Word: polygraph
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Robert C. McFarlane. The President alleged that leaks about air-strikes--employed to ensure the safety of U.S. Marines in Lebanon--had endangered both McFarlane'x peace efforts and his personal safety. The FBI began questioning officials, cabinet members and foreign policy advisers, some of whom offered to take polygraph tests to insure that they weren't lying. But Reagan should realize that there is a limit to how much he can stem such leaks. They are a symptom not of a disloyal staff but of a free society and an open democracy where the governed as much...
...Allain's positions on utility regulation and education reforms were obscured by a flurry of lurid charges: two weeks before the election, Bramlett supporters trotted out a pair of young black men, both transvestites, who claimed to have been paid 20 times by Allain for sexual services. A polygraph test commissioned by the Jackson Clarion-Ledger buttressed the hustlers' allegations. Allain, 55 and divorced, called the charges "damnable, vicious, malicious lies." He added, "I'm no sexual deviate, and Leon Bramlett knows...
...testimony provided the committee, the GAO estimated the number of federal employees subject to possible polygraph tests at about 2.5 million, nearly half of all 5.1 million federal employees. That many hold secret or higher security clearances. The GAO study noted that no fewer than 47 Government agencies now handle classified information, including the Office of Micronesian Status Negotiations, the National Labor Relations Board and the Marine Mammal Commission...
...administer the alcohol tests only after a reasonable suspicion of drunk driving (weaving, excessive speed, etc.); under the Reagan plan, employees undergo random tests regardless of criminal suspicion. And second, the precisions of alcohol tests--accurate to several decimal places--provides prima facie evidence of guilt; while results of polygraph tests are haphazard at best. The arbitrary application of lie-detector tests coupled with their dubious reliability belies our ideal of painstaking procedural due process. Perhaps Richard Nixon put it best when he remarked in one of the Watergate tapes. "I don't know whether [lie-detector tests] are accurate...
...might conceivably argue that the national security benefits of employing foolproof lie-detector devices outweigh such infringements on individual rights. But polygraph tests have failed to yield reliable data on dishonesty or criminal behavior, indeed, most U.S. courtrooms have refused to recognize the results of lie detector tests as evidence. Moreover, a recent Office of Technology Assessment study, based on an exhaustive review of available data, concluded that "no scientific evidence exists to establish the validity of polygraph testing" in discovering lies or national security leaks. Even in criminal investigations, the study found that the accuracy of polygraph tests fluctuated...