By: Bob McCarty
The Clapper Memo

CNN’s Jake Tapper reports CIA officials are using polygraph exams — in some cases as often as monthly — in an attempt to find out if any agency operatives have shared knowledge about what took place Sept. 11, 2012, at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and ended with the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. If true, is it a good idea?

Having spent much of the past four years conducting an exhaustive investigation of the federal government’s use of polygraph and non-polygraph tools (a.k.a., “credibility assessment technologies”), I’d say it’s not.

I offer that assessment not simply because CIA officials are apparently using the polygraph as a means to intimidate their employees; rather, because they believe the polygraph can actually produce credible results. And it’s not just my opinion!

I asked a long-time counterintelligence professional whose name I am not at liberty to reveal for security reasons, to read the CNN article and watch the accompanying video. Afterward, he offered some interesting feedback:

“It makes no sense. People who are subjected to monthly polygraphs would quickly become desensitized to the polygraph process, and this could result in even worse accuracy rates than the typical 60-65% accuracy rate for polygraph (inconclusive & error rates range average 35-40%). This is definitely a control and intimidation measure. I guess it’s James Clapper’s new polygraph policy put into effect in the most absurd manner possible.”

Interestingly, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. inspired the title of my latest nonfiction book, THE CLAPPER MEMO.

A 268-page nonfiction book, THE CLAPPER MEMO is the product of an exhaustive four-year investigation during which I was able to connect the dots between Clapper and hundreds of “Green-on-Blue” attack casualties suffered by U.S. and Coalition Forces personnel in Afghanistan.

Throughout THE CLAPPER MEMO, I expose evidence of a turf war between competing credibility assessment technologies that has been raging silently for more than 40 years. Much of the evidence was obtained via public records requests, while other pieces came in the form of documents provided by military and intelligence sources, including the men who were in charge of interrogations at Guantanamo Bay during the early years of the Global War on Terror.

In addition to following paper trails, I conducted exclusive interviews with insiders, including a Defense Intelligence Agency contractor who interrogated members of Saddam Hussein‘s inner circle (a.k.a., “The Deck of Cards”) and an Army Green Beret who set a record by conducting more interrogations of enemy combatants (500+) than any other member of the U.S. military during a five-year period. And that’s only the beginning!

Already endorsed by several prominent Americans, THE CLAPPER MEMO is available in paperback and ebook versions.

Bob McCarty is the author of Three Days In August and THE CLAPPER MEMO. To learn more about either book or to place an order, click on the graphic above.