So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you and compliment you and your staff and this subcommittee for the excellent preliminary job that they have done, and I feel that you will render a great service to our Government if through developing in these hearings we arrive at some legitimate uses for the polygraph in the U.S. Government, and set some standards for its use, and set some qualifications for operators. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Moss. Thank you, Mr. Gallagher.

The Chair would like to observe that the witnesses present today are an indication of the excellent cooperation the committee has received from everyone concerned with the use of polygraphs. I have been deeply impressed by the sincerity of those most deeply involved in their use in seeing that appropriate standards are evolved.

As these gentlemen make their contribution to the committee, I think it will become abundantly clear that we have many highly responsible persons engaged in this field, alert to its limitations, and desirous of seeking improvement. I believe Mr. Monagan, that you had some observations.

Mr. MONAGAN. Mr. Chairman, it is not exactly clear from Mr. Gallagher's remarks to what extent these incidents relate to the polygraph, although apparently some of them do. I would like to suggest that the specific information that he has, the communications, and so forth, be made available to the committee, so that the staff may determine whether or not it is advisable to take further steps in investigating these incidents.

Mr. Moss. We will consult with Mr. Gallagher for the specific documentation on that.

Mr. GALLAGHER. In reply, Mr. Chairman, all of the incidents that I have mentioned relate directly to polygraph testing.

Mr. Moss. Will you gentlemen stand and be sworn?

Do you, and each of you, solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give this subcommittee shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

TESTIMONY OF FRED E. INBAU, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW; ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN E. REID, JOHN E. REID & ASSOCIATES, CHICAGO, ILL.; AND GEORGE LINDBERG, JOHN E. REID & ASSOCIATES, CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. INBAU. I do.

Mr. REID. I do.

Mr. LINDBERG. I do.

Mr. Moss. Will you identify yourselves for the record?

Mr. INBAU. My name is Fred E. Inbau. I am professor of law at Northwestern University.

Mr. REID. My name is John E. Reid, director of John E. Reid & Associates in Chicago, Ill.

Mr. LINDBERG. My name is George W. Lindberg, associate director, John E. Reid & Associates, Chicago.

Mr. Moss. The members of the panel have been given a series of questions as a basis for their comments.

Mr. Kass, will you start the proceedings at this point?

Mr. KASS. Mr. Inbau, could you tell the committee for the record the part that the polygraph plays in the detection of deception.

Mr. INBAU. The instrument itself, and that is what you are referring to when you label it "polygraph," plays a rather minor role in the conduct of a lie detector or polygraph tests. There are several instruments available commercially, some with few advantages over the others, but almost any one of the polygraphs-and by that we mean an instrument recording such things as respiration, pulse, blood pressure, galvanic skin reflex, muscular movements, instruments of that sort, not just one but a many tracing instrument-the instrument itself does not reveal the lie.

There is no bell that sounds, no whistle goes off when a person lies. It is merely an instrument which serves as a basis for a technique for diagnosing deception. Consequently, the technique is no better than the man who is making the diagnosis. Just as with any medical instrument, it is of no value, in fact it may be a very dangerous thing in the hands of someone who is not trained in the technique of making the diagnosis.

This brings me to the point that I know you want answered in one of these questions here, as to what kind of a man should be conducting the test. The individual must be someone with a good educational background, something comparable in our opinion to a college education.

It is implicit from what I just said he must be a person of intelligence, and some degree of maturity. He also must be one that can measure up to what Mr. Gallagher has just been insisting upon, and I agree with him completely, someone who also has a sense of values so that he is not only seeking to protect the public interest, the Government security, but who is also respectful of the rights of the individual.

Someone who has less than these general qualifications I have just outlined is much more likely to do what Mr. Gallagher said when he referred to the 17-year-old girl than someone who has the intelligence, the educational background, and the adequate training to utilize this technique.

Not only must he have these basic qualifications, but in my judgment, and I know Mr. Reid and Mr. Lindberg agree with me on this, he must have had an adequate period of training under someone who is experienced and skilled in the technique. This is something that cannot be acquired, in our judgment, by someone going to a school where he is going to listen to lectures as a member of a group for a period of a few weeks, learn how to take the instrument apart, put it back together, run experimental tests on each other.

