Legal News

Informational privacy ruling may be back in Obama's court

By Richard Binder

The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists will not be forced to choose between losing their jobs and consenting to secret government investigations of their medical, financial and sexual histories.

Led by Senior Research Scientist Robert Nelson, 28 JPL employees had filed a lawsuit objecting to the wide net cast by the mandatory search program, which according to government documents evaluated employability by everything from medical and financial records to adultery and homosexual activity, which were listed as potential security issues.

The ruling upholding the injunction will stand unless appealed to the Supreme Court by Attorney General Eric Holder, an option that dissenting 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski seemed to be calling for in his opinion, which questioned how much legal precedent affirms broad rights to informational privacy.

Dan Stormer, a Pasadena attorney representing the JPL employees, said, "The Bush administration adopted policies that were the most atrocious and overreaching policies concerning privacy of any presidency ever. The issue now is will the Obama administration [try to] do something that has never been done before and would defeat worker privacy?"

Full story here.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on June 11, 2009 (boomark / email).