Steven Aftergood reports in today’s edition of the electronic newsletter Secrecy News: ALDRICH AMES SPEAKS OUT ON POLYGRAPH TESTING “The U.S. is, so far as I know, the only nation which places such extensive reliance on the polygraph…. It has gotten us into a lot of trouble.” That is the verdict of convicted spy Aldrich … Read more
Kevin Johnson of USA Today writes in an article entitled, “Police struggle to find next generation”: Phoenix recruiting officer Ron Meraz estimates that 30% to 50% of recruits in that city fail the polygraph test. ”I think there are some people who think they can actually beat the background check,” city personnel analyst Adele Luffey … Read more
Cincinnati Post staff writer Kimball Perry writes in part: A polygraph test that failed to detect the lies of convicted murderer Denise Lipscomb may kill attempts to routinely use the tests in Hamilton County courts. In documents unsealed Friday at the request of The Post, Ms. Lipscomb’s attorneys, in preparing her defense, noted she passed … Read more
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists discusses the Department of Energy’s polygraph policy in Science magazine’s Essays on Science and Society section.
Baltimore Sun Journal staff writer Michael Stroh asks, “Are polygraph tests lying to us?”
Jennifer McKee of the Albuquerque Tribune writes in part: More than 2,000 Los Alamos National Laboratory employees may have to take lie-detector tests as part of an anti-spying program included in the Defense Authorization Bill signed into law this week. The program, which expands polygraph tests to as many 20,000 employees throughout the Department of … Read more
In his statement regarding his signing of H.R. 4205, the “Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001,” Mr. Clinton writes: …I am deeply disappointed that the Congress has taken upon itself to set greatly increased polygraph requirements that are unrealistic in scope, impractical in execution, and that would be strongly counterproductive … Read more
Walter Pincus and Vernon Loeb of the Washington Post report that the FBI does not believe that the 1995 Chinese defector whose information led to the spy hunt at the national laboratories was a double agent, as the CIA concluded. It appears that the CIA believed the defector to be a double agent primarily (if … Read more
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reports: Rejecting pleas from Energy Department officials, Congress has approved a provision that will require polygraphs for 5,000 additional employees of the department’s nuclear weapons complex, raising to near 20,000 the overall number that will be tested. The new language, part of the fiscal 2001 defense authorization bill that … Read more
In an article entitled “Government Facing Charges of Racism,” San Jose Mercury News correspondent Lenny Savino reports on five cases of alleged ethnic profiling by FBI, CIA, and DoD counterintelligence officials. Polygraphy figures prominently in four out of five of the cases discussed. For more on the case of David Tenenbaum, which features prominently in … Read more