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JPL Dispute Over Background Checks Goes to Court

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments about the post 9/11security checks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.   According to the article in the article on the website for KUOR Public Radio, in California, the case involves the issue of recurring background checks at this world famous facility.

Employees who had background checks conducted on them when they were first employment candidates at the JPL, were after September 11, 2001 required to undergo additional and more contemporary background checks. Twenty-Eight scientists refused and they were facing dismissal.  The California Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in and called the new order for background checks a “grand inquisition.”   So that was the end of the additional background checks.

Until now.  Or, rather, the summer when the Supreme Court will hear the case.   It should be interesting as on one hand some of the legal issues revolve around doing recurring background checks.  However, the JPL wanted to add additional background searches to the preemployment screening program.  Background searches the scientists didn’t undergo when they first came on board.   Some of the new background checks including employee finances, emotional stability, and drug and alcohol use.

Like I said, an interesting case.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.

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