With thanks to George Maschke
Expert Witness: Polygraphs
Alan P. Zelicoff, MD
Liars, Damned Liars, and Polygraphers

In the mid-1990s, I became interested in the science (or lack thereof) behind polygraphs as one of my closest colleagues at Sandia (and a very senior member of the technical staff) lost his opportunity for a key appointment to a high-level advisory position in the intelligence community as a result of flunking his polygraph.  Because of my background in medical decision analysis (indeed, the polygraph is a "diagnostic" tool, although almost completely without diagnostic value), he asked me to look into the actual utility of polygraphs in identifying spies within the national security context.

At that time, there were very few published, peer-reviewed scientific summaries of the polygraph, and it rapidly became clear that polygraphers were -- as a group -- nothing more than interrogators who used the polygraph machine as a ruse to convince the unsuspecting interviewee that their machine could devine deception from truth-telling.  This is almost completely false; there is some modest evidence that in specific incident investigations (such as the investigation of a murder, robbery, or other highly unique event) that the polygraph has diagnosticity greater than chance.  However, in the setting of national security screening, the polygraph is probably worse than worthless.  That is: the polygraph is much more likely to falsely "diagnose" deception than it is to identify true deception. 

In 1999, in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratories, then Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson (along with several members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees) decided to institute a wide-ranging polygraph program at the National Laboratories involved in classified or nuclear-weapons related work.  Some 15 - 20,000 employees at Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories were suddenly subject to polygraphs on a regular basis (initially intended as every 5 years).  It was evident to just about all of the technical staff members at these labs who thought the proposal through that polygraphs would do more harm than good.  In 1999, Sandia's president C. Paul Robinson asked his senior scientists (the highest-ranking 40 scientists out of the 6,000 members of the technical staff) to review the polygraph literature.  The report concluded that polygraphs were likely to do much more harm than good, not only because of the high false positive (and high false negative!) rate of the test, but because investing tens of millions of dollars in a polygraph program would squander resources that could be better used elsewhere to bolster flagging security at the Labs.  The work was ignored, including by Robinson who ordered it in the first place.

The DOE held hearings at each of the Labs in 1999 to get comments from technical staff and the public.  Most laboratory staff believe that their substantive suggestions -- for example, to have independent oversight to avoid abuse -- were completely ignored.  Indeed, Paul Robinson himself ignored his own senior scientific staff's request for oversight.

Unsurprisingly, numerous abuses were documented shortly after the polygraph.  As the only Senior Scientist at Sandia who had also practiced medicine, staff members came to me with their stories, fearing retribution from Sandia and DOE management.   These testimonials were submitted on a half-dozen occasions to Paul Robinson, the Secretaries of Energy (Richardson and Abraham) with requests for simple independent oversight of the polygraph session, since each was videotaped (allegedly for "quality assuarance" purposes).  These requests were completely ignored.

In 2001, one Sandia staff member complained to me that he was being asked medical questions as part of his polygraph examination -- clearly a violation of DOE policy and promises made directly by Secretary Richardson to staff members at each of the Labs when he visited in 1999 and 2000.  I forwarded the complaints to Sandia's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Larry Clevenger.  Dr. Clevenger investigated the allegations, and found them to be true.  On March 6, 2001 he advised in a letter to Sandia's Executive Vice-President Joan Woodard that there were other abuses as well, and he recommended that for the health and safety of individuals that the polygraph program be temporarily suspended while carrying out a full review.  Ms. Woodward tasked a Sandia Vice-President to meet with the polygraphers regarding the medical questions, and I attended that meeting.  DOE agreed to stop asking medical questions; but, when I asked for independent oversight so that there might be some assurance that this promise would be kept, I was turned down yet again.

When I inquired of Dr. Clevenger if he had followed-up with Paul Robinson on any of his other recommendations, he informed me that indeed he had.  However, Paul Robinson never acted any further.  It was at this point in time that it became clear that Sandia's president was failing to take even the most basic steps to protect the safety and careers of employees -- his highest charge as a DOE National Laboratory President.  Ironically, Sandia’s own newsletter has, from the time then Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson proposed them in 1999 until the present carried many articles decrying the foolishness of polygraphs as a counterintelligence or security tool.  Even though Robinson is a trained scientist, he never acted on the recommendations of the National Academy of Science to abandon – or at least monitor – the use of polygraphs at Sandia.