He must, in our judgment, have learned it my way of what we may call an apprenticeship technique, working under the guidance of someone who has a considerable volume of business of cases, conducting cases himself under the supervision of a skillful examiner, studying the records that this particular instructor may have available, and constantly reviewing the developments, and also observing cases being conducted by this examiner and others who are experienced. In our judgment only in this way can someone acquire the skill that is required. I would like to go back, if I may momentarily, to a point Mr. Gallagher made. In the technique as we are accustomed to its use and I refer there to Mr. Reid and his group and Mr. Lindberg-you don't do, Mr. Gallagher

Mr. Moss. Pardon me just a moment. The Chair regrets that the rules of the House of Representatives as interpreted by the three most recent Speakers, and the rules under which this committee must operate, do not permit the taking of pictures during the time of an active hearing.

The Chair will be willing to accommodate photographers at the beginning or at the end of the hearing, but there shall be no taking of pictures in this room in violation of the rules. It is not up to the Chair to state whether he agrees with the rules, but he is bound to enforce them.

You may continue.

Mr. INBAU. An examiner with the qualifications and the training and skill that we have been trying to outline will avoid the sort of things that Mr. Gallagher has mentioned. Taking a 17-year-old girl and make an exploration into her sex and personal life to that extent is not necessary in our judgment, in any sort of a security operation.

There are times with the more mature people when an inquiry of that sort may be highly appropriate. I have a feeling that not only should we be mindful of the rights of the individual as prescribed in the fourth and fifth amendment, but as Mr. Gallagher and all of you gentlemen know, there is a preamble to the Constitution in which it is stated that one of the purposes of it was to protect the public welfare and insure domestic tranquility.

It seems to me that this technique has a very vital role to play in governmental security operations. It can be used for that purpose without infringing upon the rights of the individual to the extent that the case related illustrates.

Also, as part of this technique, as Mr. Reid and his associates are using it in Chicago, there is a degree of confidentiality that ought to be part of the utilization of this technique. In other words, that not only is the individual himself and his sensitivity protected to the extent that is not required by the particular investigation, not only must that sensitivity be protected, but also the confidentiality with respect to various disclosures.

There is a practice among certain examiners in private industry whereby they proceed to squeeze someone for something of an embarrassing nature, something by way of some indiscretion so it can be reported to the employing agency, to indicate that this examiner knows how to come up with something even though he may be very vague as to whether this person is responsible for the thing that is under particular inquiry. The technique in my judgment is a very valuable investigative aid.

I think in view of the security measures that must be taken by the Government, it is an indispensable investigative aid. But again, I say that the agency using it must be respectful of the rights of the individual. I don't think there is anything incompatible about this. You can conduct the examinations very adequately without encountering such objectionable practices or without utilizing such objectionable practices as Mr. Gallagher has referred to.

Perhaps I have gone beyond answering this first question. I can proceed, or make myself available for whatever questions the committee may have.

Mr. KASS. Mr. Reid, I would like to ask you at this point if you feel that the polygraph testing technique is a scientific technique.

Mr. REID. Mr. Kass, as we use it in our laboratory-and I am talking about technique as the professor stated here a short while ago the technique we use is a diagnostic technique wherein the lie detector or the polygraph is used clearly and definitely without any interrogative assistance.

The leads and the direction come from the examiner's interpretation of the responses obtained, and the interrogation follows that with the aim of obtaining a confession, if that is the aim.

So the instrument does stand in itself, together with the technique, as a diagnostic instrument giving the examiner the leads as to what points he should look for.

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Moss. Mr. Hardy.

Mr. HARDY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could inquire of Mr. Inbau in connection with a statement he made right at the end, how we safeguard this situation.

As I understood it, Doctor, you said in effect there is nothing incompatible with the use of the polygraph and protecting individual rights. I realize those were not your words, but that is the way I interpreted your statement a few moments ago.

Mr. INBAU. I had reference particularly to the type of case that Mr. Gallagher mentioned. Obviously, when anyone is subjected to this test there is some invasion of privacy. Of course, one basic safeguard against that is that it is not forced upon an individual. It is a test he will voluntarily submit himself to.

