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AntiPolygraph.org has received an unofficial transcript prepared by a viewer.
Final Exam
Produced by Shawn Efran
60 Minutes II Show, Broadcast 12/12/2001
Segment Narrator/Interviewer: Scott Pelley
- Show Preview/Introduction (recording started slightly late) -
[Scenes/images: Honts' Lab, strip chart on computer screen, panel interview, Shiela Reid]
Pelley: ...after September 11'th it's become an urgent question, because just when America needs its best and brightest in the war on terror, qualified men and women like these are being turned away by the FBI and the CIA because they failed the test. A test, whose creator tells us tonight, is no better than Voodoo.
- Main Segment, Approximately 14 minutes, 30 seconds -
[Scenes/images: Pelley in front of giant strip chart comic/graphic in background, with people jumping and falling in front of it.]
Pelley: You're about to meet several people who want to lend their talents to the war on terrorism, but they have been barred from serving their country by a test, a test that they call a scientific fraud. Because of serious doubts about its accuracy, the polygraph or lie detector test, is banned in nearly every court, and has been outlawed for use in private business. But still, thousands of the nation's best and brightest, involved in national security are required to pass it. For some, it becomes their final exam.
One of them is Mark Mallah. His job as an FBI agent was hunting down Russian spies. His career was on the rise. Until one day, he and some of his colleagues in the New York office were summoned for their polygraph exam.
[Scenes/images: close-up of Mallah]
Mark Mallah: I'm just bewildered, absolutely bewildered, because I'm sitting there telling the truth, and he's insisting that I'm lying to him.
[Scenes/images: photo of Mallah being presented a badge]
Pelley: Mallah says the FBI had no reason to be suspicious of him. The bureau wouldn't comment on his case, but Mallah told us that most of the members of the counter-intelligence unit were being screened.
[Scenes/images: close-up of Mallah, back and forth from Pelley to Mallah]
Pelley: You weren't singled out?
Mallah: Absolutely not.
Pelley: The heart of the question was, had you been meeting with any foreign intelligence officers, off the books if you will, without the FBI knowing about it.
Mallah: Right, exactly.
Pelley: And you told them what?
Mallah: I told them no.
Pelley: That was true?
Mallah: Absolutely.
[Scenes/images: close-up of needles and paper of chart recorder; Pelley]
Pelley: But the FBI polygraph examiner didn't think so. After that polygraph, and another, Mallah became the target of a spy hunt. They suspended him, took his badge and his gun. FBI agents searched his home and carried away his bank records, his computer, even his love letters to his wife. Mallah says he was under surveillance 24 hours a day, sometimes even from the air.
[Scenes/images: close-up of Mallah, back-forth between Pelley and Mallah]
Mallah: So I looked up and I saw an airplane right above my car. I go home. I look up. The airplane is circling above my home. When I saw that, I just couldn't believe it. I thought, you know, these people have lost it. That this has gotten really irrational. And, essentially, this is war.
[Scenes/images: strip chart paper with squiggly lines, video of Ames in custody, Hansen photo, Lee being released]
Pelley: Thousands of federal employees know, and fear, these lines. Polygraph screening is spreading rapidly after spy scandals including the CIA's Aldridge Ames, the FBI's Robert Hansen and the Wen Ho Lee investigation at Los Alamos.
[Scenes/images: Honts' lab, with female student in chair, being prepared for examination.]
Honts: The first sensors that are placed on are the respiration sensors.
[Scenes/images: blood pressure cuff being put onto arm, Honts at computer]
Pelley: The basic idea hasn't changed since the 1920's. The polygraph measures breathing, blood pressure, and sweating, looking for stress that might betray a lie. Doctor Charles Honts is a leading authority. He's chair of the psychology department at Boise State University in Idaho. He showed us the latest machine with one of his students.
[Scenes/images: close-up of sensors on fingers]
Honts: There are two sensors that go on the fingers that measure how much the hand is sweating.
Pelley: Now, watch her tell a lie.
Honts: Before the year 2000 did you ever tell even one lie in your entire life?
Student: No.
Pelley: No change in the top two lines. That's her breathing, but look at the third.
[Scenes/images: zooms to close-up of computer screen displaying strip charts]
Honts: And you'll notice that Wendy is, in fact, responding to that.
Pelley: That's the sweat test.
[Scenes/images: various views around the lab/office]
Pelley: Strictly speaking, the lines that we see going across the screen, they don't tell us whether Wendy is lying or not?
Honts: That's true.
Pelley: What do they say?
Honts: Well, what they tell us is what questions are most important to her.
Pelley: That's critical because an innocent person might react to a question for many reasons, even if they're being honest.
Honts: I think the most common one would be that a person has been falsely accused, they're nervous about taking the test, they may not be confident in the polygraph examiner.
Pelley: Sometimes they're concerned about how they answer, even though they're going to answer truthfully.
Honts: Yeah, that's correct.
