Tripp wire: how informers ended up behind every office potted plant.

• Author: Olson, Walter

Suppose Hillary Clinton's theory is right, and Zippergate really was a conspiracy to entrap and destroy her husband. Suppose some ax-grinding private group, with the intent of "testing" the president's suspected fondness for skirt chasing on the job, had sent in an attractive young woman to apply for a White House internship. Suppose they artfully devised a phony resume calculated to get her in to see him, complete with schools she hadn't attended and references from fictitious mentors. Suppose she told lie after lie at the interview to keep the conversation going and to see whether he'd show weakness. And then suppose - as a crowning touch - that the "tester" or her sponsors turned out to have a huge financial stake in the outcome, standing to cash in richly if a charge against him could be made to stick, and not otherwise.

Do you think Clinton loyalists would cry entrapment? Do you think they'd challenge the credibility of an accuser who'd shown her own willingness to lie boldly and repeatedly?

And yet the Clinton administration has lately offered its blessing to exactly this sort of bounty-hunting entrapment. The only difference: Such tactics are to be deployed against America's private employers rather than its own chief executive. In early December, just a few weeks before the Monica Lewinsky tapes hit the papers, the Clinton administration announced to loud applause from civil rights groups that it was going to throw the federal government's clout behind attempts to catch employers in purported acts of discrimination, including sexual harassment, by using so-called testers - paid informers who pose as job applicants.

How "testing" works is seen in a 1993 case from the president's own backyard. The head of a Washington, D.C., employment agency had been rumored to be making passes at female job applicants. To investigate, two women posed as job seekers and emerged with the same story: Yes, he'd gotten fresh with them. A court awarded the two $79,000 in compensation for the trauma of the experience - and to encourage more testing efforts.

Until now, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission entertained serious enough misgivings about such practices that it declined to assign any resources to promote their use. That changed in December, when the Clinton EEOC announced it had signed contracts with private groups in Washington and Chicago to support exploratory tester programs. To underline the Clintonites' enthusiasm for the...