John Fleck reports for the Albuquerque Journal. Excerpt:
The Department of Energy wants to continue polygraphs to hunt for spies, bucking a report from federal science advisers who said the technique is flawed.
In a notice published Monday, the department announced it wants to keep its polygraph program, which screens nuclear weapons workers in a blanket hunt for spies.
That runs counter to advice last October from the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, which concluded the polygraphs the DOE was using were unscientific, missing spies while implicating the innocent.
“I can hardly believe this decision,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. It ignores the scientific evidence marshaled by the National Academy, Bingaman said in a statement Monday afternoon.
DOE was required by law to re-evaluate the polygraph program following the release of the Academy report. That review led to Monday’s notice that the department wants the polygraphs to continue.
In papers filed Monday announcing the decision, DOE officials said they still believe polygraphs are useful in preventing espionage.
“As the steward of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, the Department has an obligation to use the best tools available to protect the most sensitive information from being compromised,” Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a statement announcing the polygraph policy.
Implemented by then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in 1999, the polygraphs were a response to controversy surrounding espionage allegations against former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee.
DOE employees with access to many types of classified information are subject to polygraphs. Employees of contractors such as Sandia and Los Alamos national labs are also tested.
Critics, led by Sandia National Laboratories scientist Al Zelicoff, complained that the polygraphs are unscientific, ensnaring innocent workers while missing spies.
They won support last October in a report from the National Academy of Sciences. Commissioned by Congress at Bingaman’s behest, the academy report concluded that polygraphs used for employee screening did more harm than good.
The tests are so unreliable that a significant percentage of innocent workers will be implicated, while a significant percentage of actual spies will avoid detection, the Academy report found.
“National security is too important to be left to such a blunt instrument,” said Carnegie Mellon University professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who led the study.