Polygraph

The Truth About the Lie Detector

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Andrew Stephen skewers polygraphy in this feature article published in the 16 October 2006 issue of the British periodical, the New Statesman:

The truth about the lie detector
Features
Andrew Stephen
Monday 16th October 2006

Critics claim that polygraph testing is as credible as the tooth fairy or witchcraft. Yet the US government still relies on it to identify terrorists and vet FBI agents. Andrew Stephen on America’s alarming love affair with junk science

Did ex-Representative Mark Foley have sex with teenage male congressional pages? Was Wen Ho Lee, an American nuclear scientist, guilty of espionage by passing nuclear secrets to the Chinese? Did John Mark Karr kill six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey? Was the British nanny Louise Woodward guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of the baby in her care? Was Aldrich Ames, a senior CIA official in charge of analysing Soviet intelligence, actually a Soviet double agent? Was Leandro Aragoncillo, an FBI analyst with top-secret clearance who was based in the White House under Vice-Presidents Gore and Cheney, also a spy? What about Dr Ignatz Theodor Griebl, a Nazi ringleader who fled New York on the SS Bremen in 1938?

I do not care about Foley, or Karr – who was innocent of JonBenet Ramsey’s murder, as it turned out – but all the other cases have a thread in common. They illustrate a century-old American fallacy which, at long last, is beginning to crumble: that polygraph (aka lie-detector) tests actually work. Evidence is mounting that, far from being the infallible tools of world-beating American investigative procedures that Hollywood would have us believe, they have actually been responsible for countless miscarriages of justice and have ruined lives.

Ames, for example, sailed through three polygraphs before the CIA discovered that he was actually one of the worst US traitors in history. Woodward “passed” one but was then convicted on other evidence. Lee both “failed” and “passed” polygraphs, resulting in him being imprisoned and then released before being awarded $1.65m in damages by the federal government. Aragoncillo “passed” a pre-employment FBI polygraph but pleaded guilty to espionage in May. Griebl “passed” an FBI polygraph test and promptly returned to Hitler’s side.

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More on New Energy Department Polygraph Policy

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Roger Snodgrass of the Los Alamos, New Mexico Monitor reports on the newly revised Department of Energy polygraph policy in an 11 October 2006 article titled “DOE Curbs Polygraphs”: The Department of Energy has published a new final rule for how it will use polygraph tests, claiming it will “significantly” reduce the numbers of people … Read more

Energy Department to Reduce Number of Employees Polygraphed

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In his Secrecy News newsletter & blog, Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Sciences publishes news and commentary regarding the Department of Energy’s decision, published in the Federal Register, to reduce the number of employees subjected to polygraph screening. See “Energy Department Will Significantly Reduce Polygraph Testing.” However, while the new polygraph policy may … Read more

Federal Polygraph Lawsuit Dismissed

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On 29 September 2006, United States District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted summary judgment (90 kb PDF) to the defendants in Croddy, et al. v. FBI et al. (Civil Action No. 00-651 [EGS]), dismissing the lawsuit which challenged the FBI’s and U.S. Secret Services’ pre-employment polygraph policies whereby applicants are denied employment based solely on … Read more

Justice Report: Standards Lacking on “Lie Detector” Tests

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Jeff Stein, Congressional Quarterly’s national security editor, reports on the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently released report, “Use of Polygraph Examinations in the Department of Justice” (1 mb PDF). Excerpt: The FBI and three other Justice Department components are conducting over 16,000 polygraph tests a year, even though they have no uniform standards for administering … Read more

U.S. Appeals Court Allows Testimony Regarding Polygraph Examination in U.S. v. Allard

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The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in its decision (43 kb PDF) in U.S. v. Linda Gay Allard (Case No. 05-20087) filed on 11 September 2006, upheld the admission of testimony regarding a polygraph examination administered by Special Agent William Wind of the United States Secret Service. After failing the polygraph, … Read more

Senate Report Disputes Press Accounts of CIA Polygraph of Iraqi Informant

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As mentioned by Washington Post staff writer Walter Pincus in a recent article, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence‘s recently released report, The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress (9.5 mb PDF), documents three intelligence sources who provided unreliable information but nonetheless passed DIA polygraph screening examinations. … Read more

Iraqi Fabricators Passed DIA Polygraph

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On Saturday, 9 September 2006, Washington Post staff writer Walter Pincus reported on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s recently released review of pre-war intelligence on Iraq in an article titled, “Report Details Errors Before War.” Excerpt: The long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee report released yesterday sheds new light on why U.S. intelligence agencies provided … Read more

American Polygraph Association Warns Against Reliance on Polygraph Results

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In its new Model Policy for Law Enforcement Pre-Employment Screening Examinations, in defiance of law enforcement agencies across the country that disqualify applicants based on nothing more than failure to “pass” a pre-employment polygraph examination, the American Polygraph Association (APA) holds, at para. 3.12.1.3, “The decision to hire, or not to hire an applicant, should … Read more

Of Rights, Risks, and Relocations

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Stockton Record staff writer Michael Fitzgerald comments on the U.S. Government’s denial of entry to the United States of two citizens for declining to submit to FBI interrogation and polygraph “testing.” Excerpt: I always wondered how white Americans could have stood by during World War II and allowed authorities to drag patriotic Japanese-Americans off to … Read more