FBI Investigates Employees Who Fail Polygraph Test

Reuters, via Yahoo ^ | April 3, 2002 | James Vicini

[George Maschke]

FBI Investigates Employees Who Fail Polygraph Test
Wed Apr 3, 2:14 PM ET

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As many as seven FBI (news - web sites) employees with access to highly classified information face more investigation after taking polygraph tests given to tighten security following the discovery (news - web sites) of a Russian spy within the FBI, officials said on Wednesday.

"We have identified up to 700 persons who were responsible for looking at highly classified information and have run a polygraph program that I believe has been successful in that we have some assurance on all but one percent, and the others we are looking at," FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters.

"We are heartened that less than 1 percent of the 700 raised issues that require further investigation," he said, days before the release of a special commission's report on how to improve security after the Robert Hanssen (news - web sites) spy case.

Mueller acknowledged that security had not been a "principal priority" at the FBI, but added, "We've moved to address that."

One of the steps adopted after the Hanssen spy case, which badly damaged the FBI's reputation, has been expanded use of polygraph tests for current FBI employees.

Hanssen, a 25-year FBI agent and counter-intelligence expert, pleaded guilty to spying for Moscow and is awaiting sentencing next month. His lawyer has said Hanssen began spying in 1979, just three years after he became a special agent.

FBI Assistant Director Kenneth Senser said polygraph tests have been given to about 700 employees since July. The "overwhelming majority" successfully completed the test.

Senser, a career CIA (news - web sites) official now in charge of the FBI's security division, said the 1 percent, whose responses during the test triggered concern, still were being "worked with."

THOUSANDS MAY FACE POLYGRAPH TEST

Senser said the next step under consideration would be a "limited expansion" of the polygraph tests, adding a "few thousand" to those who must be tested.

The commission, chaired by former FBI and CIA director William Webster, has studied how to improve security for more than a year. Webster headed the FBI during some of the time when Hanssen, one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history, committed his espionage.

The report is expected to be released late this week or early next week.

In the mid-1990s the FBI started giving polygraphs to new hires and some agents working on highly-sensitive cases. But Hanssen and other long-time agents were never tested.

In other steps, Senser said the FBI was moving to limit access online. Hanssen combed through the FBI's computer system to get classified information and check whether he had fallen under suspicion, according to court documents.

Senser said the FBI also has reduced "by a couple of thousand" those within the agency who have access to the most sensitive information.

Mueller said polygraph tests were just "one indicator" of when follow-up investigation would be required. Mueller said polygraph test involved "a narrow set of questions."

He said the FBI awaited the report's recommendations on new financial disclosure requirements, which could reveal unexplained sources of money. Hanssen sold national security secrets for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.

[George Maschke]

Polygraph "tests" are a fraud and actually depend on the polygrapher lying to and deceiving the person being "tested" (and the latter's ignorance and fear). Any spies who may have been among the 700 FBI employees polygraphed probably passed, like CIA spies Aldrich Ames and Larry Wu-tai Chin and DIA spy Ana Belen Montes did. And in all likelihood, the FBI employees who "failed" their polygraph interrogations are innocent (like former FBI counterintelligence agent Mark Mallah, whose FBI career was ruined because of a false-positive polygraph outcome.)

To learn about the fraud on which polygraph "testing" depends (little understood by the public at large) and to learn how anyone -- truthful or not -- can pass a polygraph "test," see AntiPolygraph.org's free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

[George Maschke]

The FBI does investigate those who are granted access to classified information, but those employees among the 700 who failed the polygraph are apparently being investigated as suspected spies, which is simply stupid.

[LouD]

The polygraph is a useful counter-intelligence tool. It is not the only tool, and should not be relied upon exclusively - But it ought to be used.

[George Maschke]

Polygraph "testing" shouldn't be relied on at all: it's a pseudoscientific fraud, no matter how "skilled" the examiner. The FBI's own senior scientific expert on polygraphy testified before the U.S. Senate that polygraph screening is completely without theoretical foundation and has absolutely no validity:

http://antipolygraph.org/hearings/senate-judiciary-1997/richardson-statement.shtml

[George Maschke]

If polygraphs are even 51% of the time it would be a useful tool in finding deception. If they are less than 50% accurate it's still a useful tool -- investigate those who pass

Polygraph testing is not a valid diagnostic technique, and like astrology or tarot card reading, it has no knowable accuracy rate. However, because the methodology by which truth vs. deception is inferred in a polygraph "test" is knowable and simple countermeasures are readily available, it's a relatively simple matter to pass whether or not one is telling the truth. (Again, see The Lie Behind the Lie Detector to find out how.)

Relying on such pseudoscientific procedures for national security purposes is simply stupid.