It was clear that reason and logic had failed, and in the one place in government where that isn't supposed to happen: the "independent" National Laboratories.  Without putting too fine of a point on it, as a physician I took my Hippocratic oath seriously.  Since scientific studies, documented abuse of Sandia (and other laboratories') staff and illegal inquiry by polygraphers failed to motivate Robinson, his staff, or anyone at the DOE to impose oversight on the polygraphers, I had only one choice left: to go to the media.  Here are some of the pieces I wrote until my forced resignation from Sandia in July of 2003.
  • "False Detector" -- Washington Post and Albuquerque Tribune, April 2001 (also published in The Skeptical Inquirer in July 2001)
  • "Polygraph Hypocrisy" -- Washington Post, August 2002.  I wrote this this OpEd after discovering that Sen. Richard Shelby (then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee) had refused to take a polygraph as part of the FBI's investigation of security breaches within the Intel Committee.  Sen. Shelby's committee was suspected as the source of a leak of a National Security Administration (NSA) intercept of a telephone conversation pre-saging the 9/11 disaster.  Ironically, Sen. Shelby was one of the architects behind the the DOE laboratory polygraph program.  It is hard to find a clearer example of hypocrisy and self-serving political behavior than this.
  • "A Lie Detector Failure" -- Albuquerque Journal, Oct. 2002, commenting on Bill Richardson's own lying with regard to the DOE polygraph program and his refusal to accept the results of the National Academy of Science's study on polygraphs (see below).  Richardson is now governor of New Mexico, and is widely touted as a Vice-Presidential or even Presidential candidate.  Not a good thing.
  • "Polygraphs: Worth than Worthless" -- Washington Post, May 2003, reviewing the findings of the National Academy of Sciences and the failure of polygraphs in yet another spy scandal, this time involving an alleged Chinese agent operating in the United States.

The Albuquerque media, the national media and prestigious scientific journals as well also opined on the DOE polygraph program (but to no avail).  Here is a selection of their editorials:
A recent study by the National Academy of Science (http://www.nas.edu) -- summarized here by the Washington Post --  concluded that "the polygraph has not place in any Federal Government agency".  This, too, has been ignored.

Thus, polygraphs remain as a major (and perhaps the major) counter-intelligence tool in the Federal Government.  In so doing, our national government implicitly gives credence to this now discredited security firewall, and perhaps encourages members of the legal community -- attorneys and defendants -- to rely on its results.  I believe it is instructive to read the comments of Aldrich Ames -- formerly employees by the CIA where he became the most damaging spy in post-WWII US history -- when he commented on my article in the Washington Post and Skeptical Inquirer:

"Dr. Zelicof’s (sic) discussion of polygraph junk science was a very useful one, and its highlight is the apparent determination he and others have to resist the destructive spread of that superstition.  His uncontroversial point that “protecting secrets is a challenging task” suggests to me another point worth making.  In my experience with the polygraph, as user and subject, its junk science does provide an important but discreditable service for lazy and timid national security managers (also known as a species of bureaucrat).  Decisions about personnel suitability for sensitive positions can be not only difficult for the unusual and proper reasons, but also quite risky for the careers of decision-makers.  There’s a lot at stake for the bureaucrat.  Faced with the prospect of excruciating hard work, considerable expense and agonizingly difficult choices, the box offers an attractive refuge from responsibility.  Like handing fate to the starts, entrails or the rack, bureaucrats can abandon their duties and responsibilities to junk scientist and interrogators masquerading as technicians.

...the new Rule 702 nails down the in admissibility of polygraphic superstition even more firmly.  Perhaps Dr. Zelicof or others (the ACLU among them) might take the issue further.  When people’s livelihoods, reputations and personal lives are injured or even destroyed by junk science, cannot the law protect them?"

It doesn't get any clearer than than, coming as it does from a high level CIA officer who passed his polygraph every five years during his 2 decade career.

I am available as an expert witness for individuals who believe they have been incorrectly categorized as "deceptive" by a polygrapher and the unreliable box.  Feel free to contact me for more information.


Addendum #1: The final demise of the polygraph at the DOE Labs?

After approximately seven years, the DOE quietly slipped in a new polygraph policy into the Code of Federal Regulations at the end of October 2006 (10 CFR Parts 709 and 710).  The rule eliminated routine screening polygraphs, but replaces it with an ill-defined set of "random" polygraphs based on a loose interpretation of the National Academy of Sciences report of 2001 on the possible (but unproved) detterrence value of polygraphs (the Academy recommended more research to support or refute this contention).  Nonetheless, it may be the case that a small step forward (which is to say a step backward for polygraphs at the Labs by rescinding their use on a regular basis for most scientists with high-level security clearances) has taken place.  As with so much of DOE policy (see commentaries from the Editors of leading New Mexico newspapers above on this page), sloppy execution, inattention to detail and -- most significantly -- the complete absence of independent oversight to prevent documented previous abuses remain substantive concerns that will doubtless re-emerge. 

There are at least two important lessons to be drawn from the sad history of polygraphs at the Labs which, aside from undermining national security (as demonstrated by the yawning gaps in cybersecurity still present -- ones that Sandia's Senior Scientists advised be addressed first and foremost in 1999 during the start of the most recent security problems at the Labs).  First, it is clear that when scientists (particularly those in government) fail to speak out, bad policy inevitably follows.  I believe that the history of polygraphs at the national labs shows that laboratory management is unwilling to do much to protect the health and safety of their employees.  All of the directors of the three main DOE labs (Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore) simply waited to see which way the political winds would blow.  To this day, we have no idea how many careers were destroyed as a result of a thoroughly disproved “deception” test.  Scientists might well wonder if the labs remain institutions of serious science, integrity and scientific freedom.  

