Supreme Court hears privacy arguments in NASA v. Nelson

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday for a case that could impact how much personal informational people are allowed to keep private from the government during a background or security check.

The case NASA v. Nelson looks at whether the agency violated federal contractors rights by requiring they submit to the same background checks as federal employees.

An appeals court found two years ago that NASA was too intrusive when it tried to look into the backgrounds of researchers and scientists at the California laboratory run by California Institute of Technology. NASA said it was complying with federal expectations for security checks on people who access government buildings and computers.

At the oral argument Tuesday, the justices tried to determine what the Constitution says about the government's authority to ask about personal, private issues, according to Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog.

They struggled with what the scope of a privacy right would look like.

For instance, Justice Sonia Sotomayor brought up whether the government can ask about a person's "genetic makeup," according to Denniston, to see if they are prone to a disease.

Justice Samuel Alito asked why the government should be limited from probing the background of every employee, including snack bar workers. For instance, what if the snack bar worker were wearing a sign that implied he might blow up a building, Alito said.

Denniston said Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg both seemed to steer the discussion toward the possibility of a narrow ruling that will not overhaul legal privacy protections but will instead address whether NASA overstepped in this instance.