Monthly archives: March, 2008

U.S. Foists Lie Detectors on Iraqi Government

Although the U.S. National Academy of Sciences roundly rejected polygraph screening as pseudoscience in a landmark 2002 report, the U.S. Government continues to swear by it. Now the U.S. military in Iraq is soliciting bids to train Iraqi government agencies in the black art of lie detection, as Sharon Weinberger of Wired’s “Danger Blog” reports …

Bioethicist Jonathan Marks Raises Concerns About fMRI-based “Lie Detectors” and Coercive Interrogations

Penn State Live reports on concerns raised by Dr. Jonathan Marks about the premature adoption of fMRI-based lie detectors: High tech interrogations may promote abuse Monday, March 17, 2008 University Park, Pa. – There is evidence that brain imaging technology is being used to interrogate suspected terrorists despite concerns that it may not be reliable, …

Nebraska Polygrapher Charles O’Callaghan Named in Federal Lawsuit

Charles O’Callaghan, a polygraph examiner and Nebraska State Patrol investigator, has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska by Matthew Livers, from whom investigators coerced a false confession after an allegedly failed polygraph examination conducted by O’Callaghan, who is also a member …

Interview with Former CIA Polygraph Examiner John Sullivan

Sam Clay of the Fairfax County (Virginia) Public Library interviews John F. Sullivan, author of Gatekeeper: Memoirs of a CIA Polygraph Examiner, in a podcast released on Friday, 7 March 2008. The interview may be either listened to on-line or downloaded as an MP3 file. For discussion of Sullivan’s book and experience, see the message …