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The man he had in mind was Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos nuclear weapons scientist who had traveled to China in the mid-'80s. Also arousing suspicion, it seems, is the fact that he is of Chinese descent. It was then discovered that Lee had downloaded large amounts of classified material, for which he was fired. He is now in jail awaiting trial, charged with mishandling classified material. He's never been charged with espionage.

Also Today Passing the polygraph Professional criminals are the ones most likely to beat the lie detector. By Susan McCarthy

Alarmed by the idea of Chinese spies gaining access to our weapons secrets, and wishing to be seen taking action, Congress ordered that security be increased at the nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos; Sandia, N.M.; and Livermore, Calif.

Measures to be taken by the Department of Energy under that mandate included regulating e-mail and data transfers, toughening background checks on visiting foreigners and a new policy requiring that employees report any sexual encounter with foreigners longer than a one-night stand. (Not all foreigners, just foreigners from certain countries. Other foreigners, go for it; we don't wanna know.) But the measure that upset the lab employees was the one saying they had to take polygraph -- lie detector -- tests.

As many as 13,000 people might be tested, it was announced. The employees, many of them actual rocket scientists, hit the roof. They wrote letters of protest, thronged hearings to denounce polygraph testing, issued reviews of the scientific literature slamming polygraphs and created dissident Web sites. They called it a witch hunt, described the polygraph as the tool of a police state and asked what was next, the rack?

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The polygraph is an American phenomenon, with limited use in a few countries, such as Canada, Israel and Japan, as a result of American influence. In the 1980s, in the wake of one of those spy scandals that the British are so good at, U.S. intelligence agencies urged the U.K. to use polygraphs for "security vetting." The House of Commons' employment committee, "concerned at the Government's apparent faith in the polygraph test procedures and its implications," held an inquiry, at which the British Psychological Society, among others, roundly denounced polygraphs, and the scheme was dropped.

David Lykken, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, is a leading critic of polygraphs and author of an influential book, "A Tremor in the Blood" (1981). He can hardly believe he still has to tell people that the polygraph isn't science.

"There's something about us Americans that makes us believe in the myth of the lie detector. It's as much of a myth as the Tooth Fairy," he exclaims in frustration.

The first proponent of lie detection machines, in the early 1900s, was William Marston, a publicity-hungry psychologist who also created Wonder Woman. The polygraph was taken up and promoted by the Berkeley, Calif., police department in the 1930s. Dozens of polygraph schools sprang up around the country. The industry thrived, with three branches: pre-employment testing, criminal investigation and counterintelligence.

The first polygraphs measured blood pressure and respiration. Then galvanic skin resistance -- sweatiness -- was added. A modern polygraph, which costs around $8,000, measures changes in all three. (You can get one for less if you supply your own printer and PC, and for just $9.95 you can order a kit from RadioShack to make a bare-bones device that measures changes in galvanic skin resistance.)

These parameters are considered to be measures of tension or anxiety. The polygraph can't read your mind, but it can detect bodily changes that are often the result of tension. The idea is that, with mind and body being connected, if you are lying you are apt to be nervous and this may show up on at least one of the parameters the polygraph records. It doesn't necessarily show up on all three; apparently it's not unusual for your pulse to say "No, no" when your sweat is saying "Yes, yes." "The correlations among the different measures can politely be described as modest," writes one British researcher.

Polygraph examiners take a training course that lasts from six to 10 weeks, but operating the machine itself is a cinch if you read the manual, according to a salesman I talked to at Axciton Systems. The need to take a lengthy training course should be your first clue that something other than a pure scientific test is going on, critics say. The enormously variable human element makes it, at best, an art, not science.

In 1988, after congressional hearings at which critics made some very unkind remarks about the polygraph, the Employment Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) was passed, severely limiting polygraph testing. You cannot be fired for refusing to take a polygraph test. Pre-employment screening is forbidden in all except a few job categories -- security guards, armored-car drivers, etc. "There was a huge business of doing pre-employment screening that went away," says Skip Webb, a polygraph administrator who is the American Polygraph Association's public relations chairman. Judicial decisions also prevent polygraph tests from being admitted in court in almost all cases.

It might sound as if polygraph testing were dead, but there are some significant loopholes. The EPPA's provisions apply to private industry, not the government. Police departments regularly give polygraphs to suspects. And because so many people aren't aware of the problems with polygraphs, innocent people may volunteer to be tested in an effort to clear themselves of suspicion.

Next page | "Have you ever told a lie to get out of trouble?"