Irondale Mayor Allen Ramsey is ordering all City Hall employees to undergo a polygraph test to determine who may have leaked confidential police information.

Ramsey said Tuesday night he will submit to the testing and he is also asking members of the Irondale City Council to do the same.

"In leaking confidential police information, those persons are guilty of impeding an active ongoing investigation," Ramsey said.

According to Ramsey, someone made allegations of misconduct in the Irondale Police Department and leaked confidential information to radio talk show hosts Russ and Dee Fine late last week.

The Jefferson County District Attorney's Office is now investigating claims of wrongdoing in the Irondale Police Department.

To: Birmingham News Editor <epage@bhamnews.com>
From: "George W. Maschke" <maschke@antipolygraph.org>
Subject: Polygraph Testing at City Hall
Cc: Mayor@cityofirondale.org, SimpsonBerry@cityofirondale.org, RayJackson@cityofirondale.org, SueMiles@cityofirondale.org, PeteCrye@cityofirondale.org, RonaldBagwell@cityofirondale.org, JackBoone@cityofirondale.org, MichaelMoers@cityofirondale.org, GregMorris@cityofirondale.org, gcox@cityofirondale.org, faye@cityofirondale.org, news@cityofirondale.org, Administrative_Office@12059560950.iddd.tpc.int
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Dear Birmingham News Editor:

Irondale Mayor Allen Ramsey's decision to order a polygraph dragnet at city hall is a mistake (Mayor orders City Hall polygraphs to trace leaks, July 2). Too few people understand how polygraph testing actually works. The dirty little secret behind the "test" is that it actually depends on trickery, not science. The polygrapher, while admonishing the examinee to answer all questions truthfully, secretly assumes that denials in response to certain questions -- called "control" questions -- will be less than truthful.

One commonly used control question is, "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" The polygrapher steers the examinee into a denial by suggesting, for example, that anyone who would do so is the same kind of person who would leak confidential information and then lie about it. But secretly, it is assumed that everyone has lied to get out of trouble.

The polygrapher scores the test by comparing physiological reactions to these probable-lie control questions with reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you leak that information?" If the former reactions are greater, the examinee passes; if the latter are greater, he fails. This simplistic methodology has no grounding in the scientific method.

Polygraph tests also include irrelevant questions like "Is today Wednesday?" The polygrapher falsely explains to the examinee that such questions provide a "baseline for truth," but in reality, they are not scored at all and merely serve as buffers between sets of relevant and control questions.

Investigators value the polygraph because naive and gullible examinees sometimes make disqualifying admissions. But many truthful persons fail the "test." Perversely, the test is biased against the truthful because the more honestly one answers the control questions, and as a consequence feels less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail.

Conversely, liars can beat the test by covertly augmenting their physiological reactions to the control questions. This can be done by constricting the anal sphincter muscle, biting the side of the tongue, or merely thinking exciting thoughts. Although polygraphers frequently claim they can detect such countermeasures, no polygrapher has ever demonstrated any ability to do so, and peer-reviewed research indicates that they can't. More detailed information on polygraph countermeasures is freely available on the Internet at www.antipolygraph.org.

George W. Maschke
AntiPolygraph.org

The plan for lie-detector tests demanded by Ramsey have been abandoned, said Greg Morris, Irondale city attorney.