Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Los Angeles Times staff writer Charles Piller reports. Excerpt: Polygraph testing for national security screening is little more than junk science, with results so inaccurate that they tend to be counterproductive, according to a long-awaited report released Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences. The nation’s premier scientific organization said such tests, a key counterespionage …
Dan Stober reports for the San Jose Mercury News. Excerpt: Lie-detector tests are useless in ferreting out spies and they have unfairly tainted innocent employees and job applicants, the nation’s leading researchers concluded in a report issued Tuesday. Prompted by the controversial case of Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of spying for China, the …
Washington Post staff writer Shankar Vedantam reports. Excerpt: Polygraph tests are ineffective in catching spies and have probably tarred thousands of innocent government employees and applicants with unwarranted suspicion, a top scientific panel has concluded. While lie detectors may have some utility in criminal investigations, where subjects can be tested on specific questions about a …
William J. Broad reports for the New York Times. Excerpt: In a report to the government, a panel of leading scientists said yesterday that polygraph testing was too flawed to use for security screening. The panel said lie-detector tests did a poor job of identifying spies or other national-security risks and were likely to produce …
The long-awaited report of the National Academy of Sciences’ Study to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph is scheduled for public release with a press conference to be held on Tuesday, 8 October 2002 at 11:00 A.M. Eastern time A webcast will be available at that time at: http://www.national-academies.org
Tennessean staff writer Laura Frank reports on allegations of sexual abuse brought by John Kline, a former student, against ex-priest Ron Dickman, a former Catholic school principal, in an article titled, “Ex-Ryan principal accused of molesting students; ex-priest Ron Dickman denies allegations.” In a sensationalistic stunt, the newspaper paid for a polygraph “test” for Mr. …
Tennesean staff writer Laura Frank reports. Excerpt: Last month, John Kline sat down in a chair at the Marriott Residence Inn in Brentwood with tubes and wires attaching his body to a polygraph machine. Consultant Kendall W. Shull, whose previous job was overseeing the Federal Bureau of Investigation polygraph unit at FBI headquarters in Washington, …
Phil Trexler of the Beacon Journal reports on the exoneration of Jimmy “Spunk” Willams, who was wrongfully convicted of raping a child, in an article titled “A wrong is officially righted.” Williams was convicted in part on the basis of his having failed a polygraph “test.” Excerpt: Further harming Williams’ case was an agreement between …
Washington Times staff writer Matthew Cella reports. Excerpt: Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey defended yesterday the results of a polygraph test administered to a man in prison for attacking two women in the same park where former government intern Chandra Levy’s remains were found, but he said police would like to ask the man …
Washington Post staff writers Sari Horwitz and Allan Lengel report in an article titled, “Levy Probe Concentrates On Rock Creek Attacker.” Excerpt: Detectives in the Chandra Levy murder case are focusing on a man convicted of assaulting two women jogging in Rock Creek Park last year — a suspect who was initially discounted after he …