Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Reuters health and science correspondent Maggie Fox reports. Excerpt: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lie detectors may work in some cases, but they are too flawed to use for general security screening and could let through skilled spies, an independent panel said on Tuesday. Not only do polygraphs cost many honest people a government job, but there …
Pittsburg Post-Gazette science editor Byron Spice reports. Excerpt: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Not polygraph examiners, at least not those charged with finding spies and other security risks within the ranks of federal employees, a new National Research Council report concludes. Lie detectors simply aren’t accurate enough to ferret out …
Los Angeles Times staff writer Charles Piller reports. Excerpt: Polygraph testing for national security screening is little more than junk science, with results so inaccurate that they tend to be counterproductive, according to a long-awaited report released Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences. The nation’s premier scientific organization said such tests, a key counterespionage …
Dan Stober reports for the San Jose Mercury News. Excerpt: Lie-detector tests are useless in ferreting out spies and they have unfairly tainted innocent employees and job applicants, the nation’s leading researchers concluded in a report issued Tuesday. Prompted by the controversial case of Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of spying for China, the …
Washington Post staff writer Shankar Vedantam reports. Excerpt: Polygraph tests are ineffective in catching spies and have probably tarred thousands of innocent government employees and applicants with unwarranted suspicion, a top scientific panel has concluded. While lie detectors may have some utility in criminal investigations, where subjects can be tested on specific questions about a …
William J. Broad reports for the New York Times. Excerpt: In a report to the government, a panel of leading scientists said yesterday that polygraph testing was too flawed to use for security screening. The panel said lie-detector tests did a poor job of identifying spies or other national-security risks and were likely to produce …
The long-awaited report of the National Academy of Sciences’ Study to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph is scheduled for public release with a press conference to be held on Tuesday, 8 October 2002 at 11:00 A.M. Eastern time A webcast will be available at that time at: http://www.national-academies.org
Tennessean staff writer Laura Frank reports on allegations of sexual abuse brought by John Kline, a former student, against ex-priest Ron Dickman, a former Catholic school principal, in an article titled, “Ex-Ryan principal accused of molesting students; ex-priest Ron Dickman denies allegations.” In a sensationalistic stunt, the newspaper paid for a polygraph “test” for Mr. …
Tennesean staff writer Laura Frank reports. Excerpt: Last month, John Kline sat down in a chair at the Marriott Residence Inn in Brentwood with tubes and wires attaching his body to a polygraph machine. Consultant Kendall W. Shull, whose previous job was overseeing the Federal Bureau of Investigation polygraph unit at FBI headquarters in Washington, …
Phil Trexler of the Beacon Journal reports on the exoneration of Jimmy “Spunk” Willams, who was wrongfully convicted of raping a child, in an article titled “A wrong is officially righted.” Williams was convicted in part on the basis of his having failed a polygraph “test.” Excerpt: Further harming Williams’ case was an agreement between …