By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:35pm
We hate to say “I told you so.”
In 2010, the Supreme Court heard a case called NASA v. Nelson, which involved the government’s right to carry out highly intrusive background checks. NASA decided to require its employees—many of whom had already been working for the agency for many years in what the government conceded were “low-risk” and “non-sensitive” positions—to fill out a form in which they were required to disclose any illegal drug use or possession within the previous year, along with details on any treatment or counseling received for such use. These employees were also required to sign an authorization permitting NASA’s security people to obtain
