Word: polygrapher
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...November 1, President Reagan had issued a national security directive on combatting espionage. In it, he called for widespread polygraph testing to cut down on the flow of sensitive information into the hands of enemy agents and enemy journalists. The directive made all Federal employees with access to such information, including Cabinet officials, subject to random lie-detector testing. After the directive was made public, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger '38 said that taking the test "wouldn't bother me a bit." But Secretary of State Shultz would have none of it. "The day in this Government I am told...
...answer is simple. There is no difference. Shultz says drug-testing is "a different concept" from polygraph testing. Reagan is trying to skirt the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures--it's right there, in the Fourth Amendment--by making the tests "voluntary." Both men, though, should know better...
This leads into the second practical argument against testing. The tests are far from infallible. Shultz explained that he had no misgivings against drug-testing as opposed to polygraph-testing because "Drug-testing is a much more reliable scientific tool. It is a definitive test. It's relatively non-intrusive." True, false, false. Drug-testing is more reliable than truth-testing. The polygraph test, with an accuracy of some 50 percent is about as accurate a measure of honesty as coin-flipping. But drug tests still have a margin of error of 2-11 percent. With 1.1 million federal employees...
...been sacked from two other jobs, Pillsbury's latest pink slip, issued for allegedly telling reporters that the Administration had begun supplying rebels in Afghanistan and Angola with U.S.-made Stinger missiles, disturbed civil libertarians. The firing was based partly on Pillsbury's answers to questions on a polygraph test. The case has also been referred to the Justice Department, apparently as a stern message about the Reagan Administration's resolve to plug leaks. Pillsbury's defenders suggest that he spoke out to influence policy, not jeopardize national security. Says Morton Halperin, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union...
Since the EEOC issued guidelines in 1980, grievances have risen from 4,272 in 1981 to more than 6,300 in 1984, and courts have become more sensitive to complaints. Last August, for instance, a judge in Buffalo found a polygraph expert guilty of harassing five women by making unnecessary adjustments of a strap across their breasts, touching their thighs and making lewd comments. The court also found the company liable, even though the expert was an outside contractor, because it knew of his actions and did nothing about them. The decision is being appealed...