Banning the Truth-Finder in Employment: The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988
![handle is hein.journals/molr54 and id is 165 raw text is: BANNING THE TRUTH-FINDER IN
EMPLOYMENT: THE EMPLOYEE
POLYGRAPH PROTECTION ACT OF
19881
The law is often asked to resolve disputes between parties with widely
disparate interests who have clashed on a particular point. The issue of
polygraph or lie detector examinations in private employment is no ex-
ception. Supporters of polygraph use espouse the legitimate rights of bus-
inesses to protect themselves from employee misconduct.2 Opponents argue
just as vehemently that to probe someone's body to make a determination
of whether he is telling the truth is inherently offensive to civil rights.3
Throw into the fray significant disagreement over whether and to what
extent the polygraph machine is effective4 and it becomes clear that the
issue of polygraph examinations in the employment area was ripe for legal
action. Responding to these concerns, the United States Congress, after
over twenty-five years of debate, passed the Employee Polygraph Protection
Act of 1988.5 The Act attempts to resolve many of the conflicts which
surround polygraphs by banning the machine's use except in narrow cases
where such use is deemed justified.
This Article will analyze the Act and its likely effects. Part I details
the history of the polygraph machine, showing how the battle lines have
1. Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 2001-2009
(1988) [hereinafter the Act].
2. The polygraph is indispensable in protecting the customers, employees,
inventories, and assets of American business and industry ... and they ... are
entitled to access to the polygraph. Polygraphs in the Workplace: Hearings before
the Comm. on Labor and Human Resources, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. 46 (1987)
[hereinafter Hearings 1987] (testimony of William J. Scheve, Jr., Pres., American
Polygraph Ass'n).
3. If the right to privacy means anything at all in our society, it means
that people are entitled to have thoughts, hopes, desires, and dreams that are
beyond the grasping reach of a bureaucrat, an employer, or an electronic technician.
Hearings on the Use of Polygraphs and Similar Devices by Federal Agencies Before
the Subcomm. on Foreign Operations and Government Information, of the House
Comm. on Government Operations, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 784 (1974) (statement of
Sen. Sam Ervin) [hereinafter Polygraph Hearings 19741 (quoted in Gardner, Wire-
tapping the Mind: A Call to Regulate Truth Verification in Employment, 21 SAN
DiGo L. REv. 295, 295 (1984)). See generally Wise, Trial By Machine, 12 Hum.
Rrs., fall 1984, at 30.
4. See infra notes 16-29 and accompanying text.
5. Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 2001-2009
(1988).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/molr54&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Banning the Truth-Finder in Employment: The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988
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