Submission + - Supreme Court unanimously upholds NASA JPL backgro (nytimes.com) 1
daveschroeder writes: Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been fighting background check requirements mandated under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) since 2007. HSPD-12 is designed to implement a "common identification standard for federal employees and contractors." A standard federal background check is a part of this process. This process is standardized by the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM), even for employees who have no access to classified information. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals provisionally agreed with the employees, and the case worked its way to the US Supreme Court. Now the justices have unanimously ruled that JPL scientists must submit to background checks if they want to keep their jobs. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his concurrence that, "The contention that a right deeply rooted in our history and tradition bars the government from ensuring that the Hubble telescope is not used by recovering drug addicts farcical," and continued that "that there is no constitutional right to 'informational privacy'."
