US targets lie-detector coaches following Edward Snowden affair
Washington targets instructors who say they can coach candidates to pass tests in crackdown on security staff following Snowden affair
US federal agents have launched a criminal investigation into instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie-detector tests as part of the Obama administration's unprecedented crackdown on security violators and leakers.
The criminal inquiry, which has not been acknowledged publicly, is aimed at discouraging criminals and spies from infiltrating the US government by using the polygraph-beating techniques, which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle- tensing, tongue-biting and mental arithmetic.
The Obama administration launched the offensive in 2011 after US Army private Bradley Manning downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified documents and sent them to WikiLeaks.
So far, the authorities have targeted at least two instructors, one of whom has pleaded guilty to federal charges, several people familiar with the investigation said. Investigators confiscated business records from the two men, which included the names of as many as 5,000 people who had sought polygraph-beating advice. US agencies have determined that at least 20 of them applied for government and federal contracting jobs, and at least half of them were hired, including by the National Security Agency.
By attempting to prosecute the instructors, federal officials are adopting a controversial legal stance that sharing such information should be treated as a crime and is not protected under the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech.
"Nothing like this has been done before," John Schwartz, a US Customs and Border Protection official, said of the legal approach. "Most certainly our nation's security will be enhanced.