Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
McClatchy investigative reporter Marisa Taylor reports that a list of 4,904 individuals whose names were derived from the customer records of Doug Williams and Chad Dixon, both of whom were targeted in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection-led criminal investigation called Operation Lie Busters, has been circulated to nearly 30 federal agencies including the CIA, …
On 6 May 2013, Greta van Susteren told U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that Fox News has information that CIA Director John Brennan has threatened Agency employees who might provide information to Congress regarding the 11 September 2012 raid on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya with polygraphs. Sen. Graham said he had heard the …
On 17 April 2013, Cuban intelligence officer Nicolás Alberto Sirgado Ros ((The Granma article provides “Ross” as his maternal family name, but this appears to be a clerical error.)) died at the age of 77 years according to a short notice published on 19 April by Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. …
McClatchy Newspapers investigative reporter Marisa Taylor has published a new series of well-researched articles on federal polygraph screening programs: Feds expand polygraph screening, often seeking intimate facts As polygraph screening flourishes, critics say oversight abandoned Federal polygraph programs are secret even to researchers U.S. polygraphers questioned accuracy of tests on detainees overseas Apart from numerous …
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has proposed polygraph screening for members of Congress who receive CIA briefings. Susan Crabtree reports for The Hill: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wants fellow lawmakers who receive classified CIA briefings to submit to polygraph tests. “We should have a very high standard for those who are briefed by CIA — to …
In a commentary addressing the case of retired CIA polygrapher John F. Sullivan, who is suing the CIA after failing a polygraph test for post-retirement contract employment, Congressional Quarterly National Security editor Jeff Stein, himself a veteran Army Intelligence case officer, proposes that CIA polygraphers — who “claim to be able to read the inner …
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 …
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.
In an e-mail message posted to LANL: The Corporate Story, an anonymous physics undergrad has written about a recent (October, 2006) CIA polygraph screening examination administered in connection with his application for a summer 2007 internship.
As mentioned by Washington Post staff writer Walter Pincus in a recent article, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence‘s recently released report, The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress (9.5 mb PDF), documents three intelligence sources who provided unreliable information but nonetheless passed DIA polygraph screening examinations. …