Rich Chang reports for the Taipei Times. Excerpt:
All intelligence officials will be subjected to polygraph tests in future in a bid to root out spies, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced yesterday.
Legislators said they support the ministry’s policy, but that they hoped the ministry would take human rights into consideration when implementing the tests.
“Officials of the Military Intelligence Bureau, the military’s electronic information department, the ministry’s security unit and the National Security Bureau will randomly undergo psychological and polygraph tests on a regular basis,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) told legislators yesterday.
In the most recent case of espionage, Major Chuang Poh-hsing (莊伯欣), a former official in the ministry’s electronic information department, had on six occasions downloaded secrets form the ministry’s computers and passed them on to China, Tsai said.
“I would like to apologize for the espionage on behalf of the ministry,” Tsai said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Shuai Hua-min (帥化民), a former head of the National Defense Management College, said he supports the polygraph policy, but that the ministry should conduct the tests properly.
Mr. Shuai is apparently unaware that even a “properly” conducted polygraph “test” is without scientific basis.