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2016-12-22T23:42:30Z
2017-09-17T10:03:24+02:00
2017-09-17T10:03:24+02:00
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000504840003-1
13 January' 1985
L
Lie ;detectors Lie
The Pentagon s False Promise of Assured Loyalty
By Peter J. Ognibene
ASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - The Rea
gan administration' announced
today that it will randomly subject
employes of the Department of Defense to a
procedure called trial by ordeal. Those se-
lected will be bound hard and foot and
t rownn into the Potomac River to test their
"trustworthiness, patriotism and integrity."
Those who float will be reinstated; those who
sink will not.
The administration, obviously, made no
such pronouncement on Jan. 3. However, it
did the next best thing: It announced that
the Pentagon would subject some 10,000
employes a year to random tests of the poly-
graph, the so-called lie detector. Under a
new departmental directive, those judged
guilty of "deception" may be removed from
their posts and denied promotions. In the
close-knit world of the defense establish-
ment, a failed polygraph test will almost cer-
tainly become the kiss of death.
Though the polygraph may occasionally be
of value in certain criminal investig-itions, it
is worse than useless for ferreting out poten-
tial spies or crooked employees or leakers of
classified information - which is ostensibly
the purpose of the new Reagan scheme.
Moreover, if polygraph testing supplants
other means of investigation, spies who have
been trained to beat the machine may find it
easier to penetrate our nation's defenses. In
the end, professional liars and sociopaths
may be cleared by the polygraph while hun-
dreds of conscientious employes are forced
to contend with spurious accusations that
could cost them not only their jobs but their
reputations.
The flaws of polygraph testing have been
amply documented, especially in the past 10
years. The most comprehensive 'and recent
study was issued in November 1983 by Con-
gress' Office of Technology Assessment.
Yet, the machines are being used more and
more. In 1983, the federal government con-
ducted 23,000 polygraph examinations; the
Pentagon accounted for more than 90 per-
cent. Nationwide, more than 1 million tests
were conducted, largely by private busi-
nesses hoping to spot likely thieves. So, in
spite of evidence that it is reliable only in
narrowly defined criminal cases, the poiv-
graph is growing in popularity.
Why? Government officials point to recent
spy cases and embarrassing news leaks;
businessmen cite rising losses from employe
crime. These are valid concerns today, but
the search for a truth machine is nothing
new. Indeed, it is as old as recorded history.
Does the body betray the mind? The
guardians of ancient societies thought so. A
Hindu papyrus, written about 900 B.C., de-
scribed the telltale characteristics of a killer
who used poison: "He does not answer ques-
tions, or they are evasive answers; he speaks
nonsense, rubs the great toe along the
ground, and shivers; his face is disco,ored;
he rubs the roots of the hair with his fin-
gers."
Believing that the mouth of a guilty man
goes dry when confronted with his crimes
one rooted more in folk wisdom than in sci-
ence, that the body holds the key to the
mind. Only the instruments have changed.
Instead of hot irons, modern inquisitors use
the polygraph.
The word polygraph is taken front the
Greek phrase for "many writings." Appro-
priately enough, it was a Greek physician,
Erasistratus, who, in the third century B.C.,
put forth the notion that deceit could be de-
tected by changes in a person's pulse. Exam-
ining Antiochus, he found the young man's
blood would race whenever they discussed
his beautiful stepmother, Stratonice. Based
on that observation, the physician, confirm-
ing the gossip he had heard at court, accused
the two of incestuous adultery.
The machinery of "lie detection" goes
back 400 years, to Galileo's invention in
1581 of the "pulsilogium," a pendulum that
would swing in cadence with a person's
heartbeat; a pointer on the device indicated
the pulse rate. Experiments in the 18th cen-
tury led to the sphygmomanometer, which
measures blood pressure.
"The current instruments used by federal
agencies are the product of 85 years of
development by scientists and practition-
ers." said Norman Ansley, who heads the
polygraph division of the National Security
Agency, which is responsible for safeguard-
ing U.S. military and diplomatic communica-
tions.
"Basically., the polygraph examination is a
method of questioning whereby an individual
is required. to unequivocably respond with a
yes or no answer to direct questions . .
