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Caltech Employee Lawsuit Involves Her Cat and an Israeli Spy

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 15, 2014
Filed under

Caltech professor claims Israeli spy infiltrated JPL, Pasadena Star News
“Sandra Troian alleges Caltech administrators ignored the school’s whistleblower policy and retaliated against her for the past four years because if they had documented her concern, they could have put an $8 billion contract with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at risk and put the school in a bad light. Troian said she is frightened for her career. …
… “In a statement issued late Thursday, Caltech called Troian’s lawsuit meritless and said the institution always abides by export control laws and ITAR. It also regularly cooperates with government agencies such as the FBI, the statement said. “The plaintiff, who was dissatisfied with the outcome of a recent internal campus investigation into her decision to list her cat as the author of a published abstract and omit recognition of a postdoctoral scholar who performed related research, suffered no retaliation and remains an active faculty member of the institution,” the Caltech statement said.”

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5 responses to “Caltech Employee Lawsuit Involves Her Cat and an Israeli Spy”

  1. dogstar29 says:
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    Troian’s allegations sound credible to me. ITAR is a pain in the neck, but she was trying to follow the rules, and her employer told her not to. She did not allege that Gat was a professional “spy” or that he “infiltrated” Caltech, only that he repeatedly and improperly transmitted restricted information to a foreign authority.

    “Gat admitted he shared details of a top-secret new space micropropulsion system with his doctorate advisor, Daniel Weihs, at ITT without first getting permission from the U.S. government. Weihs is a member of Israel’s National Steering Committee for Space Infrastructure of the Ministry of Science, chair of Israel’s National Committee for Space Research and chief scientist at the Ministry of Science and Technology, according to the suit.

    Also without proper approval from the U.S. Department of State, Gat allegedly made 65 online postings about key operating principles for the micropropulsion device, according to the lawsuit.”

    But the most intriguing thing about this story is the revelation that a Nobel prize-winning physicist once listed a pet hamster as a co-author. Really, I think Troian was entirely within her rights listing her cat as an author, although should the abstract have been published as a full paper she would be required to document the cat’s specific contributions to the research. Use of this irrelevant datum by Caltech to attack Troian makes the university sound petty and vindictive, and worse yet, unable to take a joke.

  2. sunman42 says:
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    Can someone tell us what national security applications microthrusters could have that would warrant classification? I understand that ITAR clamps a lid on communicating anything about propulsion, navigation, &c. to unauthorized foreign contacts, but “top secret?”

    • dogstar29 says:
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      I believe the term “top secret” was used metaphorically. If the design were actually classified, Gat would have needed a security clearance, and as a noncitizen that would have been unlikely. However as you know, ITAR is a tarbaby of a law that actually makes it illegal to discuss _anything_ of a technical nature with foreign nationals that has not been specifically “cleared” by an ITAR official. of course a better solution is to change the law, but the chance of getting Congress to remove a law that supposedly protects American security is slim even if, in reality, ITAR is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

      • sunman42 says:
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        So “top secret” was simply misleading hyperbole on the part of the original Star News writer. I guess the distinction between that and ITAR is unclear to people who don’t live with the latter every day.