Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Electrical engineer Byron Johns, “a polygraph victim who was constantly recruited and rejected from CIA, NSA, FBI, DOD contractors, and later resigned from the U.S. Foreign Service,” tells his story in a blog titled, The U.S. Intelligence Community Reject.
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 …
David Johnston and James Risen report for the New York Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON, June 2 — Federal investigators have begun administering polygraph examinations to civilian employees at the Pentagon to determine who may have disclosed highly classified intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi who authorities suspect turned the information over to Iran, government officials said …
In an article titled, “Investigators open Guantanamo probe,” the Associated Press reports that the commander of the Camp Delta detention center at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station is considering polygraph interrogations for personnel working at the facility. Excerpt: GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL STATION, Cuba – Two dozen investigators began searching for possible security breaches yesterday at …
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy comments in his Secrecy News e-mail publication: A COMPENDIUM OF DARPA PROGRAMS The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been battered and bruised by controversies surrounding several of its more questionable programs, including the defunct Terrorism Information Awareness. But the Agency has …