Original reporting and commentary about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."
In an article titled “Unease at F.B.I. Intensifies as Patel Ousts Top Officials,” New York Times national security reporter Adam Goldman notes the increased use of polygraphs under FBI Director Kash Patel’s leadership to discourage employees from speaking with journalists. Excerpt: The F.B.I.’s increasingly pervasive use of the polygraph, or a lie-detector test, has only …
Marisa Taylor, Ted Hesson, Alexandra Alper, and Helen Coster report for Reuters in an article titled, “Trump officials are using polygraph tests to flush out even minor leaks.” Their reporting is based on “conversations with nine current and former federal government employees under the current administration who described a concerted effort to expose leaks of …
Veteran journalist Jeff Stein comments on the Trump Administration’s efforts to identify employees who are speaking with journalists without authorization in a paywalled Substack post titled, “Trump & Co’s Polygraph Pandemonium.” Excerpt: Decades ago, a wise and long serving Justice Department inspector general remarked to me that leak investigations were “a fool’s errand.” By that …
Podcaster Jack Hopkins has published on Substack a thoughtful and well-researched essay on polygraph screening titled, “Kash Patel’s Deception: Stop Believing Polygraphs-Science Unmasks the Real Lies.” Excerpt: Hypocrisy isn’t partisan. It’s universal. It’s a human being thing, not political. Wherever you find human beings…you’ll find examples of hypocrisy. And you know what else is universal? The bullshit in …
Ellen Nakashima and Hannah Natanson report for the Washington Post in an article titled, “FBI, national security agencies using polygraphs for ‘leak’ hunts.” Excerpt: National security agencies across the Trump administration are ramping up investigations into alleged leaks to the news media, in some cases using polygraph tests that current and former officials say are …
On 18 August 2020, AntiPolygraph.org reported that Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a former CIA officer and FBI contract linguist charged with espionage, had evidently beaten the polygraph to penetrate the FBI. It now seems clear that this was not the case. On Friday, 24 May 2024, Ma pled guilty to “Conspiracy to Gather and Communicate …
On Wednesday, 21 June 2023, U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough sentenced former FBI intelligence analyst Kendra D. Kingsbury, 50, of Kansas to 46 months in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Kingsbury is to begin serving her 46-month sentence no later than 21 July 2023. On 18 May 2021, Kingsbury …
On 25 April 2009, 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel of Chili, New York went missing while on holiday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The investigation of the case dragged on for years and garnered nationwide attention. In 2016, Tequan L. Brown, a jailhouse informant, implicated Timothy Da’Shaun Taylor in Brittanee Drexel’s disappearance, claiming that Drexel “was gang …
On Thursday, 13 August 2020, FBI Special Agent Chris Jensen filed under seal a criminal complaint against Alexander Yuk Ching Ma of Honolulu, Hawaii, charging him with “Conspiracy to Gather and Communicate National Defense Information of the United States to a Foreign Nation.” On Monday, 17 August 2020, the complaint was unsealed. In an accompanying …
The FBI’s first documented use of the polygraph in an espionage investigation came in 1938 in connection with a Nazi German spy ring operating in the United States. The most important suspect interrogated with the polygraph was Dr. Ignatz Theodor Griebl, a medical officer in the U.S. army reserve who is believed to have been …