Pelley: It's up to the examiner to decide whether any given reaction is a lie. When an innocent person shows a reaction, that's called a false positive. And, the federal screening program relies on the belief that false positives are extremely rare. We've been told by people who have run polygraph programs for the federal government that there's no such thing as a false positive, that there's always something behind it when somebody shows deception on a polygraph chart.
Honts: I think that's ridiculous. All the research that's been done in the laboratory - we get true false positives in the laboratory. We know from the field research that occasionally there are innocent people that are accused of crimes and they fail tests even though they absolutely had nothing to do with the crime. So, I think that's ridiculous.
Pelley: You believe in the polygraph. Let's be clear.
Honts: Yes
Pelley: You think it works?
Honts: On criminal cases, yes.
Pelley: When you're asking specific questions about specific crimes.
Honts: Absolutely.
Pelley: But, as a screening device for tens of thousands of federal employees?
Honts: I think every piece of scientific evidence says that it does not work well in that setting.
Pelley: Doesn't work well because screening questions by their nature are broad, as opposed to a criminal investigation in which the questions are more specific, such as "did you fire the gun?"
Honts: If you're asked that very broad kind of question, then the person has to think, about did I do that or didn't I do that? What's covered by this? What isn't covered by that? So, it's much more difficult than if I'm asking, "Did you shoot John Doe?"
[Scenes/images: office with Curran]
Pelley: Ed Curran does not believe in false positives. He's a former FBI agent who oversaw screening at the CIA after the Ames case.
[Scenes/images: Video of Ames in custody, Curran]
Curran: People who can't get through a polygraph are not being honest with you. I mean, you've gotta face the fact that that person may be lying.
[Scenes/images: Office of Counterintelligence sign, Curran at desk using phone]
Pelley: When Congress ordered the testing of more than eighteen thousand employees of the nuclear labs, Curran was put in charge of that screening program for the Department of Energy.
[Scenes/images: Curran in office]
Curran: I think the polygraph is an invaluable technique as long as it's used in conjunction with other investigative techniques - background investigation, interviews.
Pelley: Mr. Curran, there is not a court in this land who would accept this
as evidence.
Curran: Absolutely.
Pelley: There is a federal law that prevents every private company out there from using polygraphs to screen employees.
Curran: Absolutely.
Pelley: Why is the government all out there, by itself using, embracing, the polygraph for national security?
Curran: Ah, look at Mr. Hansen. Look at Aldrich Ames. These are not Wal-Mart employees. These people have done tremendous damage to the United States intelligence community, to the United States government. They have spied. They're traitors. And we have to, as a government, have procedures in place to defend ourselves against that.
[Scenes/images: video of Ames in custody, Hansen photo]
Pelley: For the record, Ames got through his polygraph, and Hansen never took one.
[Scenes/images: six people in two rows of chairs facing Pelley.]
Pelley: Often the people who are blackballed by the polygraph are people like these. So, if the polygraph examiners are to be believed, I am sitting with spies, liars and drug addicts.
Voices from Group: pretty much, yes, that's correct...
Pelley: All of them say the polygraph kept them from serving their country. Eric Croddy applied to the FBI. He's a chemical and biological terrorism researcher who also speaks Chinese.
Croddy: From all I could tell, it seemed like pretty much a done deal. Then it was time to face a polygrapher, who basically told me I was being deceptive about drug use. I've never used drugs in my life.
Pelley: Never?
Croddy: Never.
[Scenes/images: Maschke, old photo holding rifle, letters signed by Sessions, Freeh]
Pelley: George Maschke is an Army reserve captain who speaks Arabic. He translated for the FBI during the Gulf War and the '93 World Trade Center bombing. Two FBI directors praised his work. So, he applied for a job.
Maschke: I was accused of having released classified information to unauthorized persons, of having unauthorized contact with a foreign intelligence service, with selling drugs, with using drugs, and falsifying my application, at a time when I held a Top Secret clearance.
Pelley: So, he was saying you were a spy.
Maschke: In so many words, yes.
[Scenes/images: Group, McGuckin]
Pelley: Dave McGuckin applied to the Secret Service. He says he had trouble for a reason that he never would have imagined.
McGuckin: When he asked me the questions about foreign contacts, being a spy, etc., etc., and he comes back and says, well you're having a little trouble with this area. The machine's reading sorta funny.
Pelley: The espionage area?
McGuckin: Yes, the espionage area. And I'm thinking to myself - What? Is this for real? I mean, what's going on here?
Pelley: What was your job when you applied for the Secret Service?
McGuckin: Ahm, a teacher. I'm a school teacher.
[Scenes/images: Sheila Reid]
Pelley: Why would a school teacher, an army captain, and an FBI agent all be accused of espionage? We asked the scientist who developed the espionage test, in the mid-nineties.
[Scenes/images: front of DODPI facility from outside]
Pelley: Doctor Sheila Reed was a researcher at the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute. This is the temple of polygraph. It's where all federal examiners are trained. Reed has a PhD in psychology, and was the lead scientist on the espionage test.
