Alan P. Zelicoff, senior scientist at the Center for National Security and Arms Control in Albuquerque, gives his opinion on the request for and refusal of congressional members to take polygraphs to show they didn't leak information in Polygraph Hypocrisy.

The leak concerned the National Security Agency's inteception of a telephone conversation in Arabic conducted on Sept. 10, 2001, declaring that the following day was to be "zero hour."

The refusal is, as Zelicoff points out, the height of hypocrisy. Sen. Shelby, one of those refusing, was responsible recently for the creation of a "massive program to polygraph some 15,000 scientists at Department of Energy laboratories and to remove their security clearances if they declined."

Hypocrisy aside, the important point of the commentary is the end, which echoes what defense lawyers and researchers have been saying for years: Polygraphs are not scientifically reliable.

"Every first-year medical student knows that the four parameters measured by the polygraph -- blood pressure, pulse, sweat production and breathing rate -- are affected by an uncountable myriad of emotions: joy, hate, elation, sadness, anxiety, depression and so forth. Dozens of studies conducted in psychology departments and medical schools all over the world have shown that the polygraph cannot distinguish between truth-telling and lying. Claims from polygraphers notwithstanding, no evidence exists that they can find spies."

"Double agents Aldrich Ames, Karl Koecher, LarryWu-Tai Chin and Ana Belen Montes all passed their polygraphs before doing tremendous damage that led, among other things, to the deaths of American operatives overseas."

Zelicoff says the polygraph is a "degrading, largely useless test that, on occasion, randomly turns up "positive."

Looking for the silver lining in the hypocrisy of the congressional refusal, he concludes:

"But perhaps some good will come of this episode if at long last, the current display of Congress's hypocrisy accomplishes what the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence has not: the discrediting of the polygraph as a valid counterintelligence tool. "

For more on this junk science, check out Anti-Polygraph.Org.