Security Obsession Drives 100 Scientists from NASA

Mars: Over 100 NASA Scientists Quit Or Retire Early Over ‘Security Obsession’ With Mars Rover – What Are ‘They’ So ‘Obsessed’ About?
Is something HUGE going on with Mars that NASA and the Department of Homeland Security DO NOT want the public to know about? Due to NASA’s new found ‘security obsession’ with the Mars Rover, over 100 NASA scientists and engineers have recently either quit their jobs or retired early. What in the world are NASA and the Department of Homeland Security so obsessed about with Mars and the Mars Rover? According to this story at This Can’t Be Happening.

www.thiscantbehappening.net...

www.theinnoplex.com... over

smirkingchimp.com... -cu

For a group of people who couldn't PASS a security background check if their lives literally depended on it....some of those appointed to serve in Government leadership today are unnaturally obsessed with it. I'd be happy to hear more about how WE have to prove ourselves to be "loyal Americans" every time we turn around.....if those at the top COULD and WOULD submit to and pass the very checks they demand of everyone else. Fat chance they try or pass if they did...but it ought to be the least we demand in the public.

Enough with security for it's own sake. That's called clinical paranoia outside Government circles.

This is awful.
This is essentially going to force many top minds to leave NASA because they do not want their privacy invaded for no good reason.

It's understandable for security clearance if these individuals are working on nuclear technology for propulsion means and whatnot, but for the day to day, mundane tasks which many of these workers do, a security clearance and backround check is not only unwarranted, but absurd. This is going to have a negative effect for sure.





Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by nighthawk1954
Is something HUGE going on with Mars that NASA and the Department of Homeland Security DO NOT want the public to know about? Due to NASA’s new found ‘security obsession’ with the Mars Rover, over 100 NASA scientists and engineers have recently either quit their jobs or retired early.

This is pretty insane.

Apparently one option they wanted NASA to consider was the less restrictive system in place for DOE employees, the agency that deals with NUKES!

www.thiscantbehappening.net...

One of the big concerns expressed by the JPL scientists was that NASA would not adequately protect the incredibly personal information it was going to be gathering on its employees at JPL. NASA after all, they noted, is not the CIA or the Secret Service. It operates in the open, and doesn’t have a culture of secrecy, and as a bureaucracy, is ill-equipped to manage such information securely.

Sure enough, last week NASA was forced to admit that an employee at the agency’s offices in Washington DC had left a laptop computer containing all that newly acquired personal information on its employees in his car on Halloween night, and it had been stolen. Worse yet, further validating the concerns of JPL scientists, the data on the computer had not even been encrypted!

Now NASA has had to hire a contractor specializing in protecting potential victims of identity theft to help all the JPL scientists at risk to avoid having their savings pilfered, their credit cards stolen, and perhaps to protect them from being subjected to harassment or extortion because of information gleaned from their security files.

This disaster at JPL is a classic case of the US security state run amok, and provides yet another example of how the Obama administration, which came into office in 2009 promising to return the country to some kind of sanity and respect for the Constitution, has instead driven 100 invaluable scientists out of JPL, weakening the nation’s already struggling space program, and has put hundreds of scientists’ lives, and the lives of their families, at risk.

And all for nothing.

So the NASA employee fears that their data wouldn't be kept secure have already been realized! The Obama administration should have left well-enough alone, but no, they had to appeal to the supreme court.

I don't blame the NASA employees for leaving.

I think the government did a polygraph test on all the NASA scientists to test if the scientists ever spilled any beans on their research to close friends and family.

This was done to screen those who could keep confidential information from the public prior to the release of TOP SECRET Rover mission findings.

Those people were fired if you ask me.

Just curious... has this been confirmed by official sources? I can't view the articles right now as I'm in class, but I don't recall seeing those sites frequently nor renown as reliable.

reply to post by nighthawk1954

Mars: Over 100 NASA Scientists Quit Or Retire Early Over ‘Security Obsession’ With Mars Rover – What Are ‘They’ So ‘Obsessed’ About?
Is something HUGE going on with Mars that NASA and the Department of Homeland Security DO NOT want the public to know about? Due to NASA’s new found ‘security obsession’ with the Mars Rover, over 100 NASA scientists and engineers have recently either quit their jobs or retired early. What in the world are NASA and the Department of Homeland Security so obsessed about with Mars and the Mars Rover?

It has nothing to do with the Mars Rover.

Thanks to the zealous wackos at the Department of Homeland Security, back in 2007 during the latter part of the Bush administration an order went out that all workers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena--an organization that is run under contract to NASA by the California Institute of Technology, had to be vetted for high security clearance in order to continue doing their jobs.

www.thiscantbehappening.net...

