Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
Jim Wilson writes for Popular Mechanics. Excerpt: Lie detectors have never been popular. Criminals, obviously, don’t like them. The courts want nothing to do with them, and refuse to admit polygraph results as evidence. Police have mixed feelings–depending upon whether they are giving the test or taking it. Although the billion-dollar polygraph industry administers an …
Roger Snodgrass of the Los Alamos Monitor reports. Excerpt: New Mexico’s senators teamed up on Monday to strike another blow to a controversial polygraph testing program in the nation’s weapons laboratories. Senate Bill 1261 [sic, correct 1276], cosponsored by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, would narrow the focus of Department of …
Steven Aftergood of the American Federation of Scientists’ Secrecy in Government Project writes in today’s edition of Secrecy News: NEW BILL WOULD LIMIT DOE POLYGRAPHS A bill introduced in the Senate yesterday by Sen. Pete Domenici and Sen. Jeff Bingaman would reduce the number of Department of Energy (DOE) employees and contractors who are subject …
Los Angeles Times staff writer Anna Gorman reports for the Ventura County edition about retired FBI polygrapher Jack Trimarco. Excerpt: Jack Trimarco makes a living off spotting lies. Lies that make hearts race and blood pressure rise. Lies that reveal the crimes of kidnappers, child molesters and murderers. The Ventura County polygraph expert also makes …
This Albuquerque Tribune editorial minces no words in its criticism of the Department of Energy’s polygraph screening program. Excerpt: “Deception” is a nasty, nine-letter word that preoccupies U.S. counterintelligence agents. Appropriately, they worry about the potential for moles and leaks of nuclear weapons secrets from the nation’s classified bulwarks, including Sandia and Los Alamos national …
Albuquerque Journal staff writer John Fleck reports. Excerpt: The Department of Energy has halted a controversial policy of asking medical questions of nuclear weapons scientists as part of its spy-hunting polygraph tests. Instead of asking medically related questions, the department’s new policy now places the burden on workers being polygraphed, requiring them to reveal before …
Albuquerque Tribune reporter Maria Cranor reports. Excerpt: An Albuquerque doctor and senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories is urging New Mexico doctors not to cooperate with a new federal polygraph policy that now provides for medical waivers. In a letter sent Thursday to the New Mexico Board of Medical Examiners, Dr. Alan Zelicoff wrote: “Physicians …
Steven Aftergood of the American Federation of Scientists’ Secrecy in Government Project writes in today’s edition of Secrecy News: DEALING WITH POLYGRAPH TESTING Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are organizing to defend their legal rights in the face of new Department of Energy polygraph testing requirements. The Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers (SPSE), …
Kathleen Koch reports for CNN. Excerpt: WASHINGTON (CNN) — The director of one of the nation’s nuclear weapons labs has told employees they don’t have to cooperate when asked medical questions by government polygraphers, CNN has learned. Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories, with headquarters near Albuquerque, New Mexico, have expressed concern that, before being given …
Sandia National Laboratories senior scientist Alan P. Zelicoff writes in a special to the Albuquerque Tribune. Excerpt: …DOE polygraphers claim that there are but four questions to the examination, all directly related to national security. This is a lie. In each and every polygraph, the subject will invariably be told something like this: “You’ve done …