Reporter Jeff Stein, now with the Washington Post, discusses the Prouty case in his SpyTalk column. See, "The haunting of Nada Prouty, a counterterrorism heroine":

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/03/haunting_of_nada_prouty.html

See also David Ashenfelter's article, "Lawyer goes to bat for Nada Prouty, suits threatened over terrorist spy remarks," in the Detroit Free Press:

http://www.freep.com/article/20100330/NEWS06/3300355/1322/Lawyer-goes-to-bat-for...

On Sunday, 28 March 2010, CBS 60 Minutes aired a story about Nada Prouty that included an in-depth interview with her. 60 Minutes also spoke with the CIA officer who conducted a security review after she became the target of an FBI investigation. Prouty denies having improperly accessed FBI computer systems, and as I've mentioned before, there's no evidence that she committed espionage:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6341542n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Sadly, polygraphy, which failed in the FBI hiring process, was again relied upon by the CIA in its attempt to determine whether Prouty had compromised sensitive information. Bob Grenier, the former head of the CIA's counterterrorism section, emphasized that the investigation involved "multiple polygraphs." And 60 Minutes showed the text of a letter that the CIA sent to prosecutors. The following is a transcription that I've prepared (emphasis added):

Quote:


In any event, allegations that Nada Prouty was a Hizballah spy seem to be completely unsupported by evidence, and it doesn't seem to me that the cause of justice was served by her prosecution.

Extra video, not included in the broadcast segment, is available on CBSNews.com:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/26/60minutes/main6335794.shtml?tag=curren...

SanchoPanza wrote on Jan 6^th, 2008 at 5:28pm:


You know what I mean.  It is obvious that the devious polygraphers were implying that the machine is never wrong.  Wow...it is very interesting that you are so intimidated.

WJ wrote on Jan 6^th, 2008 at 4:34pm:


Seriously????   "The machine does not lie" 
Mr. Mashke, you have a PHD. Are you acknowledging that you were convinced that a mechanical device is capable of sentient behavior or has some malevolent cranium obsessed hammer accosted you in your sleep?

Sancho Panza

Barry_C wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 2:05am:

At least you're being honest.  The two polys I took the polygrapher told me that "the machine does not lie".  What a bunch of BS.  Telling someone that they are being deceptive and knowing that the machine is "not perfect" is dishonest to say the least.  This is why the machine should no longer be used.

Barry_C wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 2:27pm:


Mr. C.

When a person is told by a police or national security agency that he is lying, and summarily removed from further consideration for a job, and then is branded a liar and the results of that error ridden polygraph is then used to ban him from further jobs, and then when there is no way for a person to prove he was in fact telling the truth, I would equate that with being wrongfully convicted of a crime.

The criminal justice system requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone of a crime, but only the opinion of someone who spent 8 weeks or so in a trade school to brand a person for life.

Of course, not all claimed false positives are in fact false positives, but when the polygraph field itself admits to somewhere between an 80 to 95 percent or so false positive rante, (read "the poly was wrong"), and when we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of applicants, then it is a very serious problem.


I'll stand by my assertions and opinion, and while they are not backed by science, at least they are logical.

Quote:


Nobody is "convicted" during a pre-employment test, so you're way off base here.  To call them "squiggly lines" is a bit of an oversimplification.  You assume - with no science to back it up - that all those who claim to be false positives actually are.  Some will be, yes, as that's the problem with an imperfect test.  However, as I've said elsewhere (and can't continue to explain), because polygraph is better than chance, the process is more fair to the truthful than it would be without polygraph.

Barry_C wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 2:05am:



I think that you and your ilk would catch more spies if you used the 
'pin the tail on the donkey' method.

Barry_C wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 2:05am:


For one thing, the polygraph industry, (see PolygraphPlace) seems to be trying to convince people the polygraph is highly accurate.  I could copy and paste dozens of comments to back up my statement, but anyone can simply check out this assertion. 

