Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
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 …
On Tuesday, 15 February 2011, the National Research Council made public its Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI’s Investigation of the Anthrax Letters, seriously undermining the Bureau’s case against U.S. Army researcher Bruce Ivins, whom the FBI maintains was the sole perpetrator of the anthrax mailings. Polygraphy was not among the scientific …
On 4 February 2011, the US Department of Defense published an amendment (PDF) to Directive 5210.48 (“Polygraph and Credibility Assessment Program”). The amended directive reflects the transfer of DoD polygraph program management from the defunct Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) to the director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC), a sub-unit of the …
Kudos to Charles Momy, the former head of the RCMP polygraph unit who now serves as president of the Canadian Police Association for his public opposition to polygraph screening. Momy’s criticism comes in the wake of a decision by the Quebec City municipal police to implement pre-employment polygraph screening. Marianne White reports for Postmedia News …