Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Hugo Lowell reports for the Guardian in a 9 May 2025 article titled, “White House to take choice of Pentagon chief of staff out of Hegseth’s hands” that the White House Office of Presidential Personnel has forbidden Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth from making Ricky Buria, whom Hegseth designated in April 2025 as a “Senior …
Nancy A. Youssef, Alexander Ward, and Vera Bergengruen report for the Wall Street Journal in a 24 April 2025 article titled, “Polygraph Threats, Leaks and Infighting: The Chaos Inside Hegseth’s Pentagon.” Excerpt: WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was rattled. Word had leaked that he was planning a classified briefing for Elon Musk on China, a revelation …
Michael Evans of the London Times reports in a paywalled article titled “Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon descends into fear, loathing and lie detectors.” Excerpt: Pentagon officials are living “in fear” of being forced to take polygraph tests to prove they are not leaking sensitive information to the media. An email warning of the potential use of …
Following a Thursday, 20 March 2025 report by the New York Times that “[t]he Pentagon was scheduled on Friday to brief Elon Musk on the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joseph R. “Joe” Kasper on Friday, 21 March signed a …
On 4 February 2011, the US Department of Defense published an amendment (PDF) to Directive 5210.48 (“Polygraph and Credibility Assessment Program”). The amended directive reflects the transfer of DoD polygraph program management from the defunct Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) to the director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC), a sub-unit of the …
A report about Computer Voice Stress Analysis (CVSA) on the website of Central Ohio television station WBNS (“Tool Catches Fibbing Suspects”) concludes by mentioning that the Special Forces are using CVSA to interrogate suspected terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. The entire report is reproduced here: More and more police departments in Ohio are turning to …
Joel Mowbray writes for the Washington Times. Excerpt: To a number of civilian employees at the Pentagon, a New York Times story on June 3 came as quite a jolt: Some of them apparently already had been polygraphed as part of an investigation into Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi. But it never happened. Nearly …
The Defense Department’s Technical Support Working Group made the following announcement on 1 June 2004: June 1, 2004 – The Investigative Support and Forensics (IS&F) subgroup of TSWG began a DHS-funded task for the development of a polygraphy chair and associated software. Atlas will develop a standoff measurement system that can unobtrusively gather physiological and/or …
Oded Hermoni reports for Ha’aretz: The American government is funding the development of new technology for a polygraph machine that is capable of identifying whether a person is telling the truth, without physically attaching him to the equipment. There are also plans to develop a mat of sensors that will be used in airports to …
In their “Inside the Ring” column, Washington Times reporters Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough question a recent New York Times report that the FBI has begun polygraphing DoD civilians regarding an alleged leak of classified information: Who’s lying? The breathless headline in a major daily newspaper read yesterday, “Polygraph Testing Starts at Pentagon in Chalabi …