U.S.

Freeh Orders FBI Lie Tests

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 16, 2001 / 5:34 PM EST / CBS

Nearly 500 FBI employees will be ordered to take lie detector tests next week, as a result of the arrest last month of alleged spy Robert Hanssen, the bureau says.

FBI Director Louis Freeh also wrote a memo ordering reviews of all sensitive investigations to determine if agents have accessed information outside their normal duties, says the agency.

The FBI has been criticized in the wake of the spy scandal, with some politicians suggesting Hanssen would have been caught sooner if he had been forced to take a lie detector test.

But CBS News reported last week that Freeh was under heavy pressure within the FBI not to have agents submit to the exams.

Among those to be tested next week are 150 top managers at FBI headquarters in Washington and special agents in charge of their departments.

The tests will be "counterintelligence focused," Freeh's memo said.

Refusing to take the test could mean a job transfer, loss of security clearance or disciplinary action, an agency spokesman says. "That will be a factor used in considering where their future assignments in the FBI will be," agency spokesman John Collingwood told CBS News.

"Everybody understands that we have no choice," Collingwood said in the Washington Post. "No one wants to do anything that indicates mistrust in employees, but everybody recognizes that we had a serious breach here. We have to make sure it doesn't happen again."

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

CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reported last week that, faced with the prospect of having to order thousands of reluctant FBI agents to be strapped to polygraph machines in the wake of the Hanssen arrest, the director was having second thoughts.

Internal memos warned Freeh that "for every lie uncovered by polygraph examiners, there will be 50 to 100 false readings."

Widespread tests could "sideline or ruin" careers and "victimize employees," Freeh was told.

Polygraph Policy

The CIA recently updated the section of its Web site describing application procedures to potential new employees. It addresses drug use, background checks and lie detector tests:

"The Agency uses the polygraph to check the veracity of information …

One's responsbility to adhere to high standards of personal conduct does not end on the first day of employment. CIA employees undergo regular reinvestigations, including periodic polygraph examinations."

Click here to read it.

The internal dispute put FBI agents in the ironic position of feeling intimidated by the same sort of tests they have often used to squeeze criminal suspects.

Freeh came under intense pressure to start randomly testing agents after it was disclosed that accused spy Richard Hanssen was never polygraphed in his 25 years as a federal agent.

Hanssen, a top counterintelligence officer, was arrested last month on charges of passing information to the Soviet Union and Russia for 15 years — data that may have cost double agents their lives and compromised expensive intelligence-gathering operations.

Click here to learn about the history and culture of espionage.

A polygraph is a procedure that routinely asks questions like "Have you ever had a clandestine meeting with a representative of a foreign government?"

It's called a "polygraph" because it records several bodily functions — respiration, pulse and sweat — to see if changes indicate a person is lying in response to questions.

The 1988 Employee Polygraph Protection Act sharply limits the use of the polygraph by private employers. However, along with contractors doing business with the U.S. national security establishment, federal agencies are exempt.

The Charges

See an excerpt of the government's charges against Robert Hanseen.

Read the complete affidavit listing alleged acts of espionage by the veteran FBI agent.

For example, the CIA — stung by the Aldrich Ames spy case — now routinely polygraphs its employees.

Following the investigation of Wen Ho Lee — in which a potentially false polygraph was an issue — 20,000 Department of Energy personnel were also ordered polygraphed to guard against espionage. It's a move that has led to a near rebellion among many scientists.

Critics say the polygraph is just not accurate enough.

"It's caused an absolute demoralization within the federal government that has contributed to far greater problems that — again — the polygraph ever would solve were it implemented," said Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney.

After a recent closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the matter, Vice Chairman Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, said a polygraph would be "more likely to deter than necessarily be the evidence to convict somebody." But most members of the panel supported wider use of polygraphs.