Mr. HARDY. The question of incompatibility, as I understand the rest of your testimony, revolves around the competence, the education, the intelligence, maturity, and the sense of values of the person who is administering the test. Is that the basis on which you determine that the use of a polygraph is not incompatible with protecting the rights of the individual?

Mr. INBAU. Yes.

Mr. HARDY. That being the case, and I don't find any area of disagreement on this thinking, the possibility of actually arriving at adequate protection of the individual in our bureaucratic system is difficult. So many of our procedures are no more equitable than the people who are enforcing them.

The question of competence or maturity or having a sense of values on the part of people who administer these tests, it seems to me, is a rather difficult thing to be sure of, is it not?

Mr. INBAU. That you do get this kind of set of qualifications?
Mr. HARDY. Yes.

Mr. INBAU. Yes, that is difficult. Let us face it, of the people who are utilizing this device today, in my judgment about 80 percent of them are not measuring up to what standards we feel are required. Mr. HARDY. Don't we have a pretty difficult job-and I recognize the value of lie detectors in some activities that are tied to security-don't we have an extremely difficult job to decide who is able to use one of these things or give these tests on the basis of being completely objective, being able to submerge any personal ambitions? How do we do that? Isn't the human element insuperable? Isn't that the question?

Mr. INBAU. I don't think so. In our book, Mr. Reid and I have outlined what we consider basic qualifications. It seems to me they are thoroughly warranted. Government agencies would be thoroughly warranted in establishing those as minimum standards.

Mr. HARDY. You can, undoubtedly, have basic qualifications insofar as education is concerned, and insofar as an individual's IQ is concerned, but how do you measure the moral fiber of an individual who is operating one of these things? That is one of the things that is difficult for me to understand. Isn't that the key to the whole thing?

Mr. INBAU. That is certainly part of it. Here again, I recognize that perhaps of all of these factors that is one of the most elusive. We find that true with judges, law professors, Congressmen, and everyone else.

Mr. HARDY. Unfortunately, we do. The judges when they come up with an edict: It is pretty serious to an individual if the judges should be biased or prejudiced. We Members of Congress, if we act on the basis of prejudice don't stay in very long. People have a way of getting rid of us and we haven't done too much damage. But where you have an individual whose whole life can be messed up because some operator of a polygraph had an ax to grind-that could be very important.

Mr. INBAU. Don't you have some control, such as you have just outlined with respect to Congressmen? This individual can be removed from his assignment. I think this ought to be borne in mind, too. We are always looking upon this technique as one that gets people in trouble. Mr. Reid, in his work in Chicago, has gotten innocent people who were caught in a web of circumstances out of trouble far more often than he has gotten guilty people into trouble.

I would like to give you, if I may, one example of that, because it has an important bearing on this. An individual may be caught in a web of circumstantial evidence by which he cannot extricate himself by any of the conventional methods. This is one way in which to do it.

I would like to cite a recent experience of theirs about a year and a half or 2 years ago, as I recall. A bank in Chicago was experiencing a series of losses from the tellers funds. Every time the auditor came in he found a few of these tellers short in their funds.

It happened with such frequency that the bank fired this group of tellers and got new ones replacing them. The next time the auditor came in, the same thing was happening. At this point the bank employed the services of Mr. Reid to make some tests on the tellers and he found out that these tellers were not responsible for the shortages, and he suggested that the auditor be asked to take a polygraph

test.

The auditor took it and he admitted he was the one who was taking the money that was causing all these innocent people to be fired. He was later prosecuted in the Federal court and I think he pleaded guilty to the charge. Am I correct in that?

Mr. JOHN REID. Yes.

Mr. INBAU. We should not lose sight of the fact that there are many times when an innocent person is in a hopeless situation to establish his innocence and this is one way to be done.

Mr. HARDY. I think I appreciate that. I don't want to get off your line of thinking. In an organization as big as the Federal Government, we all too often rely very heavily on mechanical yardsticks to measure the human individual, and it is a little difficult to do.