Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Bridget Murphy reports for the Jacksonville, Florida Times-Union in “Lie-detector tests don’t help find truth.” Excerpt: After 28 lie-detector tests, 50 interviews and tests using DNA, fingerprints and palm prints, investigators don’t know who put two hangman’s nooses on the gear of two black Jacksonville firefighters. But a Sheriff’s Office report released Tuesday on the …
Long Island, New York Newsday staff writer Chau Lam reports in “Bill eyes polygraphs for some jobs”: Lie-detector tests could be required of applicants for civilian jobs in Suffolk law enforcement agencies under a proposal now before the county legislature. Sponsored by Legis. Daniel Losquadro (R-Shoreham), the bill would authorize the police department, the sheriff’s …
No Lie MRI, which has begun marketing fMRI-based lie detection services, has suggested to prospective clients that its lie detection tests are not governed by the Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) of 1988: Corporations U.S. law prohibits truth verification/lie detection testing for employees that is based on measuring the autonomic nervous system (e.g. polygraph testing). …
Washington Post staff writer David Brown reports. Excerpt: If there is a “truth serum” that works, it is a secret that nobody is giving up. The debate earlier this year on interrogation techniques in the war on terrorism raised anew a question that goes back at least 2,000 years. Is there something you can give …
Former Naval Investigative Service agent Ron Olive, to whom convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard provided a confession, writes about the circumstances leading up to the confession in an article titled, “Detecting a lie: Agent recalls role in catching a spy” that was published 18 November 2006 by the Arizona Republic: I was the assistant special …
The Associated Press reports in “Convicted sex offenders will take polygraph tests” published 18 November 2006 by the Anchorage Daily News: FAIRBANKS — Convicted sex offenders in Fairbanks will have to take lie detector tests as a term of their parole or probation. Plans are under way to expand a polygraph test pilot program started …
On Friday, 10 November 2006, National Public Radio’s On the Media program included a segment on lie detectors titled “Something Like Truth” during which host Brooke Gladstone spoke with UCLA law professor Jennifer L. Mnookin. The 8-minute, 41-second segment may be downloaded as a 3.5 mb MP3 file here.
Alan P. Zelicoff, M.D., speaks plainly in this op-ed piece published today in the Albuquerque Tribune: Politicians will create uninformed, dangerous policies unless scientists are willing to talk truth to power, despite possible risks to their funding Alan Zelicoff Tuesday, November 14, 2006 Somewhere in the bowels of the Department of Energy lies the answer …
BBC News reports on a call by the charity, Barnardo’s, for lie detector testing and GPS tracking of pedophiles in the UK. Excerpt: Children’s charity Barnardo’s is calling on the government to use lie detector tests and satellite tracking to monitor sex offenders. It claims pilot studies in the UK have shown promising results. One …
Ted Haggard, the recently resigned and disgraced pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, reportedly faces polygraphic interrogation by a triumvirate of inquisitors. In “Dobson, 2 ministers to offer counsel,” Carol McGraw of the Colorado Springs Gazette reports: The three men chosen to oversee the Rev. Ted Haggard’s spiritual restoration are well-known in …