Return to Article: NASA employees object to data-gathering actions
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23197
While I have absolutely nothing to hide, there are some things in life that are deeply personal, and that are nobody's business but my own. I don't want my employer to know (via "full medical records") that I have foot fungus, or that I had plastic surgery to fix a tied tongue, or that I have the BRCA1 breast cancer mutation.
Moreover, I don't want my employer to know what my credit card balance is, whether I have a mortgage or rent, or whether I am financially stingy or financially generous. My employer doesn't need to know the trivialities of my financial life. The broad strokes--maybe. Full financial records--no.
Some kinds of information I don't trust employers with because such information has been mis-used in the past, and could be mis-used in the future. There are ample historical records of employer discrimination based on all sorts of personal details: HIV status, sexual orientation, disability status, etc. History also justifies a certain amount of wariness regarding how our otherwise very fine government has handled itself: Japanese internment camps, McCarthyism, Watergate, the debate about warrantless surveillance and data mining, etc. Only a fool has blind faith in his employer or his government. It's good to be at least a little skeptical.
Why is this level of detail needed throughout the federal and contract workforce? Wading into the middle of stream to measure stream height for a stream flow calculation, or typing the length and age of a fish into a database that calculates average length-at-age tables, or writing a computer program that makes a map of the Earth's core/mantle boundary, certainly don't seem to warrant such intrusion.
Some background checking is a good and understandable thing. An employer needs to find a person who can be trusted to do the job at hand. But employees also need to be able to have some basic trust in the employer for the employer-employee relationship to work. In some people's eyes these new heavy-handed security requirements violate that subtly negotiated boundary of what is permissible and what is not, what treatment you can reasonably expect from an employer, and what personal liberties an employee can reasonably be expected to give up.
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23184
Good Grief. Get over it already. The government has leaked our personal information out all over the place. What's the point??
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23097
The presidential directive, HSPD-12, mandates only a method of identification. My credit history, medical history, and other information requested does not serve that purpose.
Bill, get real. Criminal background information is readily available to agencies who legitimately request it. My own finger prints have been on file since I was in the Navy, back in 1995.
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23015
Alex and Joe Bravo! If the different agencies had a better budget we could find the required information that is needed on these forms on the internet for about 19.95 per person. I am just in awe at the laziness and lacks-a-daisy attitude that really intelligent people have. It's not the government or the president's fault that our wonderful nation is so far ahead that people want to bomb our towers and steal our information. It's hard to be on top and I just wonder if we will remain there if we continue to hold our government personnel at the standard of 1950, when we could take a man's word that he was a "good guy".
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23008
I can't believe the attitude of the some of the employees that have responded to this article (i.e., requirement to get their security clearances updated). Especially the NASA employees. Unbelievable! Where do they think they work, Radio Shack? What does " working on military projects" have to do with any of this?!! At what point did they lose contact with reality? As a HR Speicalist with 27 years of experience, both military and civilian, it sounds like NASA needs to clean house in the first place. What a bunch of whiners and malcontents!!! I'll bet my bottom dollar management there spends at least half their time dealing with these people and their attitudes. They're the type of administrative burdens that was the time, money and expertise of any organization. If they come to work everyday with these attitudes it's definitely time for them to look for another job and save us all the grief and stress of listening to them whine. It's amazing how quick they forgot the oath of office they took on the very first day they entered Federal Service. Remember that? If not, there's a copy in your OPF. Re-read it, heck, read it out loud again if you've got the guts. Did they think they were joining a club at some university or something? The local records check that is initiated to update your security clearance is not much different than the one your babysitter or daycare provider gets. You know why the get them don't you? If you really feel the way you do about updating your security clearance then, please, take it down the road so we can get on with the business at hand (in case you haven't noticed, there's plenty of that!). You would be doing us at least one favor.
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23007
It took me most of a day to gather the necessary information and fill out the e-QIP SF85P form. Then I had to go over to Goddard Security to sign forms letting the government check my credit rating and medical records. I have to go back one more time next week to get my updated badge. Multiply that by a couple of million to get the total impact on government worker productivity.
Meanwhile, I've supported NASA and/or Goddard for the last quarter-century without once having my life, liberty, or property, or that of anyone I know, put at risk by a dangerous fellow employee. I am more worried about a government that has access to the sort of information I am required to allow it to have in order to keep my job - particularly a government like this one, which is more frightened of gay Arabic translators than it is of terrorists.
As one of the Founding Fathers said, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
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22927
Over the weekend the Transportation Security Adminstration, a subdivision of the Department of Homeland Security, announced it has lost a hard drive with the personal information of 100,000 TSA employees. Yet it is the same Department of Homeland Security that wants to get its hands on the personal information of our finest engineers and scientists? Are we talking Orwell's 1984?
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22926
Ms. Bronsberg,
You have no idea the amount of employees that do not maintain a crime free lifestyle. This is as much to protect national security as it is to protect you from employees that have violent criminal records and other such indiscretions from working for the government and around YOU. These things do not always manifest BEFORE they begin to work for the government but AFTER that is why periodic checks are necessary.Conclusion - I have worked in personnel security for many years many of these worries that are voiced in this article are completely unfounded. The truth is if you have nothing to hide just fill out the paperwork and carry on your daily life. It will only take a short time for most of you to fill out and is not as bad as it is made out to be. You will not even see it again for many years so you may have forgotten you have done it in the past. If you do have something to hide I hope we catch you and prosecute you to the FULL extent of the LAW.