But, there is a much larger issue, that being the number or percentage of errors where the polygraph procedure brands someone a liar, when they are telling the truth.   What happened to the old adage "It is better that 100 guilty people go free, than one innocent convicted?"  This is what drives our criminal justice system, and why people are only convicted upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt.  But, it is okay to "convict" someone of being a liar, drug dealer, thief, etc. based on what the pre-employment polygraph procedure results are.  Which, as we know, is simply one man's opinion based on some squiggly lines on a computer screen.

Barry_C wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 2:05am:


My quick comment simply implies that the polygraph apparently doesn't do a very good job of catching spies.  How many people are spying right now, who have passed polygraphs?  And, how did they pass?  From my reading, it appears there seems to be an unhealthy reliance upon the polygraph to weed out undesirables from government law enforcement or security service.  What other explanation could there be for Prouty?  Her whole life was a lie, but apparently no one checked.  But, they DID giver her a polygraph.

Barry_C wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 2:05am:

The problem isn't that you catch some and miss some.  It is that the polygraph has no scientific basis, and as such it is incapable of detecting truth or deception.

If you screen people by simply arbitrarily disqualifying every second or third person, you will also catch some and miss some.  But I don't think anyone would be arguing that such a process, though imperfect, is better than nothing.

The problem is that, barring a confession, you have no idea if the person you just polygraphed was telling the truth or lying.   

I know you believe that you will catch more than you will miss, but I don't see any evidence to indicate that is true.  In my own experience, the polygraph was inaccurate 75% of the time.  Out of all the government employees screened via the polygraph, the truth is that no one involved in the screening process has the slightest idea if any one of those people lied about matters of substance on their polygraph.  All they can say is that they believe X% of the polygraphs were probably accurate.

Barry_C wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 2:05am:


The value of those admissions must also be weighed against the harm done to the many individuals who will inevitably be falsely accused of deception when reliance is wrongly placed on an invalid test:

https://antipolygraph.org/statements.shtml

Quote:


Agreed. No vetting system will be perfect.

Quote:


The Prouty case is one of many data points. While no evidence that Prouty committed espionage against the United States has been made public, spies who have fooled the polygraph include:

• Ignatz Theodor Griebl
• Karel Frantisek Koecher
• Larry Wu-tai Chin
• Aldrich Hazen Ames
• Ana Belen Montes
• Leandro Aragoncillo

Would you care to name any American turncoats caught by the polygraph? I can only think of one who is credibly alleged to have been so caught: Sharon Scranage, a CIA secretary who admitted to passing the identities of CIA employees to her Ghanaian boyfriend, who was an intelligence officer.

Quote:


It's not at all clear that polygraphy reliably works at better-than-chance levels of accuracy, especially when the person being "tested" understands that the "test" is a pseudoscientific sham and knows polygraph countermeasures. Comparing the list of spies who fooled the polygraph against the single spy who was arguably caught by it, it looks like you miss more than you catch.

It's high time that our government heeded the National Academy of Sciences' conclusion that "[polygraph testing's] 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 time to end our misplaced reliance on polygraph screening is now.

Have you missed the fact that polygraph isn't perfect? You're going to have errors on both sides.  The question is how many "errors" (BI) do you catch with polygraph?  It is well-documented that polygraph results in admissions or info the background process didn't or couldn't get.

When one believes that polygraph, the background investigation, or psychological eval, etc, is going to catch all those who are not qualified, then there's a problem.

This is just one data point.  When the feds catch spies (and they do), nobody here jumps to argue for polygraph.  Why then the reverse?

We in polygraph know we will catch some and we will miss some.  We need to work on ways to catch more, and miss fewer.  Remember, there is nothing after the polygraph in most situations, and, as I've posted elsewhere, if polygraph is even slightly better than chance (and it is), then we'll catch more than we miss.

Since she has not been sentenced yet, she should cut a deal to discuss how she passed the poly, in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Of course, she would need to take another poly to confirm she was telling the truth.   

Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Kit Bond (R-MO) have sent newly sworn-in Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey a letter with questions regarding the Prouty case, including one about the polygraph:

Quote:


As I mentioned in the first post of this message thread, Prouty would have been asked a question similar to: "Have you deliberately withheld any important information from your application?" (This is the precise language of one of the relevant questions I was asked on my 1995 FBI pre-employment polygraph.)

One of the specific items identified by many congressmen and defense contractors is the inability to obtain a clearance in a "reasonable" time period.

