NASA Under Fire for Invasion of Workers' Privacy

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has recently come under scrutiny for violating one of its contractors' privacy. The federal agency is accused of 'digging too deep' into 28 workers'--chiefly scientists and engineers--backgrounds and personal lives in 2007.

28 individuals of the contracting agency—the Jet Propulsion Lab in California—filed a lawsuit against NASA in federal court. The crux of their case stated that NASA's investigations and questioning on the social aspects of their lives was "humiliating" and degenerative to their integrity as professionals--according to Dennis Byrnes, the Chief Engineer of flight mechanics with the Jet Propulsion Lab based in California.

Among the most damaging accusations, the contractors said, were that NASA questioned the scientists on such private items as their sexual tendencies, drugs taken, and even their financial situations. They also cited that because their contractual duties did not entail privy to classified or secret materials, there was no grounds for invading this type of personal information as they accused of NASA of doing.

A federal Appellate court ruled in favor of the contractors and ordered NASA to discontinue its invasive pre-employment screening verification practices. In a rebuttal, prior to the judge's decision, Neal Katyal (the acting Solicitor general) claimed that these frequent investigations are executed to verify their identities, histories, and trustworthiness.

NASA has its own advocates, however. The National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) and National Association of Screening Agencies (NASA, oddly enough) are agencies that do pre-employment screening verification as well as security "check-ups"; both support NASA's position.

The federal court's decision, it's expected, will also affect Kennedy Space Center operations plus the rest of NASA's locations.

Pre-employment screening verification checks are done by thousands of government agencies and contractors, as well as private sector organizations, everyday to ensure the safety of their employees and the general public, to safeguard information and their reputation, and to protect their general interests (namely, liability). But how far is too far?

Consider this; a typical pre-employment screening verification may take into account one or more of the following public and private records: criminal, court, financial history, SS number, sex offender, DMV, references, as well as publicly obtainable consumer reports and other miscellaneous records. The FCRA regulates the latter.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA, is an Act that mandates how consumer reports are generated and used.
 

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