NASA contract employees win injunction against background checks

NASA contract employees win injunction against background checks
By Alyssa Rosenberg arosenberg@govexec.com January 14, 2008

A federal judge issued an injunction on Friday to stop NASA from performing background checks on contract employees at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., operated by the California Institute of Technology, while the employees' privacy-invasion lawsuit against the government continues.

The injunction is only the latest development in a complicated legal battle, which Judge Kim Wardlaw of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said presented JPL employees with "a stark choice -- either violation of their constitutional rights or loss of their jobs."

"This is a victory for all NASA employees and a victory for those who wrote the constitution of the United States," Robert Nelson, the JPL scientist who is the lead plaintiff in the case, said after the ruling.

A Caltech spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the university would comply with any court ruling on the background checks.

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