Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
During a press conference convened yesterday to address allegations of sexual harassment, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain declared that he would “absolutely” be willing to take a lie detector test, though he quickly added, “but I’m not going to do that unless I have a good reason to do that.” Cain’s declaration came in response …
Dennis Engbarth reports for Inter Press Service on the case of Chiang Kuo-ching, a Taiwanese airman who was executed in 1997 for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl. Military investigators tortured a confession out of Chiang after he failed to pass a lie detector “test.” Since then, DNA evidence and a palm-print have incriminated a …
Lawyers for Troy Davis, who faces execution by lethal injection at 19:00 hours Eastern time today for the 1991 slaying of an off-duty Savannah police officer, are seeking a polygraph test in a bid to persuade the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay the execution. The Davis case has been the subject of much …
In his latest article, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Daniel Rubin documents the plight of Greg Thomas, an investigator for the city court system who recently failed a Philadelphia Police Department pre-employment polygraph despite, he insists, having told the truth. Rubin notes that since reinstating polygraph screening this year (it had been discontinued in 2002), the Philadelphia …
Skeptic Kyle Hill, a graduate student at Marquette University who maintains the blog Science-Based Life, takes a look at the evidence for polygraphy in “The Polygraph Test: Can Science Tell if You Are Lying?” He compares the claims made by polygraph advocates such as the American Polygraph Association with the findings of the Congressional Office of …
As the American Polygraph Association holds its annual seminar in Austin, Texas this week, one of the topics on the agenda is a program run by a consortium of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies called “Polygraph Law Enforcement Accreditation” (PLEA). Participating agencies include the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the Defense Criminal Investigative …
Guardian reporter David Hopps reports in a story published by the Sydney Morning Herald that former Australia cricket team captain Steve Waugh is advocating the use of lie detectors in an attempt to root out corruption in the scandal-plagued sport. Excerpt: ANDREW Strauss and Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be encouraged to help stamp out corruption …
Casey Grove reports for the Anchorage Daily News that an Anchorage Police Department officer who joined the force under someone else’s name passed a pre-employment polygraph examination. The officer has been indicted for passport fraud. Federal officials allege that the patrolman, who was hired under the name Rafael Espinoza, is actually Rafael Mora-Lopez, a Mexican …
The April 2011 edition of the UK edition of Wired magazine features an article by Mark Russell titled, “How to Beat a Polygraph Test.” Russell interviewed AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke for this column. For further reading on how polygraph “tests” can be beaten, see AntiPolygraph.org’s free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.
WTFX Fox 29 Philadelphia reports that beginning this spring, Philadelphia Police Department applicants will be subjected to polygraph screening: In the past two years we’ve seen a lot of Philadelphia police officers fired and criminally charged for cases of theft, assault, and drug dealer shake-downs. So now, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey is turning to an …