Associated Press writer Pamela Hess reports on the Defense Intelligence Agency’s scheme to greatly expand polygraph screening of its personnel. It should be noted that Ana Belen Montes, the most notorious spy ever to infiltrate the DIA, was neither detected nor deterred by polygraph screening:
Pentagon’s intelligence arm steps up lie detecting
By PAMELA HESS – 12 hours agoWASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon’s intelligence arm is adding more polygraph studios and relying on outside contractors for the first time to conduct lie detection tests in an attempt to screen its 5,700 prospective and current employees every year.
The stepped-up effort by the Defense Intelligence Agency is part of a growing emphasis on counterintelligence, detecting and thwarting would-be spies and keeping sensitive information away from America’s enemies.
A polygraph is not foolproof as a screening tool. The test gives a high rate of false positives on innocent people, and guilty subjects can be trained to beat the system, according to expert Charles Honts, a psychology professor at Boise State University.
The National Research Council noted these deficiencies in a 2003 report. The council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lie detectors can be useful for ferreting out the truth in specific incidents, but are unreliable for screening prospective national security employees for trustworthiness.
“Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies,” the council concluded. “Polygraph testing as currently used has extremely serious limitations in such screening applications, if the intent is both to identify security risks and protect valued employees.”