Second, the elected official in whom we place our trust, our tax dollars, and occasionally our lives never admit to error (nor do they even have the fundamental decency to apologize to those loyal scientists who have been harmed, some severely).  On the grand scale, they are both smart and cynical enough to realize that the average voter won't notice or care - which in my view is but one more argument for scientists to carefully educate the public (and perhaps those few political leaders who are open to learning) based on solid science, explained in a straightforward way at invited talks, in OpEd pieces, and public policy forums. 

Two recent OpEd piece of mine follow in the hope of inspiring others to do the same. 

Albuquerque Tribune, Nov. 2006: The difficult, but important responsibilities of scientists in public policy
Albuquerque Journal, Oct. 2006:  DOE finally quiety abandons routine polygraphs without explanation (or apology)

Addendum #2: Hold the presses: The Polygraph is Back at the DOE labs

The DOE's "screening" polygraph program has been re-incarnated as of May 2007 into what is now referred to as "random" polygraphs, meaning the following:

  • Approximately 9,000 employees at Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories (plus an unknown number at Lawrence Livermore National Labs as of this writing) with high-level security clearances (generally associated with direct nuclear weapons work) are subject, at any time, to a polygraph.  Since the program is "random", it is theoretically possible that one individual could have many polygraphs in any given time period whereas the old polygraph program (reveiewed in addendum #1 above) called for administration of a polygraph every 5 years to anyone with a security clearance (who may or may not have work assignments involving nuclear weapons or other highly classified programs.)
  • It is unclear if the format of the "random" polygraph is the same as that applied in the old "screening" program.  Will the questions be limited to national security or will lifestyle (e.g. sexual practices) be queried as well? 
  • In the "screening" polygraph program, it was policy (perhaps carried out, perhaps not) that failure to pass a polygraph did not mean immediate loss of one's "Q" clearance (so-called "Top Secret" clearance which provided access on a need-to-know basis to a wide variety of classified documents.)  In the new "random" polygraph program, failure to pass a polygraph does lead to immediate loss of high-level clearances (but not the "Q"-clearance).  Since, for most people with higher level or special clearances loss of those clearances is loss of access to docments needed for work, there is a probability of actually losing employment as well (although none of the contractor managers will, as of this writing (5/17/07) say what that probability is.)
  • Further, and perhaps most terrifying is the statement of the Security Director at LANL, who writes:
"If informed to
present themselves for a polygraph, they are to understand that
participation is mandatory. Should they fail to pass the test,
 they will be removed from the pertinent category list and will
not be allowed to participate in any of the other categories. If
 they choose to object now to the implied participation in the
 polygraph program, they will immediately become ineligible for 
any of the accesses or programs listed (note added: these would be the higher level clearances). They will be informed 
that failure to participate in the polygraph program by itself
will not affect their basic security clearance.

"  (note added: "basic" security clearance is the "Q"-clearance.)


Put another way, even speaking about the polygraph program in critical terms may lead to loss of high-level clearances. 

It is hard to imagine that this kind of culture of fear will encourage new, talented people to enter the labs.  It also would seem that egress from LANL and other labs may be further encouraged.

But perhaps as sad as the Orwellian intonations from the counter-intelligence director at LANL is the abject ignorance of the science – now widely published – on not merely the lack of efficacy of the polygraph, but in addition its erosive effect on national security.  A detailed analysis is available here which shows, in summary:

• When the inconclusive results are ignored, the negative predictive value (NPV) of the polygraph is 97% (92% - 100%). Although inconclusive results are a fact of life (and thus difficult to in fact ignore), within this data set an individual who passes a polygraph is almost certainly not being deceptive.


• When inconclusive results are considered to be errors of ambiguity, the NPV of the polygraph falls to 73% (62.5% - 78.1%). Thus, the polygraph is better than flipping a coin, but would juries or agencies that grant security clearances want to rely on it when a deceptive individual is able to pass 27% (21.9% - 37.5%) of the time? I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision .


• The positive predictive value (PPV) of the polygraph is 88% (82% - 87%) when inconclusive results are ignored.


• The PPV of the polygraph falls dramatically to 55.5% (45% - 60%) when inconclusive results are accounted for.

In summary, if a subject fails a polygraph, the probability that she is, in fact, being deceptive is little more than chance alone; that is, one could flip a coin and get virtually the same.

One can only conclude that the US government's premier science labs are, in fact, anti-science.


[Webpage last updated 5/17/07]

Phone: (505) 255-6908
FAX: (509) 753-4906
zalan8587@qwest.net

ICQ# 21627838

AIM or iChat Screen name: apzelic

Skype name: apzelic
Resume

Al Zelicoff's Business and Work Interests

(and an index to this site):

Scientific and Medical-Legal Review of New Mexico:

  • Medical Malpractice and Accident Reconstuction analysis
  • Public Health Consulting

Syndrome-based Disease Surveillance: information technology tools to help bring public health and medicine into the 21st Century easily and inexpensively.  

Environmentally Friendly Energy Systems

  • residential energy conservation and renewable energy system designs for your home or small buiness

Expert Witness and Analysis: (this page) on thee abusive use of polygraphs and random drug testing in Employee Screening.