On 12 October 2000, I sent the following e-mail to Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson and copied it to key DOE officials and members of Congress. -- George Maschke
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <[email protected]> Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 14:05:58 +0200 From: "George W. Maschke" <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Organization: AntiPolygraph.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson <[email protected]> CC: "T.J. Glauthier - Deputy Secretary of Energy" <[email protected]>, "Ernest J. Moniz - Under Secretary of Energy" <[email protected]>, "John A. Gordon - Director - National Nuclear Security Agency" <[email protected]>, "Catherine D. Eberwein - Chief of Counterintelligence - National Nuclear Security Administration" <[email protected]>, "Eugene E. Habiger - Director of Emergency and Security Operations" <[email protected]>, "Edward J. Curran - Director - DOE Counterintelligence" <[email protected]>, "David M. Renzelman - Chief - DOE Polygraph Program" <[email protected]>, Jeremy Wu - DOE Ombudsman <[email protected]>, John Browne - Director - Los Alamos National Laboratory <[email protected]>, "C. Paul Robinson - Director - Sandia National Laboratories" <[email protected]>, "C. Bruce Tarter - Director - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory" <[email protected]>, "Sen. Richard Shelby - Chairman - Senate Select Committee on Intelligence" <[email protected]>, "Sen. Richard Bryan - Ranking Member - Senate Select Committee on Intelligence" <[email protected]>, "Sen. John Warner - Chairman - Senate Committee on Armed Services" <[email protected]>, "Sen. Carl Levin - Ranking Member - Senate Committee on Armed Services" <[email protected]>, "Sen. Jeff Bingaman" <[email protected]>, "Sen. Diane Feinstein" <[email protected]>, "Sen. Barbara Boxer" <[email protected]>, "Rep. Porter Goss - Chairman - House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence" <[email protected]>, "Rep. Norm Dicks - Ranking Member - House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence" <[email protected]>, "Rep. Ike Skelton - Ranking Member - House Armed Services Committee <[email protected]>Rep. Christopher Cox - Chairman - House Select Committee on Technology Transfer to the People's Republic of China" <[email protected]>, "Rep. Tom Udall" <[email protected]>, "Rep. Heather Wilson" <[email protected]>, "Rep. Ellen Tauscher" <[email protected]> Subject: Polygraph Screening and the Lie Behind the Lie Detector Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Secretary Richardson: What is the Department of Energy's policy regarding those employees and contractors who, because of their understanding of "the lie behind the lie detector," are unsuitable candidates for polygraphic interrogation? Against the counsel of virtually all who spoke on polygraph policy at the Department of Energy's public hearings last year (transcripts available at http://www.doe.gov/news/fedreg.htm), you went forward with your then-proposed polygraph screening program. You did this despite the fact--which should have been known to you--that polygraph "testing" is fundamentally dependent on the polygrapher lying to and deceiving the person being "tested," and that many, if not most, DOE scientists are aware of this. Detailed information about polygraphy and the trickery on which it depends is publicly available. See, for example, AntiPolygraph.org's free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (http://antipolygraph.org/pubs.shtml). Thousands of scientists have gone out and read the "scientific" literature about the polygraph. They know full well that it's junk science. They find it hard to stomach having their integrity judged by a pseudoscientific procedure that depends on trickery. You now face a dilemma regarding what to do with those troublesome employees who know about "the lie behind the lie detector." Polygraphy depends on the polygrapher "psychologically conditioning" (i.e. lying to and deceiving) the subject. When the subject understands the trickery, the whole exercise is pointless. Forcing these witting subjects to submit to the ritual anyway will only cause well-justified resentment and serves no security interest. On the other hand, Section 3135 of the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2000/defauth.html#3135) severely limits your powers to grant waivers. Thus, I ask again, what is the Department's policy regarding those whose understanding of "the lie behind the lie detector" makes them unsuitable candidates for polygraphic interrogation? Specifically, when an employee or contractor admits to a DOE polygrapher that he or she understands the trickery on which the procedure depends, how are DOE polygraphers to proceed? Sincerely, George Maschke AntiPolygraph.org PS: A copy of this message will be posted on AntiPolygraph.org at: http://antipolygraph.org/read.shtml.