The Drug Enforcement Agency is paying $500,000 to contractors to settle claims it subjected them to aggressive, “demeaning” and unlawful polygraph exams.
Employees of Metropolitan Interpreters and Translators, Inc. provided Spanish translation services of DEA criminal suspects. Metropolitan held government contracts with the DEA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego.
Upon discovery that one translator was related to a DEA criminal suspect, the agency demanded Metropolitan polygraph nearly 100 of its translators. Roughly one-third “failed” the exam and were discharged, although both agency and private employer lacked individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.
While federal law prohibits private employers from polygraphing their workers under most circumstances, many federal agencies are permitted to do so. The DEA maintains its use of polygraphs was authorized because the federal statute does not explicitly ban it.
In their lawsuit, the linguists alleged fault with (1) the DEA, which they asserted was not permitted to polygraph them as employees of the agency’s contractor and, (2) Metropolitan, for forcing its private-sector employees into polygraphs without suspicion of wrongdoing, without written notice of the employees’ rights under federal and state law, and for discharging employees who “failed” or refused the test.
In addition, the linguists claimed the DEA-employed polygraph examiners asked “grossly inappropriate” personal questions they considered “demeaning and humiliating.”
Examiners consistently questioned on their sexual habits, including whether they had cheated on significant others and had sex with prostitutes and minors. One examinee was questioned on the reasons for her divorce, and another was subject to a test lasting four hours.
Polygraphs are a standard part of the security clearance approval process. Federal law exempts from its ban on employment-related polygraph exams those contractors whose “duties involve access to information that has been classified at the level of top secret or designated as being within a special access program.” Contractors of other national security agencies may also be lawfully subject to lie detector tests.
Rather than proceed, the DEA chose to settle the claims for $500,000.
The Employee Polygraph Protection AcT: What You Should Know
Private employers may not lawfully require an employee to submit to any form of lie detector test for employment under this federal law.
The ban has many exceptions. Federal agency contractors involved in national defense and security, counterintelligence workers, investigations involving violations of the Controlled Substances Act, among others, may lawfully be subjected to polygraph exams for employment.
You have rights. The Act affords a variety of rights to examinees, such as prohibiting examiners from asking degrading questions, requiring an employer to provide notice of the exam procedures prior to testing, and disclosing the examinee’s right to terminate the exam at any time.
This isn’t all. The EPPA is the federal law government employment polygraph. States may have their own law expanding on these protections and regulations.
