Technical author leading resistance to background checks

[F. Marc de Piolenc]

"I don't understand this. How is this any different
from the background checks I had to go through for a
security clearance when I went into the Army? That
still go on for military personnel? I didn't hear any
uproar about those - why is this NASA thing
particularly heinous?"

In the Army, you volunteered for an MOS or a slot that required a 
security clearance. You knew in advance that you were going to be 
investigated, and you knew the standards that would be applied and 
the consequences if you told a lie on your personal-history form, for 
instance. You were given waiver forms to sign to get your (otherwise) 
confidential records released to the investigators. If at any time 
you had gotten cold feet, you could have backed out, and if you were 
already enlisted another slot would have been found for you that did 
not require a security clearance. You might not have enjoyed the 
alternative, but the point is that even the Army - bless its sluggish 
green psyche - knows better than to FORCE people to have security 
clearances and handle classified matter! Talk about a recipe for compromise...

These protesting NASA employees deliberately chose jobs that did NOT 
require security clearance or background checks, either because they 
wanted to do real scientific work which languishes if it can't be 
peer-reviewed or because they didn't want government digging into 
their private lives, or both. Now the very nature of their employment 
is being changed and they're being told they have to live in a 
goldfish bowl just to keep doing what they've been doing, in some 
cases for decades. It's a very bad move. NASA's credibility has 
suffered lately, but at least the pure science work done at JPL still 
has some prestige. This will kill it by driving off talent, 
inhibiting research and preventing or delaying release of data for 
critique and collaboration. To put it simply, Science just went out 
the window. The government may or may not have the legal power to 
pull this stunt - I don't know the law exactly. But they are being 
very foolish to do it, because if a young person with talent knows 
that the rules can be changed on him this drastically in mid-career, 
he will dismiss the whole idea of government service at the outset.

This move demonstrates, besides lack of judgement, complete ignorance 
of the history of government/industry relations since WW2. The 
current government - academe - contractor triangle was set up so that 
"government" (taxpayer) funds could be spent on research that was NOT 
subject to government strictures and inefficiencies,  and thus 
produced better results faster. It's the main factor in our victory 
over the Soviet Union. In a Socialist country EVERYTHING belongs to 
government and thus nothing escapes its stupidity and sclerosis. Now 
it seems that our nincompoop leaders are imposing on us the very 
system that we swept into the dustbin of History twenty years ago.

Marc de Piolenc
Special Agent, US Army Intelligence, 1976-1998


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