Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
On Friday, 19 February 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the conclusion of its investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. The DOJ maintains that Dr. Bruce Edwards Ivans, who in 2002 passed a polygraph test regarding the anthrax attacks, was the sole perpetrator. In an investigative summary (640 kb PDF), the DOJ characterizes Ivins’ passing of …
A recently filed federal lawsuit documents how a veteran intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was accused of espionage and summarily fired after failing a series of polygraph “tests” (a procedure roundly rejected by scientists as being without scientific basis). The following is an excerpt from the statement of complaint (160 kb PDF) …
Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio interviewed AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke on Wednesday, 30 December 2009. The opening part of the interview concerns a non-polygraph related topic–a document published by The Times of London purportedly from an Iranian nuclear weapons research project. For more on this, see “Typography Casts Additional Doubt on Authenticity of Alleged Iranian …
Matt Fiore writes for the James Randi Educational Foundation’s Swift blog on how, despite popular perceptions, the pseudoscience of polygraphy has not truly been banished from American courtrooms.
In “Confessions of a Detected Liar,” Novelist and short story writer Will Shetterly relates the story of how he twice failed polygraph “tests” despite telling the truth. See also the comments left by polygraph operator Louis Rovner of Los Angeles attempting to rationalize away the polygraph’s error and mischaracterizing the findings of the National Academy …
British polygraph operator Bruce Burgess, who conducts lie detector tests for tawdry TV talk shows in the UK, has been caught attempting to lie his way out of a speeding ticket by falsely claiming that he was not the driver. According to the UK Press Association, Burgess has been given a suspended 24-week prison sentence, …
Jon Ostendorff reports for the Asheville Citizen-Times that North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Chris Smith, who supervises the Bureau’s polygraph unit, will not be criminally prosecuted for allegedly assaulting a suspect he had polygraphed. Although not specifically mentioned in the article, it would appear that no video recording was made of the …
Jon Ostendorff reports for the Asheville Citizen-Times that the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations’ senior polygraph examiner, Special Agent Chris Smith, who supervises all the Bureau’s polygraphers, was arrested and charged with assault in August 2009. Smith is currently free on $200,000 bond: SYLVA — The State Bureau of Investigation’s top polygraph agent is …
Polygraph operator Patrick T. Coffey of San Francisco has threatened AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke with a defamation lawsuit. In a letter (877 kb PDF) dated 4 September 2009 sent by U.S. mail and fax, Coffey’s attorney, Carleton L. Briggs, demands “a full and complete retraction” of the 20 August 2009 blog post, “Is Patrick T. …
Following up on his previous article on the San Francisco Police Department’s reliance on polygraph screening–despite broad scientific consensus that it is invalid–S.F. Weekly reporter Matt Smith takes an in-depth look at the man the SFPD has hired to polygraph applicants: Patrick T. Coffey, who received “$81,463 during the last fiscal year” for his services. …