{"id":3808,"date":"2002-10-31T15:00:22","date_gmt":"2002-10-31T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/?p=3808"},"modified":"2021-03-05T03:35:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T08:35:14","slug":"lie-detector-screening-to-stay-in-nuclear-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/31\/lie-detector-screening-to-stay-in-nuclear-labs\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Lie-Detector Screening to Stay in Nuclear Labs&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry\">\n\n\n<p><em>Oakland Tribune<\/em> staff writer Ian Hoffman <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oaklandtribune.com\/Stories\/0,1413,82%257E1865%257E960828,00.html\">reports<\/a>. Excerpt: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Hundreds of nuclear weapons scientists and intelligence analysts will still be strapped to the polygraph machine for the time being, despite a recent report concluding that polygraphs miss spies and tar the innocent as security risks.<\/p><p>The U.S. Energy Department is racing to change its routine polygraph screening program before a six-month congressional deadline. But its lawyers argue that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is legally barred from suspending the controversial lie-detector tests until a new program is in place, according to an internal memo issued Wednesday.<\/p><p>&#8220;We are committed to moving rapidly on this issue but, until the secretary issues new regulations, we are obligated by law to continue the present program,&#8221; wrote Linton F. Brooks, acting chief of the Energy Department&#8217;s National Nuclear Security Administration that oversees Lawrence Livermore, Sandia and Los Alamos weapons labs.<\/p><p>More than 750 Sandia and Livermore employees in California who handle plutonium or nuclear weapons or have access to human intelligence face polygraph tests this year.<\/p><p>A Livermore union, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upte.org\/local\/spse\/\">Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers<\/a>, had written Brooks urging suspension of the tests after a panel of national experts found that polygraphs were based on poor science and too unreliable to justify such heavy use by federal national-security agencies to screen their workers.<\/p><p>Given Brooks&#8217; memo, the union now will ask Congress to scrap the law requiring polygraphs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oakland Tribune staff writer Ian Hoffman reports. Excerpt: Hundreds of nuclear weapons scientists and intelligence analysts will still be strapped to the polygraph machine for the time being, despite a recent report concluding that polygraphs miss spies and tar the innocent as security risks. The U.S. Energy Department is racing to change its routine polygraph &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[287,32,448,350,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-3808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-polygraph","7":"tag-doe","8":"tag-labor","9":"tag-lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory","10":"tag-nnsa","11":"tag-polygraph-screening","12":"anons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3809,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808\/revisions\/3809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}