said the employees were being forced to "voluntarily" sign forms opening up every detail of their personal lives to federal scrutiny for two years whether or not they keep their jobs. A 2004 Homeland Security presidential directive mandated new security badges for millions of federal workers and contractors. The suit claims NASA and the Commerce Department went well beyond the directive, which it said was concerned "exclusively with the establishment of a common identification standard" and "contemplates no additional background investigation or suitability determination beyond that already required by law."

Foster said she will resign before the badges are required, and that there were members of the clerical staff who were too frightened about losing their jobs to come forward. The suit claims violations of the Constitution's 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, 14th Amendment protection against invasion of right to privacy, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, and rights under the California Constitution.