[Scenes/images: Reed being interviewed]
Pelley: You developed something at the polygraph institute called the Test for Espionage and Sabotage.
Reed: Yes.
Pelley: The Department of Energy is slated to test eighteen thousand employees, against your test. What do you think of that?
Reed: It scares me. Uhm, the whole issue of screening scares me.
Pelley: Reed says her espionage test did work most of the time in the laboratory, but was never dependable in the field. Tens of thousands of federal employees stake their careers on it, every few years.
Reed: That's true.
Pelley: And now you're telling us that you don't believe it works.
Reed: I don't believe it works. I don't believe the process works, and I don't believe in the accuracy of any format, in that situation.
Pelley: Does your test catch spies?
Reed: No.
Pelley: It's the gold standard, Doctor. It's used all over the federal government.
Reed: That doesn't make it any more valid or accurate or useful.
[Scenes/images: Zooming out viewing DoDPI facility]
Pelley: Reid left the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute in 1996, and not on good terms, but no one who would talk to us questioned the quality of her work. Even scientists who are still with the Defense Polygraph Institute have their doubts about screening. Last summer, no less than the chief of research at the Institute told the national academy of sciences that polygraph suffers from what he called "an extreme dearth of research."
[Scenes/images: Honts in lecture hall]
Pelley: And listen to what Charles Honts found when he measured the reliability of one espionage test in an experiment that he worked on for the Defense Polygraph Institute.
Pelley: What were the chances that you would catch a spy with that test?
Honts: Ah, about one in five, as I recall.
Pelley: 20 Percent?
Honts: Yes. So it was actually worse than flipping a coin.
[Scenes/images: Curran, counterintelligence sign, Curran office, Curran and Pelley]
Pelley: Ed Curran acknowledges that there can be abuses. When he set up the screening program at the nuclear labs, he had every questionable test reviewed by four examiners. He says any suspicion should be confirmed with hard evidence.
Curran: When an agency would not take individual adverse action against an employee based solely on a polygraph. There's nobody in their right mind would do that, because it is not scientific. It's up to interpretation of the examiner. It's up to quality control. It's up to the questions that are asked.
Pelley: If the polygraph is, as you put it, not scientific, not conclusive
Curran: Correct.
Pelley: What good is it?
Curran: It's a very, very, effective screening device, because, if people believe that that machine's gonna catch them in the lie, they're more willing to make statements or admissions to you prior to the test, or during the test.
Pelley: To your knowledge, in a routine screening, of the general population of agents or employees, has a spy ever been caught by a polygraph examination?
Curran: Not that I know of. Fairness to myself, by saying, you know, have you ever caught anybody, well, we haven't really polygraph'd everybody either.
[Scenes/images: six people in two rows of chairs facing Pelley.]
Pelley: Eric Croddy and some of the others in our panel are suing. They want a full background investigation to clear their names.
[Scenes/images: Croddy close-up.]
Croddy: I laugh because it's unmanly to cry, but at the time I was a sobbing wreck. It was extremely traumatic, considering what I had invested up until that point, then having something like a pseudo-scientific fraud deny me the chance to serve my country.
[Scenes/images: Wright close-up.]
Pelley: Susan Wright is a crime lab scientist, polygraphed by the
FBI. You're branded with the scarlet P.
Wright: That's correct.
Unknown: We're done.
Wright: That's correct. No agency will touch us.
[Scenes/images: Pelley and Mallah walking along sidewalk, sitting in a room]
Pelley: FBI agent Mark Mallah did get a full investigation, and after almost two years, he was cleared. Mallah resigned anyway, figuring that his FBI career would never be the same. Did anybody ever, ever come to you and say, Mark, sorry, we must have been wrong?
Mallah: No. The only people that came to me were my colleagues. My colleagues on foreign counter-intelligence. And one of them said, "there but for the grace of God, go I."
Pelley: God, or the polygraph examiners, in whom so many are now obliged to place their faith.
[Scenes/images: Office with Curran]
Pelley: One of the most effective things about the polygraph is fear of the polygraph.
Curran: Absolutely. No question about it. I fear the polygraph.
Pelley: It's all about the examiner, isn't it?
Curran: It's the examiner, absolutely.
Pelley: It's not the machine?
Curran: It has absolutely nothing to do with the machine. Any machine could man, eh, measure your pulse rate, your blood pressure, whatever. It's the examiner, how he sits down with the person beforehand, the type of questions he asks, his interpretation of those questions. And you have to rely heavily on that. That's why I'm saying; I don't wanna see some young kid out of polygraph school. I wanna see somebody who's been doin' this for twenty years, when they polygraph me. Because, you know, any little problem here, you know, I'm, I'm finished.
[Scenes/images: Pelley in front of giant strip chart comic/graphic in background, with people jumping and falling in front of it.]
Pelley: Finally, a historical note. The polygraph technique was developed in the 1920's by Willam Marston, a Harvard psychologist who is actually better known for something else. Marston is the creator of the comic book character Wonder Woman, whose lasso of truth forced evildoers to confess their lies.
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