HOUSE VOTES POLYGRAPHS FOR SECURITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403680005-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: June 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

4 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403680005-9
Aof ^~ r 7) ILI
House Votes
Polygraphs
For Security
Spy Case Inspires
Broad Authority,
For the Pentagon
By Ruth Marcus
and Sharon LFranisre
W81%ko . Pot Sta whew
The House of Re reeentatives
last ni that would ' the en-
tagon broad power to subject to lie
ci em
a
would
granting the highest level clear-
ances.
The measure, approved 333 to
71 as an amendment to the Defense
Department authorization bill,
would grant the Pentagon more
authority to use the controversial
device than officials there had
sought.
Its passage reflects mounting
congressional concern over the al-
leged Walker spy ring and follows
calls from top Pentagon officials and
others for increased use of lie de-
tectors to uncover espionage.
The Senate has already passed a
defense authorization bill that pro-
vides for a much more limited poly-
graph program. The two bills will
have to be reconciled in a confer.
ence committee.
"Give our country some tools to
battle the spies and the potential
spies, the traitors and the potential
traitors," the author of the amend-
ment, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.)
urged his colleagues.
Among those voting in favor of
the amendment was Rep. Les Aspin
(D-Wis.), chairman of the House
Armed Services Committee, who
earlier this month termed lie detec-
tor tests "basically not thatr
ble."
WASHINGTON POST
27 June 1985
According to a recently declas-
sified Defense Department report
obtained yesterday by The Wash-
ington Post, polygraph tests have
prompted at least nine persons
holding or applying for sensitive
government jobs in the last several
years to admit that they had been
recruited or agreed to spy for hos-
tile foreign powers.
Three other applicants for highly
sensitive intelligence jobs said that
their girlfriends or members of
their families were spies, according
to the report.
Most of the individuals, some of
whom had received the highest-lev-
el security clearances, were either
job applicants or employes of the
National Security Agency or the
Central Intelligence Agency, De-
fense Department officials said.
In an interview last night after
the vote on the amendment, Young
attributed its wide margin of suc-
cess to the mood of the Congress in
the wake of the arrests of former
Navy communications specialist
John Anthony Walker Jr. and three
other Navy men.
"There's no question the mood in
Congress tonight was, 'Let's do
something ... to stop spying,' "
Young said.
The amendment would permit
the Pentagon to require those ap-
plying for or holding clearances to
see classified information to submit
to polygraphs. It would require he
detector tests before new clear-
ances are issued to those with ac-
cess to "special access information"
and would allow random imposition
of polygraphs on the roughly
140,000 persons already holding
such clearances.
A similar measure backed by
Senate Majority leader Robert J.
Dole (R-Kan.) is pending in a Senate
Armed Services subcommittee.
The House yesterday passed by
voice vote an amendment calling on
Defense Secretary Caspar W. Wein-
berger to study the desirability of
reimposing the death penalty for
espionage. An amendment permit.
ting capital punishment for military
personnel charged with espionage
in peacetime is expected to come
before the House today.
Currently, the Pentagon is con-
ducting a test program in which it
has congressional approval to ad-
minis er 3,500 lie detector tests
annually. About 300 of the tests,
limited to those in the "special ac-
cess" category, have been con-
ducted under the program so far,
defense officials said.
The CIA and the National Secu-
already have authority
to require Polygraph tests or job
a icants and employes. en
officials said.
Under a policy adopted this year,
the Pentagon allows officials, for
the first time, to deny certain po-
sitions to employes solely on the
basis of their failure to pass a he
detector test.
The passage of the Young
amendment came after the House
beat back, by a vote of 281 to 121,
a much weaker measure offered by
Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex.). All but
two Republicans voted against the
Brooks measure, while Democrats
divided evenly.
Like the Senate version ff the
authorization bill, his ptoposal
would have continued the Defense
Department's year-old pilot pro-
gram for an additional year.
"There is no scientific basis for
relying on the polygraph as a valid
indicator of veracity," said Brooks,
warning that innocent persons
would be denied jobs while spies
would remain undetected.
Congressional "hysteria to do
something should not overwhelm
our sound judgment," he said.
In Senate testimony yesterday,
L. Britt Snider, director of counter-
intelligence and security policy for
the Defense Department, said that
regardless of what action Congress
takes, the department cannot con-
duct more than 3,500 polygraph
tests before Oct. 1, 1986. He said
the department does not have near-
ly enough examiners and can't train
new ones fast enough.
The validity and proper use of He
detector tests have been the sub-
ject of continuing controversy in the
Reagan administration. The Pen-
tagon has stepped up use of poly-
graphs for purposes such as uncov-
ering sources of news leaks and
conducting criminal investigations,
and it has been pushing hard for
several years to use lie detector
ti~or?ti-~~a.3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403680005-9