"Sunlight is the best disinfectant," so spread the word!  Tell friends and colleagues about the government's ongoing erosion of privacy and let them know about this site (http://employeeclearance.com).  If you are willing to do one or more of the following quick, easy tasks, you can help change the government's dreadful policy:

Professional associations.  Write to pertinent professional associations to which you may belong (e.g., the American Assn. of University Professors).  If you are a member of the American Educational Research Association, write or email to say you are concerned and want AERA to oppose current ED policy and protect the privacy of education researchers and other contractor employees.  Felice Levine is Executive Director of AERA; Jerry Sroufe is their government liaison.  Their email addresses are flevine@aera.net and jsroufe@aera.net. 

ED policymakers.  Register your opinion with ED staff.  Michell Clark is the Assistant Secretary for Management who determines security policy (Michell.Clark@ed.gov).  Margaret Spellings is the Secretary of Education (Margaret.Spellings@ed.gov).

Congress.  Send a letter or email to your congressman or senator.  Ask congress to let ED know of its concerns and/or hold oversight hearings about contractor employee security clearances.

OMB.  Ask OMB, which has government-wide responsibility for coordinating executive branch policies, to require that ED change its policy.  The Deputy Director for Management is Clay Johnson and Steven Atkin is acting administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (cjohnson@omb.eop.gov and satkin@omb.eop.gov).

Your organization.  If you are a contractor employee, tell your organization you are concerned.  Request that they ask questions of the government about this policy (such as: What are the criteria by which contractor employees will be judged?  Who reviews and has access to sensitive personal information provided to the government?).

Discussion forum.  Click on Discussion and add your voice to others.

Remember that your opinions can be strongly stated without being unpleasant or unnecessarily inflammatory!