Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
[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 …
Chicago Tribune staff reporter Jason George reports: A polygraph showdown `Detector of Deception’ vs. The Skeptical Professor By Jason George Tribune staff reporter March 15, 2007 Fred Hunter’s Hinsdale office sits far from the concrete courthouses where you imagine most polygraphers ply their trade. A Ferrari dealership is stationed around the corner, and a McDonalds …
Attorney Norm Pattis provides a review of professor Ken Alder’s new book, The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession on the blog, Crime & Federalism, recounting also his own experience with a CIA polygraph examiner in the 1980s.
Guest host Julie Burstein interviewed Northwestern University professor Ken Alder today about his new book, The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession for WNYC Radio’s Leonard Lopate Show. The interview may be downloaded as an MP3 audio file here.
William Grimes reviews Ken Alders’ newly released book, The Lie Detectors, (which has previously been mentioned on this blog): March 2, 2007 Books of The Times The Tangled Web of the Truth Machine By WILLIAM GRIMES Its inventor called it the cardio-pneumo-psychograph. To a clutch of coeds in Berkeley, Calif., in 1921, it was a …
In his Spytalk column dated 23 February 2007, Congressional Quarterly Homeland Security editor Jeff Stein addresses the question of whether interrogators administered a mind-altering drug to terrorism suspect José Padilla — a question the Department of Defense is refusing to answer — and discusses past governmental use and abuse of so-called “truth serums.”
On Thursday, 22 February 2007, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly spoke with retired FBI polygraph operator Jack Trimarco, whom he had hired to administer a polygraph examination to Frederic von Anhalt (who ultimately backed out) regarding the latter’s claim to have fathered the infant daughter of the late Anna Nicole Smith. At the time of …