Liberman reportedly backs bill to subject security cabinet to polygraph

A proposed bill to have security cabinet members take an annual lie detector test in an effort to stamp out persistent leaks from meetings has the blessing of Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, the Hebrew media Ynet website reported Tuesday.

The bill is being proposed by MK Robert Ilatov from Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party and comes despite a recent attorney general’s office ruling that said that public servants can’t be compelled to undergo polygraph testing.

Leaks from ministers and others are a regular part of the Israeli media landscape as politicians jockey to steer the narrative on various issues.

The preamble to the bill states that it “is intended to provide tools to deal with the leaking of information, spying, and exposure of state secrets that can damage the national security of Israel.”

“Members of the ministerial committee for national security are responsible for the security of classified information, the revelation of which to foreign bodies could harm the army and the security services, and in accordance with the level of sensitivity, the security of the country,” the bill notes.

Ilatov told Ynet that “security cabinet debates cannot be a tool for political leverage.” Such leaks, he added, endanger the security of Israeli residents.

The envisioned law would see ministers quizzed about their trustworthiness in keeping details from meetings to themselves.

Last week Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber sent a letter to all ministry legal advisers clarifying where the office stands on the use of polygraphs.

Zilber wrote that a polygraph is test “involves a substantial violation of basic rights” to privacy, and even can be a violation of human dignity.

The letter noted that use of a polygraph is only permitted for state authorities when it is specifically authorized by law. Currently, the letter noted, that permission is only granted when there is a need to “determine the security suitability of a person for a job or position that is classified as a security classification.”

Nonetheless, a lie detector can also be used within the framework of an ongoing criminal or disciplinary process or another probe to refute or verity a concrete suspicion, Zilber wrote, referring to employees in general.

In February, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff Yoav Horowitz threatened to submit ministers to lie detector tests after a series of leaks from top-level meetings ahead of Netanyahu’s summit with US President Donald Trump in Washington

Netanyahu had convened the security cabinet, a forum of the most senior ministers, for a four-hour discussion in a bid to formulate policy on Iran, Syria and the Palestinians.

Several news outlets published leaked comments from the meeting minutes after it concluded, including reports that Netanyahu said he would seek to avoid a confrontation with the US president when they met the following day, especially given Trump’s personality.

In 2012, Netanyahu threatened to submit Israeli ministers and others to lie detector tests after details of a security cabinet meeting on Iran were leaked.

While widely seen by experts as unreliable, polygraphs are still used by law enforcement and others in Israel as part of investigations, including in the workplace.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.