Homeland Security

The saga of government intrusion into the private lives of government workers continues. Congress is now taking up the issue of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12, a directive intended to, quite reasonably, standardize ID cards in government facilities to include contractors and students.

I introduced the issues surrounding the implemtation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 (HSPD #12) in Sept. of 2007. I discussed the way implementation of this directive requires a government employee to sign away their Constitutional Rights, allowing the government free access to their medical records, financial records, etc. I discussed the potential anti-gay aspect of one part of the process, the so-called "Suitability Matrix." And I published a resignation letter from a woman who had been an employee at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) for more than 30 years but resigned over the intrusive implementation of HSPD #12. Since then I have updated you on the ups and downs of the court case filed by some NASA employees. Currently there is an injunction preventing implementation of HSPD #12 at JPL pending an appeal, but where my wife works, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in Manhattan, implementation continues. My wife has been told that all employees and contractors (she's a student) will be processed soon at GISS. For my wife it is a race between her finishing her Ph.D. and moving to a non-NASA job and the slow pace of the NASA bureaucracy demanding she sign away her rights to the government.

Photo used with permission from Heartland