Document Forgery

Document Forgery

Information can serve as evidence in a forensic investigation. Paperwork, computer files, notes, and more can help piece together the incident under study. However, it is not always guaranteed that the information is genuine. Identifying a deliberately altered document or identifying the manufacture of a fictitious, but convincingly real, document or file is a challenge for the forensic investigator.

Forensic scientists examine paper manufacturers' marks and, if necessary, use radiocarbon dating techniques to verify the age of a document. Handwriting and linguistic style analysis can help determine the document's author. Forgery specialists also make use of ultraviolet lighting and spectography equipment to determine whether a document contains evidence of tampering through erasure or added characters. Inks and dyes are examined through chemistry, and paper fibers are examined microscopically in order to validate or determine their source. When criminals create elaborate forgeries, such as counterfeit currency, sophisticated computerized printers are often used, and examining their encrypted computer files and printer cartridges can help determine the source of the forgery. Evidence from criminal cases of suspected forgery are probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Questioned Documents Unit; the United States Secret Service investigates counterfeit currency.

On September 8, 2004, CBS News anchor Dan Rather aired a news report questioning the service record of President George Bush in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Several weeks later, when the authenticity of one of the key documents used by CBS News was called into question, Rather publicly apologized. CBS News has since been criticized for failing to follow basic journalistic principles; in essence by failing to properly conduct a forensic investigation.

The CBS debacle is one of literally hundreds of examples of forged documents passing scrutiny as the authentic item. On September 17, 1980, White House press spokesman Jody Powell announced that an unidentified group had sought to sow racial discord by circulating a forged Presidential Review Memorandum on Africa that suggested a racist policy on the part of the United States. The first surfacing of the forgery appears to have been in the San Francisco newspaper, Sun Reporter (September 18, 1980). The Sun Reporter's political editor, Edith Austin, claims in that issue of the paper to have received the document from an "African official on her recent visit on the continent." The forgery was replayed by the Soviet news agency TASS on September 18, 1980, and distributed worldwide.

Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick was the target of more than one Soviet forgery. On February 6, 1983, the pro-Soviet Indian weekly, Link published the text of a supposed speech by U.N. Ambassador Kirkpatrick outlining a plan for the Balkanization of India. The speech was never given, but this forgery was replayed many times by Soviet-controlled propaganda outlets. Its most recent appearance was in the book, Devil and His Dart, published in 1986. The author, Kunhanandan Nair, was the European correspondent of Blitz, another pro-Soviet publication.

On November 5, 1982, the British magazine, New Statesman published a photostat of a letter supposedly from a South African official to Kirkpatrick. He was allegedly sending her a birthday gift. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. wrote the magazine on November 19, branding the letter a forgery. The New Statesman countered this by printing another photostat of the forgery with entirely different spacing between the lines. The magazine claimed that the letter was authentic and that they had received it from a source in the U.S. Department of State. A comparison of this forgery with a letter sent by the South African official to a number of U.S. journalists announcing his appointment as Information Counsellor at the embassy revealed that this letter was the exemplar. The real letter had been typed on a computer. The forgery based on it was typed on a typewriter and contained a number of misspellings.

In a particularly bizarre incident, two leaflets were mailed to African and Asian participants in the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, which were boycotted by the Soviets. Signed by the Ku Klux Klan, they threatened the lives of the athletes. These leaflets later proved to be Soviet forgeries, written in poor English. When the U.S. government exposed them and pointed out that there is no organization in the United States called simply the Ku Klux Klan (the organizations bear individual names like White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan or Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan), TASS, the Soviet official news agency, responded on July 12, 1984, by claiming that the leaflets were signed "the Invisible Empire, The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan." TASS attempted unsuccessfully to correct the error on the leaflets made by the KGB. The forgeries were intended to preoccupy African-American and Asian-American athletes with intimidation, and negatively affect their performance.

In the 1980s, before the downfall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991, President Ronald Reagan's signature appeared on a number of forgeries. The last to appear was in May 1987. It was a supposed memorandum to the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Director of the CIA. In this forgery, which bore the date March 10, 1983, the President was supposedly ordering the establishment of a U.S. military force called the "Permanent Peace Forces" to intervene in Latin America. This forgery received wide circulation in Latin America and was designed to inflame nationalist and anti-American feelings.

These and other examples serve to illustrate how effective a forgery can be. While a typical forensic investigation would likely not have such political ramifications, a forgery could undermine a legal case or lead the investigation in a wrong direction.

see also Art forgery; Crime scene investigation.