After ricin scare, FBI polygraphs postal workers

The Greenville Times ^ | November 7, 2003 | Tim Smith

[George Maschke]

The FBI has begun polygraphing Greenville postal workers and truck drivers as the investigation into who delivered a package containing the deadly poison ricin to a Greenville mail facility moves into the third week, the president of the local postal workers union said Thursday.

[George Maschke]

As the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed, polygraph testing has no scientific basis. The FBI uses the polygraph as a pretext for interrogating potential suspects in the absence of legal counsel. Its deliberate policy of not audio- or video-taping polygraph examinations ensures that the kinds of abuses that may have led the truck driver to rip off the polygraph attachments will not be provable in a court of law.

Anyone asked to submit to a lie detector text in the context of a criminal investigation would be well advised to educate him- or herself about this voodoo science. For a detailed expose of how the "test" actually works (and doesn't), download AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. (1 mb PDF)

[EGPWS]

The union president, who works at a downtown branch, said he has talked with workers at the airport facility about the testing. Zimmerman said workers have complained of stress from the polygraphs. He said at least two workers have complained about questions in the tests concerning their home life.

The union president said while the tests are supposed to be voluntary, workers feel pressure to take them.

Let me guess, terrorism and threats against our country on a major scale, without having a system in place to help counter such a catastrophy, wouldn't be stressful or a concern to the union president or the workers.

[George Maschke]

I think the union is very concerned about terrorism. Indeed, it was its members who were potentially endangered by the ricin. (See "Weeklong delay in ricin threat draws scrutiny".)

A polygraph dragnet is not an appropriate way to proceed in this investigation. Polygraph testing is fundamentally unreliable: it has an inherent bias against the truthful, and yet is easily beaten through simple countermeasures that even experienced polygraph operators cannot detect.

[OldFriend]

While I am adjusting my tinfoil hat, let me remember that the first anthrax letters had the return address of GreenDALE and this package was found at GreenVILLE.......

[Chad Fairbanks]

And yet, the union employees were so concerned, they waited almost 8 hours (discovered at 12:30 AM, according to them, and reported to supervisor at 8:00 AM) and then got pissy because the government didn't evacuate the building in a timely manner.

[Sabertooth]

Hmmm...

Ricin in South Carolina
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"Low levels" of Anthrax detected at Naval mail facility
			Posted by Badabing Badaboom On 11/06/2003 3:35 PM PST with 54 comments WTOP radio news | 11/6/03 | WTOP radio news ÒLow levelsÓ of Anthrax detected at Naval mail facility in SW Washington, DC, WTOP Radio News is reporting this hour.

[George Maschke]

Chad,

The article does not indicate whether union or non-union employees were responsible for the delay in reporting the suspicious package. (Is USPS a "closed-shop?")

Moreover, the article doesn't indicate that the union president "got pissy," as you put it. It merely states, "He said he does not believe proper postal procedures were followed, both because of the delays in reporting the package and in the evacuation of the facility the day it was found, which he said lasted 10 minutes."

[Chad Fairbanks]

Moreover, the article doesn't indicate that the union president "got pissy," as you put it

He said his union has concerns over whether postal officials properly protected workers when the poison was discovered and may file a grievance.

I stand by what I said. All of it.

[browardchad]

If not with polygraphs, exactly how is LE to proceed on this, in your opinion?

It's clear that something is amiss, since there was such a delay in reporting the package. Given all that went wrong with the initial anthrax attacks, including failure to close/inspect mail facilities involved in the chain of transmission which resulted in death and serious disability for postal workers, you would think that postal workers have everything to gain in cooperating.

Instead, we have Zimmerman's statement that "It seems ironic and almost cruel that the people who had their lives threatened are now being intimidated by the government forces." If the group of people who had their lives threatened by this package may contain an individual who did the threatening, his statement is nonsensical.

Trying to cast it in the light of simply not following proper postal procedures doesn't cut it.

[George Maschke]

I believe the FBI should conduct a real investigation, rather than relying on voodoo science.

Polygraph "tests" frequently lead to hostile interrogation and false accusations leveled against innocent suspects. See the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute "Interview & Interrogation" handbook for more on the tactics used (5.2 mb PDF):

http://antipolygraph.org/documents/dodpi-interrogation.pdf

In a context such as this one, where there is apparently no reasonable basis for suspecting any one individual, and instead large numbers of people are to be questioned, pressure tactics such as the polygraph are inappropriate. Even if there were just one or two suspects, any reliance on the actual results of a polygraph "test" would be misplaced, because the procedure has no diagnostic value.

[Gunrunner2]

You got THAT right.