Posted on 01/19/2011 5:03:29 PM PST by jazusamo
The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld the federal government's ability to conduct background security checks of contracted employees, ruling against a group of NASA-contracted scientists and engineers who had challenged the agencies drug-screening process on privacy grounds.
Two justices went so far as to say that such a privacy right does not exist.
"Like many other desirable things not included in the Constitution, 'informational privacy' seems like a good idea — wherefore the people have enacted laws at the federal level and in the states restricting the government's collection and use of information," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a concurring opinion, echoing statements he made during October oral arguments in the case.
"A federal constitutional right to 'informational privacy' does not exist," he wrote.
Justice Scalia, whose opinion was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that it would be up to the legislature, not the courts, to create such a privacy right.
The 8-0 ruling came as no surprise as the justices appeared unmoved during oral arguments by the scientists' claims that their rights to privacy were violated by a question on a government form asking whether they had received drug treatments.
Only eight justices participated in the case because Justice Elena Kagan, who was involved in formulating the government's argument in the case in her previous job as the Obama administration's solicitor general, recused herself from the hearing.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Roe V Wade was built on the supposed “right to privacy” ...
now the court has ruled that no such right exists... thus Roe must be overturned!
NASA has become a joke. Star Trekkie welfare. NASA was good when the Germans ran it.
AMEN to that.
That we have Supreme Court Justices that believe a legislature can “create” rights is downright frightening. Government, including legislatures, can either recognize or impair rights, they can’t “create” them.
I agree and remember the first lauches. Werner von Braun was a driving force as I remember. Lauches and recoveries were a big thing to watch.
I’m with you. The people bitching are the 60s RADICALS that have a LOT of bad stuff in their past (like being arrested for all kinds of stuff). They made it this far, but now their past is coming back to bite them.
...as for myself, I preferred to follow the law.
Well stated. Like you I chose to stay away from the stuff, abide by the law and raise a family. I’ve no sympathy for people who fear a background check because if they straightened their life out they have the opportunity to convince whomever is checking on them that they have.
I live down here by NASA and I can tell you for certian that there are a lot of NASA employees who are old 60’s radicals. One of them, who is a congenital liar, voted for 0 and when 0 cut 5000 jobs from NASA he just laughed. He said “So, I retire next year.”
“I live down here by NASA and I can tell you for certian that there are a lot of NASA employees who are old 60’s radicals. One of them, who is a congenital liar, voted for 0 and when 0 cut 5000 jobs from NASA he just laughed. He said “So, I retire next year.””
EXACTLY. I suspect that a lot of people involved with this have felonies in their past that they’d rather forget about. One of the (many) dirty little secrets of the hippie-generation was that many, many, of those people were VERY SMART and wound up with very good careers, although they never lost their love of Socialism. I still blame it all on above-ground nuclear testing contaminating the milk supply.
The system returned ZERO INDICATION that that first post was received. Last time it started doing that, we soon had a big FR shutdown...
He dropped V2’s on Juarez 3 times. The first time, the Mexicans gave it back. The second, we bought it back. The third, I think we bought Juarez.
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