The second one being a valid acceptable procedure to grant a security clearance between agencies.

Once again the "we do things better" will rear its ugly head as the CIA accuses the FBI background check as being inferior.  The FBI has its own arrogant attitude that no other agency meets their standards.

A good background investigation takes time and money.  The pre-screening polygraph was created as an illusion that "the highest standards and precautions" are being used to vet the information on a background check.  A top secret clearance should be fully acceptable in between agencies and the procedures to obtain one should be nearly identical and repeatable.

Once again, do we want security, speed, acceptability, or cost effectiveness to be the priority in processing applicants?

The Federal government has not producing the amount of "mass" retirements predicted which would cause a strain on the current system.

The polygraph is strictly another illusional band-aid covering up a festering security infection that needs a completely new treatment.

Regards.

From CBS News:

Prouty passed a lie-detector test before she was hired by the FBI, which conducted numerous interviews with her relatives and other associates in Beirut and the United States as part of her security background check, Kodak said. But she was not subjected to the more rigorous security screening that the FBI adopted after its 2001 arrest of turncoat Robert Hanssen, who spied for the Soviet Union and Russia over a 20-year period. 

"She had a complete, full investigation," Kodak said, referring to the FBI's background check on Prouty before she was hired. 

The CIA largely relied on the FBI's security checks when they hired Prouty, according to a government official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. 

"The CIA may have been a little too trusting of the FBI's ability to do a background check, as the bureau's own pre-employment investigation of Prouty would have covered her first years in country," the official said. "That won't happen again." 

Full story here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/terror/main3496101.shtml

Among those pointing out the failure of the polygraph are former counterterrorism official Richard A. Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, who has earlier come out against polygraph screening. ABC News quotes Clarke regarding the Prouty case:

Quote:


And former CIA agent Larry Johnson in commenting on the Prouty case notes among other things:

Quote:

George W. Maschke wrote on Nov 15^th, 2007 at 2:56pm:


Would this be an example of acceptable collateral damage?  

Does the FBI/CIA conduct in-depth background investigations like I received 20 years ago when getting a DOE Q-clearance?  Heck one day I ran into an old girl friend, and she told me they had tracked her down and questioned her about me.  I felt pretty good about the thoroughness of that background check.

nopolycop wrote on Nov 15^th, 2007 at 2:38pm:


At this point, despite some sensationalist press accounts (such as the New York Post's titling of an article on the case "Feds' Jihad Jane Shame"), there is no evidence that Nada Nadim Prouty has committed espionage against the United States.

Nonetheless, I think even polygraphy's staunchest defenders would be hard pressed to argue that Prouty didn't deliberately withhold important information from her FBI application. The Prouty case is clearly a polygraph screening failure.

1904...

Your summation certainly has a solid foundation in the truth.  I wonder if she used countermeasures, or did what Gary Ridgway did, (according to him) that being just relax and lie.  I would suspect countermeasures, as a spy isn't likely the same psychological  make-up as a serial killer.

Just a bit of slightly off-topic chat:

Someone posted the contents of George's post iro Nada Prouty on the PolygraphPlace board for comment - surprise surprise - it was deleted entirely in minutes. 

The pro poly crowd are absolute hypocritical cowards. They come to this site in an organised blitzkrieg & sprout their pseudo science babble.

But God forbid one should post anything at all that threatens the image of polygraph on their own asinine site. No matter how factual the post is, it will be deleted.

On their site they are gentlemanly. On AP site they vent like maniacs
and are pointedly rude, patronising & insulting.


It is impossible to engage them on their own turf. They are evidently terrified that the public may see polygraph exposed for what it is.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21796035/

On Tuesday, 13 November 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice announced, "Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese national and resident of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States."

Prouty's plea agreement states, among other things (at p.3):

Quote:


All FBI and CIA employees must pass a pre-employment polygraph screening examination. One of the questions on Prouty's FBI pre-employment polygraph examination would have been something similar to, "Have you deliberately withheld any important information from your application?"

For more background on the Prouty case, see "Ex-FBI Employee's Case Raises New Security Concerns" by Washington Post staff writers Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen.