Frank Munger reports for the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Excerpt:
OAK RIDGE – It’s a real-life variation of the game truth or consequences.
The Department of Energy figures the potential consequences of a security breach in the nuclear weapons program are so grave that extraordinary precautions must be taken. That includes truth testing for key employees.
Despite a running controversy over lie-detector tests and a negative report from the National Academy of Sciences, DOE plans to retain polygraphs as a screening tool and possibly expand their use at high-risk operations – such as the Y-12 weapons plant in Oak Ridge.
At least 2,000 Oak Ridge employees are subject to the exams, Steven Wyatt, a DOE spokesman, confirmed last week.
Wyatt declined to specify which jobholders are tested or which contractors are involved, but most of the targeted employees in Oak Ridge apparently work at Y-12. The federal plant produces parts for nuclear warheads, and it is the nation’s main repository for bomb-grade uranium.
DOE rushed to implement a polygraph program in 1999 because of intense pressure from Congress to respond to concerns raised by a spy scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The federal agency now is reshaping its counterintelligence program to protect classified data and materials. It is part of a mandate from the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act, which ordered DOE to take into account a polygraph review by the National Academy of Sciences.
The academy’s panel looked at scientific evidence regarding the validity of polygraph exams and concluded that the exams are too inaccurate to be used for employee screening.
The national academy was more accepting of “exculpatory” polygraphs applied to specific incidents, in which a person may be asked questions related to an allegation of wrongdoing. But, overall, reviewers argued against using polygraphs to ferret out transgressions among employees.
DOE acknowledged the academy’s arguments in a Federal Register notice published last month, but the agency said those arguments weren’t enough to make it abandon the use of polygraphs.
“Doing so would mean that DOE would be giving up a tool that, while far from perfect, will help identify some individuals who should not be given access to classified data, materials or information,” the notice of proposed rulemaking said.
DOE said it was instructed by Congress to develop a polygraph program that could minimize those risks. The agency said it’s particularly important not to weaken controls at a time when the United States “is engaged in hostilities precisely in order to address the potentially disastrous consequences that may flow from weapons of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands.”
Doug Hinckley, head of DOE’s counterintelligence programs, said the agency uses polygraph testing primarily for deterrence, not detection.
“We’ve been using it now for several years, and we would not continue to use if it we didn’t think it had value,” Hinckley said in a telephone interview from his Washington office.
The federal official would not reveal the number of negative findings identified by polygraph exams during the past three years. “That’s something I wouldn’t want to comment on,” he said.
Hinckley and other officials emphasized that DOE does not use lie-detector tests to explore lifestyle issues with employees or ask about a person’s thoughts or beliefs.
In its original set of rules for polygraph exams, the agency promised to limit questions to an individual’s involvement in espionage, sabotage, terrorism, disclosure of classified information, unauthorized foreign contacts and “deliberate damage to or malicious misuse of U.S. government information or defense system.”
Officials at DOE and its sub-unit, the National Nuclear Security Administration, refused to discuss details of the tests. Hinckley acknowledged that Oak Ridge has a regional polygraph center, but he declined to say what company or companies supply the polygraphers for the testing.
While not identifying individuals or job titles subject to testing, DOE listed eight categories of jobs included in the polygraph program. Among them are jobs related to counterintelligence activities and participants in the Personnel Security Assurance Program, which includes many of the weapons-related jobs in Oak Ridge.
The PSAP list is tightly held, partly because of privacy concerns, but it includes those with access to special nuclear materials or information on weapons production.
Carl “Bubba” Scarbrough, president of the Atomic Trades and Labor Council, represents hourly workers at Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He said he doesn’t know how many of his union members hold PSAP jobs, even though he’s tried to find out.
“It’s kind of a mystery,” Scarbrough said.
The union official said he’s supposed to meet this week with a top security official at Y-12 to discuss concerns. Scarbrough said there haven’t been a lot of complaints about polygraph questioning, but he said some workers are worried about their job status if they refuse to take part in the PSAP program.
Although polygraphs are used widely today, even in a new generation of reality shows on television, they remain controversial.
Bill Bibb, a retired Department of Energy official who held top defense positions in Washington and Oak Ridge, said he never advocated polygraphs as a screening tool.
“DOE is a big damn jungle out there, and who is going to do it? There’s always a chance for retribution with all this stuff,” Bibb said.
He said he could support using polygraphs for certain investigations, such as material missing from a storage facility, but not broadly applied to a workforce.
“They scare people to death,” Bibb said.