In an article titled, “Who is Steven Hatfill” published on the American Prospect website, freelance writer Laura Rozen reports that Dr. Steven Hatfill, whose home the FBI recently searched in its ongoing anthrax investigation, allegedly lost his security clearance following a failed polygraph examination (although he reportedly passed an FBI polygraph interrogation regarding last year’s anthrax attacks). Excerpt:
In January 1999, Hatfill went to work for Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a large defense contractor. As a specialist in biological defenses working on contract for various government agencies, Hatfill continued to have access to the Fort Detrick lab; the Army’s chemical weapons defense testing facility in Edgewood, Maryland; Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah; and other government labs and military facilities depending on his assignments.
While colleagues at SAIC say that Hatfill’s clients adored him, some of them grew concerned about Hatfill this February, after The (Baltimore) Sun ran a story — not mentioning Hatfill — about a scientist who was seen taking biosafety cabinets from USAMRIID, at the same time that Hatfill lost his government-issued security clearance and consequently his job at SAIC. Why did he lose his clearance? One military official recounts the story he says Hatfill told him. In this telling, the difficulties began last summer, when Hatfill allegedly applied for a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) security clearance in order to bid for a top-secret contract with a government agency, perhaps the CIA.
To qualify for this clearance, he was reportedly required to take a polygraph test. Hatfill allegedly told the military official that he failed the polygraph on questions concerning his activities in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The people conducting the polygraph were amateurs, Hatfill allegedly complained to his interlocutor; they couldn’t understand what Cold Warriors like himself had to do in Rhodesia. The military official recalls Hatfill as saying that his father-in-law had been killed by rebels in Rhodesia, and that he had consequently undertaken some actions that caused concern when he was given his polygraph test.