VIDEO CNN's Greg Lefevre looks at the controversy over lie detectors Windows Media 28K 80K

September 15, 1999
Web posted at: 5:25 a.m. EDT (0925 GMT)

by CNN's Greg Lefevre

LIVERMORE, California (CNN) -- Some of the scientists who design and build the nation's nuclear weapons are denouncing a government plan that would force top-security researchers to take polygraph tests.

At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, scientists reject polygraphs as unscientific. They also are angry at being considered untrustworthy after years of service.

Scientists responded to the polygraph plan on Tuesday during hearings by a Department of Energy panel.

"You're coming here to threaten our honor and integrity, to require us -- on effective threat to our employment -- to volunteer for an even deeper intrusion to our right to privacy," said David Dearborn, a lab scientist.

Physicist Michael Axelrod read from the government's own findings in a report issued by the Federal Office of Technology Assessment. Polygraphy "...does not satisfy the scientific validity of the polygraph test for personnel security screening...."

The Energy Department decided to have employees submit to lie detectors after the agency was embarrassed by suspected losses of nuclear data to China.

It sent a team to explain the policy to the nation's four principal nuclear labs.

The team leader is retired Air Force Gen. Gene Habiger, who represents the Energy Department's Office of Security and Emergency Operations.

"The United States public and the United States Congress have come very close to losing the special trust of the Department of Energy, and this is a very important element to, number one, ensure we get that special trust to where it ought to be and number two, that we protect our nation's most valued secrets."

Some lab managers said expanding the use of polygraphs would make it even more difficult to compete with the private sector for new recruits, especially against aggressive Silicon Valley.

"We have to recruit and retain our staff in a very competitive job market. Silicon Valley is 45 miles southwest of Livermore. The computer companies there aggressively recruit good computational staff," says Douglas Post, a manager at the lab.

Post listed some of the security controls already placed on employees, saying some employees find the lab's atmosphere stifling, not stimulating.

"Security guards with guns, barbed wire fences, safe security procedures. A difficult computing environment made more challenging by cyber security. Lower salaries, we offer less than industry, not more. And no stock options. To these disincentives we now plan to add polygraphs," Post said.

Gen. Habiger said the polygraphy program is but part of a vastly expanded security program at the Department of Energy.

"It's a program of physical security. It's cybersecurity. It's the polygraph aspect. It's security awareness across our facilities."

The Department of Energy now polygraphs about 300 employees per year. The proposal would add thousands.

That concerns Joel Wong, a Chinese-American scientist. "It might put unnecessary burden on Asian Americans and in particular Chinese Americans."

Some scientists of Chinese descent say they already feel the watchful gaze of the government.

William Tong, a lab employee said, "This is all very scary."

So far, no witness documented a case where a spy was caught by polygraph.

Manuel Garcia, whose family fled persecution in Cuba, said the government should concentrate on standard investigative techniques.

Physicist Jeff Colvin said the impact is evident.

"The number of papers being presented by Livermore scientists at this November's annual American Physical Society meeting is down by 33 percent from last year. Although there may be several factors for this decrease, surely one of them is that many people have been scared off by the current swirling controversy over security lapses at the labs and have chosen to keep a very low profile."

One employee said he felt further insulted by the revelation that polygraph experts had already been hired. What is the purpose of the hearing, he asked, if the decision has already been made?

Additional hearings are expected to be held later at Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs in New Mexico, and in Washington, D.C.

Correspondent Greg Lefevre and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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