Spy-Wary FBI Agrees to Polygraphs

The FBI, abandoning years of resistance, has agreed to expand its use of polygraph tests and computer audits of its agents to plug security gaps exposed by suspected spy Robert Philip Hanssen’s arrest, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said Thursday.

The move is certain to provoke a firestorm of concerns from the FBI’s nearly 9,000 agents across the country, many of whom consider random polygraph tests as a challenge to their integrity.

Ashcroft acknowledged that with a 15% chance of “false positives,” the practice of questioning agents via polygraphs about their activities “is not a sure way” to catch spies.

But he said at a news conference that such concerns are outweighed by the risk of national security breaches. As a result, Ashcroft said he and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh have agreed “we should elevate the use of polygraph in certain cases” as an interim step, even as officials begin a broad review of security in the wake of Hanssen’s Feb. 18 arrest.

The FBI will begin requiring polygraph testing of an expanded but undetermined number of agents who, by nature of their assignments, have access to sensitive information, according to officials at the FBI and the Justice Department who asked not to be identified.

Freeh and Ashcroft revealed their plans to congressional lawmakers Wednesday at a closed briefing on the Hanssen case before the Senate Intelligence Committee, sources said. Details are still being worked out, said a Justice Department official.

Hanssen stands accused of spying for the Russians over a period of 15 years, passing along thousands of pages of top-secret data to his handlers in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. He is only the third FBI agent ever accused of espionage, and authorities fear that his broad access to secret material could make his case by far the worst.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors filed a motion arguing that Hanssen should remain behind bars pending trial because the evidence against him is “overwhelming” and because he “poses a clear and present danger” of passing on more national secrets if freed on bond.

“Moreover, the risk of flight is not fanciful,” prosecutors wrote. “He has $800,000 waiting for him in Moscow. He has a Swiss bank account. And he wrote the Russians more than 15 years ago concerning the need for an ‘escape plan.’ ”

Hanssen, a supervisor in Russian counterintelligence, never took a polygraph test during his 25 years at the FBI, sources have said.

While the CIA, the Energy Department and other agencies have used routine and periodic polygraphs to counter security breaches, the FBI has resisted--in part because of concerns about the cost, effectiveness and effect on employee morale. The agency tests all prospective employees, but active agents only on a case-by-case basis.

In the wake of the Hanssen case, politicians have demanded to know how the agent’s alleged spying could have gone undetected for 15 years, and there has been growing pressure for the FBI to consider using routine polygraphs.

Indeed, one senior FBI agent who asked not to be identified said many rank-and-file agents have grudgingly concluded that expanded polygraphs were a virtual certainty because of Hanssen’s arrest. “The handwriting’s on the wall. The gods are demanding it,” the agent said.

John J. Sennett, an Albany, N.Y.-based agent who is president of the FBI Agents Assn., said the group remains concerned about polygraphs yielding inconclusive results and “false positives”--meaning a truthful agent appeared to be lying.

He added that “to whatever extent polygraph testing is expanding, it should begin with the bureau’s highest officials and generally work downwards. That’s only logical because upper-level officials tend to have the greatest access to sensitive data.”

Ashcroft also committed the FBI to stepping up its use of computer audits and other internal reviews to monitor the activities of its agents and guard against those with “an inappropriately inquisitive mind.”

Ashcroft was referring to the fact that Hanssen repeatedly searched the agency’s internal case files beginning in 1997 to determine whether the FBI suspected his activities or had opened a case against him. Critics have questioned why the FBI apparently didn’t catch Hanssen’s internal snooping.

In other matters at his news conference, Ashcroft broke with President Bush and said he is committed to continuing the Justice Department’s investigations into possible patterns of police misconduct--investigations that have proved critical in the LAPD Rampart scandal and other corruption cases.

Ashcroft said the Justice Department “will continue to enforce” a 1994 law that grew out of the Rodney G. King beating in Los Angeles that authorizes the department to probe broad patterns of conduct by local police. The Justice Department last year used the law to compel an agreement with the Los Angeles Police Department requiring an outside monitor and other steps to correct abuses uncovered in the Rampart scandal.

“It is my responsibility to enforce that law,” Ashcroft said. “And I believe that the law is an opportunity for us to promote the concept of people being free from unwarranted, inappropriate activities by law enforcement officials.”

His pledge was significant because Bush, during last year’s presidential campaign, voiced serious reservations about whether the Justice Department should be routinely policing and “second-guessing” local departments. Ashcroft voiced no such misgivings Thursday.