Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Maggie Shepard reports for the Albuquerque Tribune: Anyone who wants to work in the Metropolitan Forensic Center evidence room will have to take a polygraph test, Albuquerque’s police chief said. With an investigation having determined that $58,000 went missing from the evidence lockup, the Albuquerque Police Department is trying to minimize the chance that anyone …
Jonathan Knight reports in the news section of the journal Nature, Vol. 428, p. 243. This short article is cited here in full: A national security expert says he was forced to resign last year because of his vocal opposition to the use of lie detectors at his nuclear weapons lab. Alan Zelicoff, formerly a …
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy comments in his Secrecy News e-mail publication: THE POLYGRAPH VS. NATIONAL SECURITY As a technology for counterintelligence security screening, the polygraph has been a spectacular failure. It is hard to recall the last time that polygraph screening uncovered an actual spy, and easy …
The Albuquerque Tribune comments on polygraph screening in this editorial, cited here in full: Truth tests are flawed, so cut ’em out, DOE First, give the Department of Energy some credit. Then yank its chain – until it altogether stops using polygraph tests to try to find spies in its nuclear weapons program. The oft-troubled …
Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff comments on polygraph screening in this Washington Post op-ed piece. Excerpt: In 1999, in the midst of alleged leaks of nuclear weapons information from his department’s national laboratories, the secretary of energy, Bill Richardson, set out to show that he could be “tough” on national security matters. He sought congressional funding …
The Associated Press reports in this story published in the Washington Times. Excerpt: The Energy Department decided yesterday to continue using polygraph tests to protect the nation’s nuclear-arms stockpile, despite a scientific study that found severe shortcomings in the tests’ accuracy. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the department must use the best tools available to …
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 …
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 …
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 …