This questioning is done while the examinee
is attached .to a very sensitive instrument
Asian and European interrogators would which monitors the person's respiration,
stuff a man's mouth with rice or bread. If he electrodermal response and cardiovascular
could swallow, he was pronounced innocent; ' activity to determine if there are any signifi-
?if he could not, he was put to death. In Ben cant and consistent changes in these areas in
i
f
the quest
ons.
gal, criminal suspects faced a saliva test of a direct response to any o
different sort. Those who could lick a glow-
ing hot iron and not get burned were set
free; a blistered tongue sentenced a man to
death.
T o 20th-century Americans, these tests
seem barbaric and unscientific. Yet,
there is a direct connection between
those ancient magistrates and their latter-
day counterparts. All share a common belief,
WASHINGTON POST
The procedure is physically uncomfort-
able. A blood-pressure cuff is wrapped
around the upper arm and inflated. One or
two tubes are tied tightly about the torso to
measure respiration. To detect changes in
skin resistance brought about by perspira-
tion, electrical leads are attached to two of
the fingers:-Then comes the interrogation.
"Reactions are significant changes from
the baseline recording which is established
as the norm in each of the recorded areas at
the beginning of each polygram or chart,"
said Ansley. "Depending on the individual
examinee, these changes may be as massive
as a total cessation of breathing or a major
increase in blood pressure or as subtle as a
Cirr a,.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000504840003-1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000504840003-1
change in the inhalation-exhalation pattern
of respiration or slight decrease in skin
resistance.. Tie point is that the reactions
will occur specifically at the problem ques-
tion and not randomly, they will be signifi-
cant to the?trained examiner and they will be
consistently occurring at the problem ques-
tion whenever it is asked."
at is "the problem question"? That
depends on who is being examined.
For the guilty, it should be a ques-
tion relevant to the crime. (Did you steal
money from the cash register?) For the inno-
cent, it should be a "control question."
(Have you ever stolen anything?) In theory,
the honest person will react most strongly to
the control question whereas the criminal's
vital signs will change significantly only
,when confronted with his crime.
"If the subject shows stronger reactions
t' the control as compared to the relevant
questions," said David C. Raskin, a licensed
polygrapher and professor of psychology at
the University of Utah, "the test outcome is
interpreted as truthful. Stronger reactions to
the relevant questions are indicative of de-
ception to the relevant questions."
But are they? Dr. john F. Beary III, an as-
sociate dean at the Georgetown University
School of Medicine, argues: "There is no
physiological. response unique to lying .
The polygraph - which measures heart
rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and skin
resistance - detects excitement, not lies.
Lying is only one of several stimuli which
may excite a person. Other stimuli which
cause excitement are fear of losing one's job,
embarrassment or anger at being exam-
ined."
For two and a half years (until September
1983), Beary served as principal deputy
assistant secretary of defense for health af-
fairs. His was one of the few voices raised at
the Pentagon in opposition to broader use of
polygraph testing.
A month before leaving office, Beary
warned his superiors: "The polygraph/lie-de-
tector endangers national security rather
than protecting it. This is because many
Americans believe it works, while the Rus-
sians think it does not. I am told the Soviets
have a training school in an Eastern bloc
country [reportedly Czechoslovakia] where
they teach their agents how to beat the poly-
graph. Because many of our DOD [Depart-
ment of Defense] managers think it works,
they get a false sense of security, thus mak-
ing it easier for a Soviet mole who passes
the polygaph to penetrate the Pentagon."
In three experiments to test countermeas-
ures, Raskin said in an interview, he found
that "people can be trained to beat the poly-
graph tests . . . . In 30 minutes, we can
teach people to do maneuvers, physical
maneuvers, which enable most of them to
produce truthful-appearing polygraph
charts."
Some countermeasures are quite simple.
David T. Lykken, a professor of psychology
and psychiatry at the University of Minneso-
ta, reported that a prisoner taught nine of
his fellow inmates to recognize control ques-
tions - to which the truthful should react
- and advised them to bite their tongues
whenever such questions were asked. All
nine fooled the polygraph. Studies have also
shown that a dishonest person who takes a
tranquilizer, such as meprobamate, before a
polygraph test can depress his vital signs
sufficiently to foil an examiner.
