Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Los Angeles Times staff writer Charles Piller reports. Excerpt: The demand to cast an ever-wider net of security across the country has created a rush to embrace technologies that have demonstrated a sometimes staggering propensity for snaring the innocent. Since last year’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, hijackers, spies and …
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette staff writer Michael A. Fuoco reports. Excerpt: To tell the truth, polygraph examiners for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County police didn’t blink an eye last week when a National Research Council study found that lie detector tests administered annually to tens of thousands of federal employees hadn’t uncovered a single spy. But the local …
Liz Clarke reports on polygraphy for the Sunday Tribune. Excerpt: South Africa’s billion-rand security and insurance industries, as well as police and investigative services, could be forced to rethink lie-detecting strategies following an international probe into the reliability of polygraph testing. The polygraph, used extensively in South Africa to uncover criminal and fraudulent activities, was …
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy discusses the National Academy of Science’s polygraph report in his Secrecy News e-mail publication: NATIONAL ACADEMY ON POLYGRAPH TESTING The polygraph is a flawed instrument that is “intrinsically susceptible to producing erroneous results,” according to a new report of a National Academy of …
New York Times columnist William Safire comments on polygraphy, concluding: Because professional spies are trained to defeat the device; because pathological liars do not cause its needles to spike; and because our counterspies relax when a potential suspect “passes” — the system breeds the opposite of security. Here’s how I learned about that. In 1981 …
Sue Vorenberg reports for the Albuquerque Tribune. Excerpt: A new study saying polygraph tests are not accurate enough to screen government employees for potential security risks doesn’t surprise Al Zelicoff. But it doesn’t go far enough for him, either. Zelicoff, a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and a leading critic of polygraph tests, said …
Ian Hoffman reports for the Oakland Tribune. Excerpt: Polygraph tests used by nearly every federal national-security agency as a screening tool will flag loyal workers as security risks and free actual spies from suspicion, a panel of top scientists reported Tuesday. Gathered by the National Research Council, scientists said the theory and research supporting polygraphy …
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) released the following press release: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, October 8, 2002 Scientific Study Supports N.M. Senators’ Position that DOE Polygraph Policy Must be Changed WASHINGTON – In light of a new scientific study released today, U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici are calling for the Department of Energy (DOE) …
Tim McGlone reports for the Virginian-Pilot. Excerpt: NORFOLK — A former Smithfield Packing Co. saleswoman has sued the meat giant and two supervisors, claiming the company illegally tried to force her to take a lie-detector test after she filed a sexual harassment complaint. Julie M. Bannister, a married mother of three, also claims in court …
Chicago Tribune Washington correspondent Michael Kilian reports. Excerpt: WASHINGTON –The National Academy of Sciences declared Tuesday that polygraph examinations are dangerously unreliable and the federal government should cease depending on them to screen for security risks. The academy’s 18-month, federally-funded study found that the so-called lie detector not only incorrectly deems large numbers of people …