An Alternative to Polygraph Screening

[George W. Maschke]

Polygraph proponents often rhetorically ask, "If you would do away with polygraph screening, what would you replace it with?"

Well, here's a suggestion. Top secret documents recently reported by Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in the Washington Post confirm that the NSA is engaged in blanket surveillance of the electronic communications of all Americans.

Under a top secret program known by the code word PRISM, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple are providing users' communications to the NSA. Dropbox is reportedly going to join the PRISM club, too. Under other collection programs, our phone conversations and banking information is also being gathered and stored.

So why rely on the unreliable and easily countermeasured polygraph to vet applicants for positions of public trust? Why not authorize security clearance adjudicators to look at individuals through the prism of Total Information Awareness?