In an article entitled “FBI agents urge more scrutiny for Condit,” Washington Times staff writer Jerry Seper reports that members of the FBI Agents Association have pointed out to the Senate and House intelligence committees the hypocrisy of requiring FBI employees to submit to polygraph interrogations while Congress exempts itself from this requirement. Excerpt:
FBI agents questioned yesterday why Rep. Gary A. Condit, who has acknowledged having an affair with a Washington intern who has been missing since early May, continues to receive highly classified intelligence data as a member of a key House committee.
The agents, in letters to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, asked whether the California Democrat had become a national security risk.
“The national security is indeed paramount when we consider necessary measures to protect our intelligence secrets,” the agents said in the letters. “A careful balance must be engineered. However it is only logical to insist that those with the broadest access to the most sensitive information be subjected to the greatest scrutiny.”
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Members of Congress chosen by party leaders for the House and Senate intelligence committees are exempt from the usual polygraphs and intrusive questions wielded by executive branch investigators.
The letters were forwarded to Congress by members of the FBI Agents Association, which has been critical of efforts to force widespread polygraph screening of FBI employees. Many rank-and-file agents believe that widespread polygraph testing carries a substantial risk of what they have described as “irreparable harm” to innocent employees.
Calls for increased polygraph testing came from members of Congress and elsewhere after the arrest of FBI Agent Robert P. Hanssen as a Russian spy. The FBI has since ordered the tests for agents and bureau executives who have access to confidential intelligence information.
The agents, in the letters, said Senate and House intelligence committee members and their staffs have “substantially greater access to extremely sensitive, classified intelligence information which contrasts strikingly with all but the access of the top echelon of FBI executives.”
“Most FBI special agents have little or no routine access to classified information,” the agents noted. “Many have greatly restricted, compartmentalized exposure to specific intelligence programs or operations. All have undergone thorough security background investigations, up-dated at 5-year intervals.”
The agents said the security background checks for FBI agents contrast with Senate and House procedures and suggested that the intelligence committee members and their staffs be required to undergo thorough background investigations and periodic polygraphs as a condition of service.
“What are the possible objections to such procedures given the tremendous amount and sensitivity of the information to which you and your staff have access?” the agents asked.