Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
In an article titled, “Long arm of the law reaches out for help,” San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer Shanna McCord reports on the SDPD pre-employment polygraph failure rate. Excerpt: And then there’s a lie detector test, which weeds out a large number of applicants. “Number one for us is honesty,” said Stacee Botsford, a recruiter …
Tamara Race reports for the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Massachusetts. Excerpt: PLYMOUTH – A police officer is seeking criminal charges against Police Chief Robert Pomeroy and Town Manager Eleanor Beth, saying they illegally forced him to take a lie detector test or lose his job. Police officer Kevin Furtado was placed on paid leave in …
Peter Smith reports for the Calgary Sun. Excerpt: All potential firefighter recruits in Calgary in future must take a lie detector test to prove their credentials are genuine before they can join the department. Following a practice carried out by several fire departments in the U.S., Calgary will introduce the polygraph as the first specialized …
John Steinbachs reports for the Ottawa Sun. Excerpt: Every year, thousands of hopeful RCMP recruits face a battery of tests and background checks in their quest to wear the red serge. Now, the federal police force is considering using lie detectors to make sure recruits have the integrity to be a Mountie. Internal proposals to …
Oakland Tribune staff writer Ian Hoffman reports. Excerpt: Hundreds of nuclear weapons scientists and intelligence analysts will still be strapped to the polygraph machine for the time being, despite a recent report concluding that polygraphs miss spies and tar the innocent as security risks. The U.S. Energy Department is racing to change its routine polygraph …
New York Times correspondent Benjamin Weiser reports. Excerpt: Release to the public of a report due this week on how the F.B.I. obtained a confession from an innocent Egyptian student who was detained in connection with the attack on the World Trade Center could be delayed as a result of an escalating dispute between prosecutors …
Darren Goodsir, Matthew Moore and Tom Allard report for the Sydney Morning Herald. Excerpt: Indonesian police have conducted lie-detector tests on three Indonesian men being treated as “possible suspects” in the Bali bombing case. In interviews with the Herald yesterday, Indonesian experts attached to the police scientific headquarters in Denpasar, PusLab For, confirmed they had …
In a puff piece on Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) titled “Shelby’s doubts drove inquiry”, St. Petersburg Times staff writer Mary Jacoby notes that it was Senator Shelby who was behind the sacking of L. Britt Snider as head of the joint congressional inquiry into the intelligence failings surrounding the events of 11 September 2001. Snider …
Julian Coman reports for The Telegraph of London. Excerpt: One of America’s most famous detection devices may be consigned to the scrapheap after being used in thousands of trials and making countless appearances in Hollywood films. The lie-detector, or polygraph test, is routinely used by United States police forces, the FBI, the Pentagon and other …
Texas A&M sophomore Melissa Fried comments on polygraphy in this opinion article. Excerpt: The U.S. Defense and Intelligence communities have taken a beating during the past few months due to their inconstant state of efficiency – sometimes they know what they are doing, sometimes they do not. Regardless of the criticism, the American public still …