Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
While there is broad agreement amongst scientists that polygraph “testing” has no scientific basis, and the National Academy of Sciences has recently confirmed that polygraph screening is completely invalid, there is no question that the polygraph can be useful for getting admissions from those who can still be convinced that the polygrapher can see their …
Greensboro, North Carolina News Record staff writer Eric Swensen reports in a 19 April article titled, “Council Says Yes to Polygraphs” that with a lone dissenting vote, the Greensboro City Council has voted to voluntary subject itself to lie detector testing in an effort to determine who amongst them leaked a police report to the …
Los Angeles Chief of Police William J. Bratton this week stated that 40% of LAPD applicants who are disqualified are eliminated because of the polygraph. Bratton spoke on the 17 April 2006 installment of 89.3 KPCC radio’s Patt Morrison show, which features a regular “Ask the Chief” session in which Chief Bratton addresses questions by …
Thumbs down to California Court of Appeal Associate Justice Franklin D. Elia, who yesterday suggested that Apple Computer, which is seeking access to e-mail archives that could help identify an employee believed to have leaked trade secrets, should have done due diligence by subjecting its employees to lie detector testing to find the leaker. Matthew …
On 11 April 2006, AntiPolygraph.org posted the U.S. federal government’s official polygraph handbook, formally titled the Federal Psychophysiological Detection of Deception Examiner Handbook (1mb PDF) dated 1 March 2004. A discussion of this document is available on the AntiPolygraph.org message board here. In addition, we also made available a Department of Defense Polygraph Institute instructional …
Congressional Quarterly national security editor Jeff Stein discusses a jihadist article on polygraph countermeasures recently discovered and translated by AntiPolygraph.org: Lying in Wait: Al Qaeda “knows that polygraphs are unreliable and has an idea of how to beat them,” says a former U.S. Army linguist. George W. Maschke, a translator fluent in Arabic and Farsi, …
Washington Post staff writer Michael Alison Chandler profiles Northern Virginia Pre-Employment and Polygraph Services. Excerpt: Light filters through the heavy morning clouds and into the cramped waiting room, shining on Lawrence J. Mangan as he shifts in his chair, waiting to be grilled. Just before 9 a.m., Darryl L. DeBow comes for him. They walk …
Tanya Giles reports for the Herald Sun: A RADICAL proposal to force paroled sex offenders to take regular lie detector tests to help stop them reoffending has been rejected. Police Minister Tim Holding said the Government was sceptical of the reliability of polygraphs as a scientific tool to gather evidence, and would not proceed with …
In an article titled, “President Called Felt a ‘Traitor’ in ’73,” William Neikirk and Mike Dorning report for the Chicago Tribune that White House tapes reveal that former President Richard M. Nixon wanted to force W. Mark Felt to take a lie detector “test.” Excerpt: WASHINGTON — Nearly 15 months before his 1974 resignation, President …
Former FBI agent Clint Van Zandt comments for MSNBC. Excerpt: … A polygraph does not really separate truth from lies; or the honest from the liar. It simply provides information concerning any change in physiological response in areas such as respiration, heartbeat and blood pressure, this while the person being tested undergoes questioning. As a …