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.