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22925
Dwayne,
"... consistent with those policies and procedures being implemented by all other federal departments and agencies." is in fact true. You just don't understand that not all personnel at all agencies get asked the same questions. There is several different non-clearance and clearance investigations that a person could be asked to complete based on the sensitivity of their position and job duties and the agency they work at. These investigations are periodically re-investigated due to many things such as time in service, job responsibility, or job duty changes. Your initial investigation when you got hired may still be valid and you may not require a new one. The new mandate does not require all personnel to be re-investigated immediately just those who fall into certain specific categories. All personnel have always been subject to reinvestigation. The new mandate has only decreased the period of years between those investigations and increased the level of investigation for SOME positions. Many personnel are seeing that they are being asked to complete investigations because their specific agency was not doing what it was supposed to do in the first place and is now being held accountable for overdue investigations. -
22924
Ms. Dixon,
There are all to many personnel who have been caught conspiring against our government and giving away sensitive data to those who would use it against us with near as much or as much "faithful" service to this country as you have. This is a way that our country weeds out those people and ensures that your truly faithful service does not go to waste. If you have nothing to hide then just fill out the paperwork. -
22922
To Joe, Phil Brown, and Ray Hudson: I am a high level scientist at a certain institution mentioned in the article. I used to have a security clearance, but I no longer work on classified material (by choice), so I can appreciate the difference between work that requires a clearance and work that doesn't. The work that I do is not miliary, and my research is purely scientific (star and brown dwarf formation, if you must know). There is no need for scientists like me to have security clearances. And before you panic and say that I have access to highly technical information, remember that SO DOES THE ENTIRE ASTRONOMICAL COMMUNITY. If my employer chooses to try to extract my private information without due cause, I will leave and go take a job as a faculty member at a university - too bad for NASA. Just because you folks work on military technology doesn't mean everyone at NASA does - 95% of us don't (at least at my center). Do you think that because I understand how nuclear fusion works that I should be forced to have a clearance? Then you better start requiring clearances of every physicist in every university in the nation. See what good that does for economy when you effectively shut down the pipeline for new scientists and engineers in the name of "security". Fear-mongering of this sort doesn't help anyone.
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22920
I am so tired of the "if you have nothing to hide" argument!
I have nothing to hide; but, that does NOT mean I have to give up the freedoms I and untold thousands of others fought for.
There are plenty of other countries people can live in if they wish a true security state and wish the government to have a complete file on them. I do not believe this country should be one of them.
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22905
I was shocked when I had to have a new clearance after 30 years of faithful service (DoD) when I was displaced after Katrina. I went from Navy to Marine Corps.
Imagine coming from New Orleans after 25 years and having your background checked. Wonder how much that cost the government? Regarding medical information, I personally would never want that posted anywhere in cyberspace. With all of the breaches in security (even the ones we don't know about but are there) this gives me the creeps. Just another reason to retire this year with 32 years of service. I hope I don't have to pass a clearance before they let me go. My point is, they are redoing your clearances, just wait.
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22901
The article is not altogether accurate and takes worst case scenario and lumps all employees into the mix. Also, even NASA employees that have been around for awhile, they happen to do crazy and illegal things like wear diapers and spray random lover's girlfriends in the face with mace. If you have nothing to hide what is wrong with doing the right thing for once, following the Commander in Chief's directives and keeping our wonderful and high status name safe. NASA is known throughout the world as a top notch agency and why shouldn't we be disciplined and right, and ensure that with about 20 minutes of background investigative work.
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22899
GSA, the General Services Administration has commenced a similar process. The agency has declined to disclose any information regarding these background investitations, or engage in negotiation any appropriate arrangements for employees who may be adversely affected. In addition to meetings with Congress next week, NFFE is going to pursue the matter through the Federal Labor Relations Authority through the filing of an Unfair Labor Practice Charge.
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22896
Having been an employee of DOD for over 25 years, I can tell you that the security clearance process is not as intrusive as is being made out. NASA is part of national security and should be part of the same process. Quit griping and live with it! If you don't like it, get a job in commercial aerospace research, which also does USG work, with clearances...
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22877
Harrington's comments "... consistent with those policies and procedures being implemented by all other federal departments and agencies." is not true. As a government employee with the USDA in their food research agency, there has been no background checks apart from when employees were hired, no questions of medical health etc. Financial data is only collected for those in the SES or ar GM's or hold spending athority above $25,000 a month. Needless to say, that is a very small percentage of employees. An informal survey by GovExec would likely show that overall very few agencies are performing such checks.
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22876
NASA officials mantain, "We were just following orders!" Where have we heard that before? Hmmm... how about at Nuremburg?
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22874
Even though Einstein proposed that the U.S. develop the atomic bomb, inuendos from political groups prevented him from gaining a clearance from the FBI to work on the project. E=mc2 may never been part of our reality, relatively speaking.
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22868
I can see background checks for new employees and contractors but those of us who have been here for over 25 years have the same fingerprints and background we had when we started so to do all of us over again is a big waste of taxpayer dollars when we are so short of money anyway.
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22857
It sounds like the folks at NASA are not happy about the eventual end of their "country club" atmosphere. As much as many NASA people wish to talk about collegiality, and trust, and openness and their (rightful) pride in NASA's accomplishments over the years, I believe they must now responsibly confront the facts of a new world, a world where our technology is a target for those who would do us harm. As a person who has spent much of his professional life with a DoD security clearance, I have always been amazed at the lax security at NASA, one of our most technologically advanced organizations. At a taxpayer who helps fund NASA, I for one think it is high time for them to comply with the same type of security we comply with in the military aerospace sector.
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