Watching You

THE ORWELLIAN NIGHTMARE of an omnipresent Big Brother intrigued and frightened the reader of the 1940's and 1950's. Today, we casually dismiss such scenarios as fanciful tales or impossibilities. But unknown to most Americans, the Administration has proposed a sweeping plan to monitor the public activities of government officials on a scale unprecedented in our history. Last week, the Senate wisely delayed the implementation of the President's controversial directive to subject federal employees to random lie detector tests and lifelong censorship. The rule (which will now go into effect next April) would have applied to officials cleared for "sensitive compartmented information." According to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that category involves 2.5 million individuals, almost half of all federal workers; an additional 1.5 million civilian contractors with security clearances would also undergo such surveillance.

The Administration's recommendations stem from a March 11 directive aimed at tightening counterespionage efforts and reducing the number of news leaks to the press. Under the original directive, current and former employees with security clearances must submit to government censors any writing they mean to publish. The requirement also forced officials to consent to polygraph tests if suspected of unauthorized news releases. Failure to comply with the mandates can result in demotion or reassignment. The new orders proposed last week extend random lie-detector tests to all officials with access to classified information, even if no evidence of security breaches exists.

SUCH A BROAD, unrestricted directive portends an alarming era--of government intrusion into individual privacy and First Amendment rights. The censorship rule--a ban affecting nearly 113,000 workers in the highest levels of government--would effectively curtail informed criticism, permitting one Administration to censor the writings of previous Administration officials. In last week's House hearings, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard Willard, the Administration official who drafted the proposals, characterized the nondisclosure pledge as an "appropriate" counterintelligence technique.

Meanwhile, a myriad of former government employees, journalists, and constitutional experts condemned the measures as "an appalling document." Former Undersecretary of State George Ball testified that enforcement of the Reagan directive "would require the establishment of a censorship bureaucracy far larger than anything in our national experience." The American Society of Newspaper Editors denounced the policy as a "peacetime censorship of a scope unparalleled since the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1791."

ASIDE FROM the prepublication review, the government's plan to test the integrity of millions of Americans with lie detectors sharply contradicts our deeply hold belief that individuals remain innocent until proven guilty. Under the Administration's plan, individuals must prove to the satisfaction of the government that their loyalty is beyond reproach. This heavy-handed approach--common in totalitarian regimes--warrants public outrage in a free, democratic nation. Adoption of the directive would create a dangerous precedent, perhaps a harbinger of even greater violations of personal freedom.

One might conceivably argue that the national security benefits of employing foolproof lie-detector devices outweigh such infringements on individual rights. But polygraph tests have failed to yield reliable data on dishonesty or criminal behavior, indeed, most U.S. courtrooms have refused to recognize the results of lie detector tests as evidence. Moreover, a recent Office of Technology Assessment study, based on an exhaustive review of available data, concluded that "no scientific evidence exists to establish the validity of polygraph testing" in discovering lies or national security leaks. Even in criminal investigations, the study found that the accuracy of polygraph tests fluctuated wildly, correctly identifying lies anywhere from 17 to 99 percent of the time.

Despite these disturbing problems, proponents of random lie-detector tests have likened the procedure to routine blood alcohol tests that spot drunk drivers. But several major differences illustrate the incongruence of the analogy. First, police officers administer the alcohol tests only after a reasonable suspicion of drunk driving (weaving, excessive speed, etc.); under the Reagan plan, employees undergo random tests regardless of criminal suspicion. And second, the precisions of alcohol tests--accurate to several decimal places--provides prima facie evidence of guilt; while results of polygraph tests are haphazard at best. The arbitrary application of lie-detector tests coupled with their dubious reliability belies our ideal of painstaking procedural due process. Perhaps Richard Nixon put it best when he remarked in one of the Watergate tapes. "I don't know whether [lie-detector tests] are accurate or not, but it doesn't make any difference. Test them all. It'll scare the hell out of them."

President Reagan likes to use the downing of the Korean jetliner as an example of how Americans and Russians differ. And yet, in our haste and paranoia to restrict information in the name of national security, we sacrifice the enduring values of our society, blurring those distinctions. When the Reagan directive becomes law in April 1984, perhaps we will recognize its inherent danger to personal freedom. If not, George Orwell's haunting vision of the future will come uncomfortably close-to reality.