Posted: Sun, May 11, 2003, 2:18 PM ET (1818 GMT)
NASA has put several civilian members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) on its payroll to allow the board to take advantage of laws that allow it to conduct some of its work in privacy, the Orlando Sentinel reported Sunday. According to the report, the five people added to the CAIB since the accident, in part because of political pressure to make sure the board is truly independent of NASA, have since been added to NASA's payroll with executive-level salaries of $134,000 a year. The other members of the CAIB were already federal employees, with the exception of the chairman, retired admiral Harold Gehman; he was added to the payroll of the Office of Personnel Management at a salary of $142,500 a year the day after the Columbia accident. The Sentinel article speculates that the move may be an effort to take advantage of a federal law that allows commissions composed entirely of federal officials to avoid regulations that require keeping minutes of all meetings and releasing records to the public. The CAIB has come under political scrutiny in the last week because of its decision to take testimony in confidential sessions and making no plans to make transcripts of those sessions available to the public once the board completes its work.

Related Links:

•  Orlando Sentinel article
•  Washington Post article about secret testimony