What has precipitated this wave of discontent is that NASA employees now know that their personal information is not safe!

Well, it happened. No fancy cyber break-ins occurred. No massive network failure was at fault. Nothing complicated or deliberate happened - the sort of stuff where overt high-tech protection and safeguards would be called into play. Instead, a NASA employee was dumb enough to leave an agency laptop with sensitive information in her car such that it could be stolen. And that laptop had a substantial amount of personal information on 10,000 or more NASA employees that the CIO's office was inept enough to allow to be on a laptop taken out of NASA in the first place.

nasawatch.com...

reply to post by nighthawk1954


There is a concept called "Grandfathered In" where a new rule does not apply to a group of people who were under a different set of rules, when the new rule began. NASA could have/should have left the long-term, valued scientists ALONE!!!

The gubberment could have very easily made this rule apply to all NEW employees and those who had been with them less than 5 years or so. The long-term employees should have been 'Grandfathered In' !

Anything else is ridiculous and the outcome will be detrimental to NASA in the long run. There will be a whole new crop hired, and the knowledge and continuity will be riddled with holes.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
For a group of people who couldn't PASS a security background check if their lives literally depended on it....some of those appointed to serve in Government leadership today are unnaturally obsessed with it

Huzzah for the truth!
Bush and Obama can be president yet both had extensive drug issues in their younger years.
Bush went awol from the Air National Guard.
Obama can't even produce a real birth certificate.
Such rules are fueled by the insecurities of the leadership that make demands they themselves couldn't pass.

Good one.

Originally posted by Philosophile
Just curious... has this been confirmed by official sources? I can't view the articles right now as I'm in class, but I don't recall seeing those sites frequently nor renown as reliable.

Did some digging around:

JPL employees demand probe of NASA's data security measures
-- www.latimes.com...

JPL workers seek federal probe into stolen NASA laptop
-- www.pasadenastarnews.com...

Losing in Court, and to Laptop Thieves, in a Battle With NASA Over Private Data
-- www.nytimes.com...

I have been at an organization when a shift like this happens. It is a symptom of a far deeper issue and sign of much bigger problems to come.

I would guess it pertains to china & preparing to grow vegetables on mars. If china was leaked info from scientists @ NASA, they might get rid of all to make sure they got rid of the mole and start fresh.

who knows, maybe some of these guys will go in to some kind of commercial programs like virgin galactic.

I read about this earlier this morning and thought it was NUTS!

I mean one employee had been there 40yrs!!! She said she felt it was an invasion of their privacy and previous years of loyalty. I don't blame her! Now all of a sudden they want to make them pass security clearances. For what? What will they be seeing shortly that they want to keep mum?

I mean if NASA has nothing to hide when it comes to Mars why such drastic security measures?
If their findings are public knowledge of Mars then why the strict security measures?

This really makes one go hmmmmmm.

reply to post by Skywatcher2011


What in God's name is top secret about a rover mission? That is just silly.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Sure enough, last week NASA was forced to admit that an employee at the agency’s offices in Washington DC had left a laptop computer containing all that newly acquired personal information on its employees in his car on Halloween night, and it had been stolen. Worse yet, further validating the concerns of JPL scientists, the data on the computer had not even been encrypted!

This is ironic is it not? Too many times we see "beefed up" security measure only cause major security concerns. The bottom line is the more power given to someone/some thing/some organization, the higher chance there is for someone to abuse that power. Or mistakenly use that power in the wrong way.

Nasa has alot to hide. Shame on them.

Why is such sensitive information stored on a laptop? And what kind of moron leaves a laptop in a car?

So we have a civilian agency requiring security clearances that would indicate working on classified systems.

Yeah. NASA is totally not part of the military.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


A thief will be the first to lock his doors, too.

Just sayin'.

Originally posted by PrplHrt
Why is such sensitive information stored on a laptop? And what kind of moron leaves a laptop in a car?

Yes, the CIO should be the one to leave for even allowing that to happen.

Originally posted by boncho
This is ironic is it not? Too many times we see "beefed up" security measure only cause major security concerns. The bottom line is the more power given to someone/some thing/some organization, the higher chance there is for someone to abuse that power. Or mistakenly use that power in the wrong way.

Yes it definitely backfired in this case.

Originally posted by PrplHrt
What in God's name is top secret about a rover mission? That is just silly.

The only thing I can think of, is the rover mission costs billions of dollars. If a terrorist managed to get control of the rover, they could possibly drive it over the edge of a cliff or something like that to destroy the rover, causing billions in damages (trashing the whole mission). But I can think of simpler safeguards to put in place to prevent that.

I know some conspiracy theorists say they want reliable people who can keep the gorillas and rats living on Mars a secret, but I think most of us know those are just rocks.