Policy on Polygraph Refusal at LANL

[Jim_Munroe]

    In last week's (20 June) "Ask The Director" (see questions 4 & 5), John Browne, Director of LANL, acknowledged that the consequences for refusing a polygraph include being put on leave without pay and termination:

http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/news/director/AskDirector/Part39.html

There is no allowance being made for mandatory polygraphs being a repudiation of the long standing LANL policy (still in effect) that polygraphs are strictly voluntary (see 702.07-702.10):

http://admin-manual.lanl.gov:1500/pdfs/adm/am702.pdf

It may be true that LANL is being forced to require polygraphs. However,by imposing leave without pay and termination as consequences of refusal, LANL is treating an action consistent with published policy as severely as severely as they treat theft or sexual harassment. Rather than being RIFed where there would at least be a modest severance package, the employee is being in effect being fired for cause.

[George W. Maschke]

Jim,

The relevant sections of LANL Administrative Manual 702 which you referenced are clearly at odds with the current policy as described by Director John C. Browne. Here is what AM 702 states:

POLYGRAPH TESTING:

.07 The Laboratory shall not require employees to take a polygraph test as a condition of obtaining or retaining employment.

.08 If a Laboratory sponsor, as a condition of assignment to that program, requests that an individual submit to a polygraph, such participation is strictly voluntary. Refusal to take the polygraph shall not result in any adverse job consequences.

NOTE: Unfavorable information obtained as a result of the polygraph test could place the employeeÕs existing clearance(s) at risk.

.09 If an employee volunteers to take a polygraph test, he or she will be required to sign a release form acknowledging that he or she is a willing volunteer and that he or she releases the Laboratory from responsibility for any negative consequences of the polygraph.

.10 The employee's division-level manager receives a copy of the release form.

However, the manual indicates that the relevant page was last revised on 18 May 1990, well before DOE adopted its new polygraph rule. It seems likely that the above-cited sections of AM 702 will eventually be revised to reflect the new policy.

With regard to Question #4 on the 39th installment of "Ask the Director," I noticed that Director Browne dodged the following pointed questions/observations:

...[W]hy have no senior managers, including yourself, stood up to this issue and stated that nonscience cannot be forced down the throats of a scientific organization? How can you expect us to maintain a high level of scientific integrity in our work when you do not insist on scientific integrity as a Laboratory? Keeping the doors of this Laboratory open at any cost is not the way to maintain a quality scientific laboratory. I am very disappointed that you do not maintain a higher level of integrity, even if it is temporarily costly to the Laboratory and potentially to you personally.

I am disappointed that no senior lab management officials have had the moral courage to publicly state that polygraph screening is an outright sham, that it has no scientific basis, that it is fundamentally dependent on trickery, and that playing this "lying game" threatens our national security. It is not enough for Dr. Browne and the other lab directors to privately voice their misgivings to NNSA Administrator John Gordon. They need to very publicly and without equivocation state what virtually everyone at the labs knows: polygraph testing is a fraud.

Al Zelicoff at Sandia has taken a principled stand by speaking publicly against DOE polygraph policy. See his article and letters on the AntiPolygraph.org Reading Room page. It is to be hoped that his example will embolden others to speak truth to power.