Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers says that he hates polygraphs but nonetheless considers them “a good tool for us.” Rogers made the remark during an appearance on Monday, 3 November 2014 at Stanford University in response to a question by professor of political science Scott Sagan, who asked what Rogers has done in terms of …
McClatchy reporter Marisa Taylor reports that a federal judge has found Metropolitan Interpreters and Translators liable for violation of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, which restricts the use of polygraphs and other purported “lie detectors” by non-governmental employers. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — At the behest of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a leading court translation service forced …
The United States government is so worked up about polygraph countermeasures that it launched an ongoing criminal investigation dubbed Operation Lie Busters targeting individuals who teach others how to pass or beat polygraph examinations. An Indiana electrician named Chad Dixon who taught people how to pass the polygraph as a side job was sentenced to …
Coming on the heels of an accusation that a senior official at the National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA) facilitated the transfer of classified information to the government of Singapore via the Lafayette Instrument Company, AntiPolygraph.org has received information that NCCA has provided polygraph countermeasure documentation to a representative of Stoelting Co., another polygraph-manufacturing company. …
A 2013 presentation by the National Center for Credibility Assessment documents that the federal polygraph school is working on a computer software project intended to automate the detection of polygraph countermeasures. It appears that the software does not employ a new approach to countermeasure detection, but rather seeks to “[v]alidate the countermeasure detection features taught …
Georgia polygraph operator Ken Blackstone has pleaded guilty to a single count of perjury, a felony punishable by one to ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $1,000 under Georgia state law. Blackstone committed perjury by falsely claiming during a court hearing that another polygraph examiner, Charles Slupski, had reviewed the charts of …
Scott W. Carmichael, a recently retired counterintelligence investigator with the Defense Intelligence Agency, has accused Donald Krapohl, Special Assistant to the Chief, National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA) and longtime editor of the American Polygraph Association quarterly, Polygraph, of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. In an e-mail message to retired FBI polygraph examiner Robert …
On Monday, 9 June 2014, the Los Angeles Times reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection Assistant Commissioner James F. Tomsheck, who headed CBP’s Internal Affairs unit, “was removed from his post…amid criticism that he failed to investigate hundreds of allegations of abuse and use of force by armed border agents.” Tomsheck, himself a former …
McClatchy investigative reporter Marisa Taylor reports that the Drug Enforcement Agency has agreed to pay 14 contract translators $500,000 to settle a lawsuit brought under the 1988 Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA). While the EPPA includes exemptions that allow individuals under contract to the FBI, NSA, DIA, and CIA, among others, to be polygraphed, no such exemption …
Reason TV, in a report produced by Joshua Swain and published on 11 February 2014, spoke with McClatchy investigative reporter Marisa Taylor and Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy about recent efforts by the federal government to criminalize the teaching of methods for passing or beating polygraph examinations. Also …