NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, March 2, 2001

Unlike the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, the FBI did not use lie detector tests routinely to hunt for internal traitors.

FBI counterintelligence official Robert P. Hanssen was accused last week of spying for Moscow since 1985 in exchange for money. Hanssen was a 27-year veteran of the bureau until his arrest.

The Hanssen case, if proven, is believed to be especially damaging to the U.S. intelligence community. The FBI has been criticized on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for failing to use polygraph tests in the areas that Hanssen worked.

Hanssen had access to information at the CIA, NSA, State Department and other highly secret U.S. units.

"The director and I have agreed that [the increased use of polygraphs] should be commenced," Ashcroft said Thursday at a news conference.

But Ashcroft warned that polygraphs are not completely reliable and about 15 percent of the time register false positives. Although he did not mention the Aldrich Ames case, Ames was repeatedly polygraphed at the CIA and passed all the tests.

Ames was arrested in 1995 and later pleaded guilty to spying for Moscow, also since 1985, in exchange for money. The Hanssen prosecution is pending.

Ashcroft said other measures to guard against internal FBI traitors include increased auditing of computer activity. Auditors would be looking for FBI employees who show "an inappropriate inquisitiveness of mind" when searching through secure U.S. databanks from their office computers.

But he cautioned that even such "inquisitiveness" does not necessarily mean that an employee is looking for secrets for sale to a foreign government.

The attorney general said he and Freeh were determined "to minimize those kinds of risks whenever possible."

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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