Ansley dismisses such reports: "In regard
to countermeasures, a well-trained examiner
will detect all of those common methods
talked about on the street and published in
popular books. Detecting and defeating
countermeasures is part of our training in
basic and advanced courses. Most of those
so-called countermeasures do not even pre-
vent the examiner from getting readable
charts. Among the few that do, the subject's
attempts are readily apparent."
T he skill of the examiner is, of course,
an important factor, and one would ex-
pect that agencies-such as the NSA
would have some of the best in the field.
That may allow them to weed out some ap-
plicants with a hidden criminal past. But
even the most skilled polygraph operator
will be unable to predict which individuals
might be tempted, when faced with financial
difficulties years hence, to sell government
secrets to a foreign power.
Because th" NSA operates in total se-
crecy, no scientist can observe its polygra-
phers at work and publicly assess their effec-
tiveness. But the open scientific literature
weighs heavily against the polygraph. In its
November 1983 report, the Office of Tech-
nology Assessment concluded that, "while
there is some evidence for the validity of
polygraph testing as an adjunct to criminal
investigations, there is very little research
or scientific evidence to establish polygraph
test validity in screening situations, whether
they be preemployment, preclearance, pen-
odic or aperiodic, random or 'dragnet.' "
In a criminal case, where the number of
suspects has been narrowed by careful police
work, the polygraph can be used in what
Lykken calls the "guilty knowledge test."
This procedure centers on questions that
can be answered only by the criminal. Take,
for instance, the scene of the crime. If the
examiner slowly reads a list of rooms, and a
2
suspect reacts only when the room where
the crime occurred is mentioned, that would
suggest he has "guilty knowledge." So, too,
would his reactions to questions pinpointing
the means of entry, the location of a weapon
or the amount of money stolen.
Though potentially effective, the guilty-
knowledge test can be applied in rela-
tively few cases. Most of the 1 million
polygraph exams given each year are con-
ducted by private employers trying to ex-
pose employes or job applicants with larceny
in their hearts. Here the verdict is clear:
The polygraph is worthless.
FBI regulations specifically prohibit "use
of the polygraph for dragnet-tYpe screening
of large numbers of suspects or as a substi-
tute for logical investigation by conventional
means." A polygraph test can be given by
the FBI only when "there is reasonable
cause to believe that the person to be exam-
ined has knowledge of or was involved in the
matter under inquiry or investigation, or if
the person is withholding information rele-
vant to the inquiry or investigation."
Though Raskin favors polygraph testing in
criminal cases, he opposes its use by most
private employers. "The commercial sector
is where you have the lowest level of confi-
dence, the least concern for the welfare of
the person taking the test. If they have any
doubts (about certain employes), they're
gone. When you go into the private sector,
especially in the majority of the states where
there is no regulation, anything goes . . . .
I'm hoping there'll be a lot more control and
that ultimately its use in the private sector
will be severely curtailed."
Enthusiasts argue that the polygraph
works and point to cases where a finding of
"deception" impelled a criminal to confess
his guilt. Yet, the instrument cannot be
trusted when it comes to predicting potential
wrongdoers. Beary compares the situation
to a medical diagnostic test which is 100
percent sensitive to a particular disease but
also gives false indications 5 percent of the
time. Ninety-five percent "specificity" may
be acceptable for relatively common disor-
ders but not for a disease, for instance, that
afflicts only one person in 1,000. The reason
is simple: There will be 50 "false positives"
- that is, people who react positively to the
test but do not have the disease - for
everyone who actually has it. Thus, the pre-
dictive value of the test is only 2 percent:
one in 50.
Because the polygraph measures anxiety?
rather than honesty, its accuracy is consider-
ably less.than 100 percent. Beary puts it at
70 to 80 percent; others claim 90 percent or
more. Take either estimate, and the prob-
CVrijr4v'Gi
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000504840003-1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000504840003-1
lem remains. If substantial numbers are
screened, there are bound to be many false
positives - honest people branded "decep-
tive" by a polygraph examiner.
What happens to the honest person who
flunks the polygraph? Though some 20
states restrict its use, individuals may lose
their jobs and find prospective employers un-
willing even to consider them based on a sin-
gle polygraph test. Few workers fight back.
Last year, however, four employees of a
Maryland drugstore chain who lost their jobs
after refusing to take polygraph tests re-
ceived a court award of $5 million.
