Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Despite a 2003 finding by the National Academy of Sciences that “[polygraph testing’s] accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies,” an internal memorandum to employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory posted on the blog, LANL: …
Historian Ken Alder discusses the nexus between America’s atomic weapons program and the lie detector in “America’s Two Gadgets: Of Bombs and Polygraphs,” Isis, 2007, 98:124-137.
In “DoD researches high-tech ways to find liars,” published on 28 April 2007 among in the Army Times, among other places, Associated Press reporter Susanne M. Schafer writes on current research at the Defense Academy for Credibility Research (DACA, the former Department of Defense Polygraph Institute): FORT JACKSON, S.C. — An eerie image of a …
On Tuesday, 10 April 2007, polygraph examiner Jack Trimarco was a guest on Los Angeles radio station KNX 1070’s “Money 101 with Bob McCormick” program. A half-hour, 27 mb MP3 podcast is available for download. Mr. Trimarco uttered a glaring falsehood about human physiology that stands in need of correction. About seven minutes into the …
History professor Ken Alder, author of The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession, was interviewed for episode 108 of Bat Segundo Show, an Internet podcast, which may be downloaded as a 30 mb MP3 file. A serious interview follows the (rather corny) comic introduction.
Following hard on the heels of NBC Dateline’s shameful use of the lie detector as a ratings gimmick, syndicated television news program Inside Edition will today feature a polygraph “test” of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, Frederic von Anhalt, regarding his claim that he might be the father of the late Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter, Dannielynn. …
[Updated Monday, 9 April 2007] In a journalistic nadir, NBC Dateline on Sunday, 8 April 2007 presented a story, “Diane Zamora: ‘I’m Not a Killer,’” prominently featuring the results of a polygraph “test” that Dateline arranged for Zamora, a former U.S. Naval Academy midshipman who is serving a life sentence for murder in a Texas …
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy in Government Project reports in his Secrecy News electronic newsletter and blog: A former polygrapher for the Central Intelligence Agency has filed a lawsuit (pdf) alleging that the Agency unlawfully retaliated against him for publishing a critical account of CIA polygraph programs. John Sullivan, author of …
Software engineer Bill Softky ponders the question in on-line British technology publication, The Register in his article, “Will There Ever Be a Real ‘Lie Detector?’” Softky begins by dispensing with the delusion that the polygraph can detect lies: Lie detectors figure prominently in the sauciest dramas, like espionage and murder, but they deeply polarize opinion. …
David Wallace-Wells, writing for Washington Monthly, reviews Ken Alder’s new book, The Lie Detectors in an article titled, “The Big Lie: How America became obsessed with the polygraph–even though it has never really worked”: In May 1922, a wealthy family of four was driving home to San Francisco from a day trip in the Santa …