Los Alamos Monitor assistant editor Roger Snodgrass reports. Excerpt:
The Department of Energy has rejected the results of an $870,000 study by the National Research Council on the validity of polygraph tests for screening national security risks.
DOE said that unless something unexpected arises from public comments, it will continue its current program as is.
A proposed rule published Monday in the Federal Register thickened the plot of a lengthy policy struggle between Congress and DOE over the department’s use of polygraphs, commonly known as lie detectors, for protecting classified secrets.
“I can hardly believe this decision,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, who requested the report along with Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, in legislation passed in December 2000.
“There is no question that DOE is under pressure because of problems involving security and lab management,” said Domenci in a statement Monday. “This, however, should not be the basis for continuing a polygraph program that has been studied and found wrong.”
DOE’s response sidestepped a 400-page study performed by the National Science Foundation’s agency in charge of providing objective, science-based advice about politically charged subjects.
The report, “The Polygraph and Lie Detection,” issued in October 2002, found “little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy.” Among other findings, the report found that capable spies could probably defeat the system and that too many innocent people would be punished by suspicions based on the inaccuracy of the polygraph.
The department’s rebuttal agreed with the study that the available scientific evidence is generally of low quality. But DOE used that finding to conclude that the department “does not believe the issues raised by NAS about the polygraph’s accuracy are sufficient to warrant a decision by DOE to abandon it as a screening tool.”
DOE pointed to the circumstances of current war in Iraq to argue the inappropriateness of relaxing controls over weapons of mass destruction at this time, suggesting that polygraphs used in conjunction with other investigative activities may still have value for national security.
DOE criticized NAS for examining the relative costs and benefits of polygraph study, concluding that “inevitably rested in no small part on value judgment made by the NAS.”
Since the department was only obliged to take the study into account, it did not interpret that mandate “to preclude the retention of some or all of” the current regulations.
Indeed, the rule states, “DOE does not now contemplate any change in this policy.”
The response from New Mexico’s senators, some LANL employees and public interest groups involved in the issue of polygraphs appears largely unfavorable.
Stephen Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, called it “a remarkable testament to the stubbornness of the security bureaucracy and its resistance to external criticism.”
A Senate staffer on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee said DOE’s position raises questions about its philosophy. “If the agency believes in science-based stockpile stewardship,” he asked, “shouldn’t it believe in science based security stewardship?”
“DOE has thumbed its nose at Congress,” said George W. Maschke, a co-founder of AntiPolygraph.org (http://antipolygraph.org), a Web site opposed to polygraphs. Maschke was one of the speakers invited to testify during a series of public hearings conducted by NAS on the issue.