Los Angeles Times staff writers Eric Lichtblau and Richard A Serrano report. Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — FBI officials said Wednesday that thousands of employees may be subjected to polygraph tests in an effort to plug holes in security–holes so glaring that even convicted spy Robert Philip Hanssen now says he should have been caught years earlier.
Catching in-house spies and guarding national security interests were “not a priority” at the bureau in the past, FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged to reporters. “Any employee should recognize in the wake of Hanssen that we have to emphasize security more than we have.”
Mueller’s stark assessment of the FBI’s failings comes days before a high-level commission is expected to deliver an even harsher critique of why the bureau failed for more than two decades to realize that it had a spy among its ranks.
The Webster Commission, headed by former FBI and CIA Director William H. Webster, is expected to release its much-awaited report on the Hanssen debacle later this week, probably Friday.
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One key recommendation from the Webster Commission is expected to center on the expanded use of polygraphs for employees who have access to sensitive information.
The FBI, which for years resisted giving its employees routine polygraph tests, agreed last year in the wake of the Hanssen controversy to begin polygraphs for a small group of about 700 employees who work in intelligence operations.
That trial run has worked well, Senser said, with a passing rate of 99% for those tested. Those few employees whose tests came back “indeterminate” are being subjected to closer scrutiny and follow-up reviews, but no disciplinary action has been taken against anyone, he said.
Buoyed by the success of the test run, the FBI now is moving ahead with a tentative plan to significantly expand the pool of employees who would be subject to the tests. Although no final decision has been made, Senser said it likely will include “an additional few thousand” employees who will undergo questioning about unauthorized foreign contacts and the like.
Mueller said he wants to be careful not to subject agents to unnecessary testing and risk harming morale in the process. “Nobody likes taking a polygraph. I didn’t particularly enjoy taking a polygraph.”
But many agents seem to have grudgingly accepted that as the next big step in security.
“We’ve known this was coming,” said one senior agent who asked not to be identified. “I don’t get the feeling it’s generating a lot of heartburn. Any protests would probably fall on deaf ears anyway because, in light of Hanssen, it’s hard to make these same self-righteous kinds of objections and say, ‘What is it about me that you don’t trust?'”