Last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem boasted to broadcaster Tim Pool, “We’re polygraphing everybody!” This month, in an article titled “Inside Kristi Noem’s Polygraph Operation,” Michelle Hackman and Tarini Parti report for the Wall Street Journal that Noem’s polygraph interrogations often concern the leak of information that is not classified. Excerpt:
WASHINGTON—In a small interrogation room in Virginia with a one-way mirror, employees from across the Department of Homeland Security are being summoned and hooked up to a polygraph machine.
They are asked to sit still on a seat designed to measure uncomfortable body shifting, and to wear a blood pressure cuff, an oxygen monitor, and a tube around their chests. The set up is standard for government polygraphs, but the line of questioning is more unusual: Have they been sharing information with the media?
Polygraph exams have long been a routine tool used inside intelligence agencies, including DHS, as part of security clearances, job applications and certain investigations. But under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s direction, they have been used to search for leaks of information that Noem and her top deputies consider disloyal or embarrassing, according to current and former officials familiar with the practice. The information the employees are accused of leaking often isn’t classified, the people said.
The exams are being administered by a little-known office inside the Transportation Security Administration, the part of DHS commonly known for screening passengers and baggage at airports. Under previous administrations, agents within TSA’s polygraph program worked on criminal or administrative investigations, according to the department’s website, and the program was used, for example, to test airport employees accused of theft of a passenger’s property.
Several employees at immigration agencies—along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a part of DHS that President Trump has moved to dismantle—have been asked to take polygraph exams, the people said. Those who have been asked to take exams range from top staffers in agency leadership to employees in media offices within the department who are authorized to speak with reporters but are suspected of sharing unapproved information.
Read the rest of the article here.
It is interesting that DHS is apparently using TSA’s polygraph unit, formally designated the “TSA National Polygraph Program” to polygraph employees outside of TSA.
AntiPolygraph.org welcomes tips on DHS’s polygraph practices. We can be contacted privately, securely, and anonymously via Signal at ap_org.01 or via SimpleX Chat.
DHS Barbie knows as much about polygraphs as she does Habeas Corpus.