NASA Says It Will Honor Injunction At All Facilities Until Trial

Calling a planned White House investigation into the backgrounds of NASA scientists and engineers a "broad inquisition," on Friday the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA ruled the Bush Administration has no right to conduct such checks. The injunction gives 28 such workers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory a prized legal victory -- and, a dose of vindication.

As ANN reported, employees at JPL filed a lawsuit against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the California Institute of Technology last August, challenging the new background checks instituted after 9/11.

The suit alleged the checks violated employees' Constitutional rights, by asking all employees -- from janitors to visiting professors -- to grant permission for the government to investigate everything from financial and medical records, to their sex lives... or lose their jobs.

"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 40-year JPL technical writer and editor.

Judge Kim Wardlaw, one of three judges on the District Court, agreed with that assessment, adding the employees "face a stark choice -- either violation of their constitutional rights or loss of their jobs," reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Dan Stormer, the plantiffs' attorney, said the court's injunction also applies to workers at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA, and other NASA facilities in the nine Western states covered by the Ninth Circuit.

Stormer also said he learned after the ruling was laid down that NASA had agreed to refrain from conducting those investigations at all its facilities nationwide, though representatives with the space agency were reportedly unavailable for comment.

"This is a tremendous vindication of the constitutional rights of my clients, all loyal, hardworking scientists who have dedicated their lives to the space program," Stormer said.

The workers assert they all underwent routine background checks when they were hired by the California Institute of Technology -- for many of them, that was over 20 years ago -- as JPL contract workers. The new investigations were ordered by President Bush in 2004, as part of a sweeping homeland security directive requiring all employees at federal facilities to have "secure and reliable forms of identification," according to the Chronicle.

Judge Wardlaw took the government to task for the leeway the directive allows in questioning workers about their backgrounds and personal lives. The "open-ended and highly private questions are authorized by this broad, standardless waiver (that employees must sign) and do not appear narrowly tailored to any legitimate government interest," she said.

The injunction holds until the case goes to trial, and allows the government to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

FMI: www.jpl.nasa.gov, www.ca9.uscourts.gov