What sort of person turns up a false posi-
tive? Lykken believes it is often the most up-
right members of the community: "A
preacher is likely to be more distressed than
a felon would be to be accused of theft. Ask a
West Point alumnus if he has betrayed an of-
ficial secret and you may find that his heart
beats harder and this palms sweat more than
those of a -psychopath asked the same ques-
tion.
"The irony is that by basing more and
more important decisions on the results of
polygraph tests we may be producing an ef-
fect opposite to that intended, firing the
most honorable police officers, refusing to
hire the potentially most reliable employees.
putting highly socialized citizens into unem-
ployment Lines or even prison, while staffing
our security agencies with the undersocial-
ized - for instance, such people as the
CIA's Central Intelligence esy_ notori-
ous Edwin Wilson - or with those clever
enough to know how to beat the polygraph."
(It is not known whether Wilson was cleared
by a polygraph test at any time during his ca-
reer with the CIA.)
t the CIA and NSA, which screen all
prospective employees with the poly-
graph, the greatest threat is sed by
false negatives, such as spies who know how
to beat the machine. Yet, high government
officials appear oblivious to the danger. "We
recognize that the polygraph is not infalli-
bie," said Richard G. Stilwell, the deputy un-
dersecretary of defense for policy. But he
added: "As the result of extensive experi-
ence in CIA, NSA and DOD, we are con-
vinced the polygraph process works . . . .
There is no data suggesting that the various
polgraph techniques and applications at
DOD have high false positive or negative
error rates."
Lykken, however, warns against relying
so heavily on those squiggles. " 'Lykken's
Law,' " he said, "asserts that in any com-
plex decision-making situation a datum or
piece of evidence that is simple and definite
in its implications will tend to be given more
weight than it deserves."
Yet, bureaucrats and corporate officers
who use polygraphs oppose efforts to re-
strict them. Some obviously believe they
work; others may value the polygraph pri-
marily as a weapon of coercion. If people,
fear that a machine can expose their inner-
most thoughts, they will be much less likely
to dip into the company till or leak docu-
ments to a reporter. Stilwell argues that
"the mere possibility of being subjected to a
polygraph examination will act as a powerful
deterrent to those individuals who might
consider an attempt to penetrate or compro-
mise [sensitive security] programs."
The targets of this deterrence are not
Soviet spies but federal employes. Fear of
the Russians stealing military secrets did not
spark President Reagan's firsr`attempt, in
1983, to broaden use of the polygraph. It
came about after someone with access to
Pentagon docuzt ents informed the press -
and taxpayers - that the administration had
underestimated the cost of its proposed
arms buildup by $750 billion.
Ronald Reagan is not the first president
who has tried to use the polygraph to plug a
leaky Pentagon. Richard Nixon took the
same approach. In 1971, in a secret White
House tape, Nixon was blunt: "Listen, I
don't know anything about polygraphs, and I
don't know how accurate they are, but I do
know they'll scare the hell out of people."
A contrary view was espoused by Nixon's
nemesis, Sam J. Ervin, Jr., the former sena-
tor from North Carolina whose investigation
of the Watergate scandal led to the uncover-
ing of those secret tapes and the undoing of
the man who made them. Ervin put it this
way'
"The whole process smacks of 20th-cen-
tury witchcraft. Does the flesh of the appli-
cant burn when a hot iron is applied to it?
When tightly bound and thrown into a pond,
does the applicant sink or float? When
strapped in a chair with electrodes and other
gadgets attached, does the rate of respira-
tion and blood pressure of the applicant rise?
Does the salt of his pores induce increased
electrical conductivity? Are we reduced to
alchemy as a technique of screening appli-
cants for highly sensitive positions in the fed-
eral bureaucracy?"
To increase our reliance on polygraph
testing in the name of national security can
only jeopardize our security. To reverse the
Reagan administration's new policy, Con-
gress will have to enact legislation explicitly
limiting the Pentagon's use of the polygraph.
Congress should also look at how the poly-
graph is used - and misused - by private
employers. If the polygraph is reliable only
for narrowly defined investigations, then
Congress should consider completely ban-
ning its use by the private sector.
Peter j Ognibene, author of the novel "The
Big Byte, " is a Washington writer.
3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000504840003-1
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