Bad Credit? You're Fired.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service has high standards when it comes to protecting personal information. After all, it is the Defense Department's payroll processing unit, and the agency's workers have access to sensitive data, such as employee Social Security numbers.

Earlier this year, DFAS moved to fire more than two dozen employees who were deemed to be unqualified to handle classified information, at least partly on the grounds that they had poor personal credit ratings. Eight of the employees work in the agency's Cleveland office.

Now two members of Congress are calling for an investigation into the proposed dismissals, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcia L. Fudge, both Democrats, have written letters asking the Government Accountability Office and the Defense inspector general to investigate whether the proposed actions are discriminatory.

The legislators noted that DFAS reports that 85 percent of those the agency already has moved to terminate or suspend as it implements stringent security measures are African Americans. "The African American community in Cleveland and elsewhere has been disproportionately affected by predatory lending and the foreclosure crisis which followed," they wrote.

In addition, Kucinich and Fudge wrote, "At least one of the fired DFAS employees in Cleveland is an officer and organizer of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3283." They are seeking a probe into whether DFAS is "targeting labor organizers for dismissal while using a pretext of financial problems."

Finally, the lawmakers questioned whether "DFAS employees may be targeted as a reprisal for congressional oversight of that agency's efforts to privatize its workforce."