Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Rich Chang reports for the Taipei Times. Excerpt: All intelligence officials will be subjected to polygraph tests in future in a bid to root out spies, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced yesterday. Legislators said they support the ministry’s policy, but that they hoped the ministry would take human rights into consideration when implementing …
Eric Hand reports for the Saint Louis Post Dispatch: The urban legend goes like this: Police wire the gullible crook up to a copy machine, put a colander on his head and say the contraption is a lie detector. Intimidated, the crook confesses. Police say the latest lie-detecting gizmo – one that looks for vocal …
Acting on his lawyer’s advice, John Mason, whose fiancee Jennifer Carol Wilbanks went missing on Tuesday, 26 April, agreed to submit to a police-administered polygraph examination on the condition that it 1) take place in a “neutral” location and 2) be videotaped. While Duluth police reportedly can agree to the first condition, Police Chief Randy …
Maggie Shepard reports for the Albuquerque Tribune: Anyone who wants to work in the Metropolitan Forensic Center evidence room will have to take a polygraph test, Albuquerque’s police chief said. With an investigation having determined that $58,000 went missing from the evidence lockup, the Albuquerque Police Department is trying to minimize the chance that anyone …
The Associated Press reports in a story published by MSNBC.com under the title, “FBI at first dismissed tip on Nichols explosives.” Excerpt: WASHINGTON – The FBI initially dismissed a tip that convicted bomber Terry Nichols had hidden explosives and they might be used for an attack this month coinciding with the anniversary of the Oklahoma …
Detroit Free Press staff writer Nate Trela reports. Excerpt: Polygraph evidence indicating that former Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga and two codefendants did not swap campaign contributions for prosecutorial favors will not be seen by a grand jury, nor will it be admissible if the case goes to trial. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said …
David Shepardson of the Detroit News reports. Excerpt: MOUNT CLEMENS — Federal prosecutors won’t have to tell grand jurors about the results of lie detector tests taken by former Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga and two others charged in a corruption case, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. Marlinga, state Sen. Jim Barcia, D-Bay City, and …
North County Times reporter Teri Figueroa reports on a lawsuit involving the National Institute of Truth Verification, which markets the “Computer Voice Stress Analyzer”: SAN DIEGO —- A federal judge ruled Monday that three teenagers initially accused of killing Stephanie Crowe can sue the makers of a voice analyzer test that police used to gauge …
WBIR Channel 10 (Knoxville, TN) television news reports: In October a Bradley County man said he donated a kidney to a Colorado man he met online. Ever since, people have been questioning his motives and accusing him of selling his kidney. Tuesday, he came to Knoxville to clear his name once and for all. Robert …
Susan Gaidos writes for New Scientist magazine about recent research at the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute. Excerpt: IT IS hard not to feel a little nervous. Andrew Ryan is trained to catch liars, and I am sitting in his lab at the US Department of Defence Polygraph Institute, preparing to lay a bald-faced whopper …