Polygraph Links

Polygraph-related Sites and Pages

• American Polygraph Association. Back issues of the APA quarterly Polygraph and other APA publications may be ordered from this site.
   
• Federation of American Scientists Polygraph Resource Page. Provides government documents as well as commentary on polygraphy.
   
• Beijing Police College Polygraph Center. In Chinese.
   
• Israel Polygraph Examiner Association. In Hebrew. Limited English content.
   
• The James Madison Project. Dedicated to promoting government accountability and the reduction of secrecy, this site includes a "polygraph documents vault." The site's important links section also contains useful information on polygraph abuses.
   
• Polygraph Association of South Africa. In English.
   
• Polygraph for Screening. This web page maintained by Professor Charles R. Honts of Boise State University provides studies on polygraph screening in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format.
   
• The Polygraph Place. A website run by polygraphers for polygraphers. Includes a message board, but that board is censored. Posts that openly reject the validity of polygraphy are deleted.
   
• U.S. Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI). Located at the U.S. Army's Fort Jackson, South Carolina, DoDPI is responsible for the training of all federal polygraphers, including those from non-DoD agencies like the CIA, FBI, and U.S. Secret Service. DoDPI is also responsible for all federally-funded research of polygraphy. The DoDPI website provides little substantive information, however.
   

Polygraph Manufacturers

• Axciton Systems, Inc.
   
• Lafayette Instrument Co.
   
• Limestone Technologies
   
• PDD & Psychology Testing Research Center, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Content available in both Chinese and English)
   
• Stoelting Co.
   

Polygraph Articles

• American Psychological Association. "The Truth About Lie Detectors (aka Polygraph Tests)" (PsychologyMatters.org article):

  Lie detector tests have become a popular cultural icon - from crime dramas to comedies to advertisements - the picture of a polygraph pen wildly gyrating on a moving chart is readily recognized symbol. But, as psychologist Leonard Saxe, PhD, (1991) has argued, the idea that we can detect a person's veracity by monitoring psychophysiological changes is more myth than reality....

• British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. Position Paper. "The polygraph as a truth detector." 1984.

  The B.C. Civil Liberties Association believes that there is convincing evidence to suggest that the use of the polygraph is arbitrary, subjective, biased toward accusations of guilt and claims of very high validity are scientifically indefensible. However, even if one is not willing to be persuaded by evidence on these matters, one must admit, at the very least, that there is no scientific opinion whatsoever concerning the validity of polygraph testing. In fact, there is extremely wide divergence over the validity of the test.

• Faller, Kathleen Coulborn. "The Polygraph, Its Use in Cases of Alleged Sexual Abuse: An Exploratory Study" (74 kb PDF). Excerpt:

  Results: Polygraph findings were unrelated to other evidence of likelihood of sexual abuse, that is to the child's statements or demonstrations of sexual abuse, medical evidence, psychological symptoms, or indicators of sexual abuse from sources other than the child. When alleged offenders passed polygraphs, criminal prosecution was not sought. However, failing polygraphs was not predictive of criminal prosecution. Decisions by child protective services to substantiate or not were not consistently related to any indicators of possible sexual abuse. Decisions by professional evaluators about sexual abuse were best predicted by children's psychological symptoms.

• Fitzpatrick, Robert B. "Lie Detectors Belong in Museums, Not in Sexual Harassment Trials" (188 kb PDF file). From the conclusion:

  The use of polygraph results should not be permitted in civil trials. In this regard, even if both parties agree to stipulate as to the polygraph results, courts should not admit the results into evidence due to issues concerning inaccuracy and prejudicial effects. In particular, there is a tremendous potential for abuse in sexual harassment trials. Although the typical sexual harassment case may result in a swearing match between the alleged victim and the alleged harasser, the introduction of polygraph results as evidence would be an invitation to disaster for many plaintiffs. While at first blush plaintiffs' attorneys may salivate at the thought of putting a polygrapher on the stand to testify that the plaintiff is a truth teller, one can foresee that, given the imbalance of resources, defendants will trot out polygrahers, more often than plaintiffs.

• Furedy, John J. "The CQT Polygrapher's Dilemma: Logico-Ethical Considerations for Psychophysiological Practitioners and Researchers," International Journal of Psychophysiology, Vol. 15 (1993), pp. 263-67. Abstract:

  The so-called "control" question "test" (CQT) has been criticized on methodological and ethical grounds by psychophysiologists. The ethical analyses have focussed on the possibility that the CQT's interrogative features may elicit false confessions, but an empirical problem is that the rate of these false confessions is difficult to establish. In this conceptual note I raise a *logico-* ethical problem for the CQT, called The Polygrapher's Dilemma (PD). The two horns of PD are damage the innocent examinee classified as deceptive, and damage to those examinee's psychological well being who are classified as non-deceptive to the relevant questions, and who are not even debriefed concerning their feelings of unease about issues raised by the comparison, so-called "control" questions. Although there may be arguments about which of the PD's two horns are more serious, there is no doubt that both are, in an absolute sense, ethically negative. Nor is there an ethically justifiable third alternative available. It is also contended that not only practitioners but also researchers (who use the CQT in laboratory, "mock-crime" situations) are affected by PD. Finally, I note that PD exists only for the CQT procedure, and not for the more standardized and scientifically based Guilty Knowledge Technique.

• Furedy, John J. "Some elementary distinctions among, and comments concerning, the 'control' question 'test' (CQT) polygrapher's many problems: A reply to Honts, Kircher, and Raskin ," International Journal of Psychophysiology, Vol. 21 (1996), No. 2-3 (spring/summer). From the abstract:

  Although the title of Honts et al.'s paper suggests that it will be a reply to the specific, logico-ethical problem of the CQT polygraph (the Polygrapher's Dilemma), the text deals only tangentially with this logico-ethical problem, and engages, instead, in a diffuse discussion of related, but different, ethical, methodological, and empirical problems of the CQT polygraph. This paper seeks to restore some clarity to the discussion by reminding us of certain basic distinctions among logico-ethical, ethical, methodological, and empirical problems. In the light of these distinctions, the *relevant* literature, and the essential characteristics of the CQT (which continue to be obscured by the use of systematically misleading terminology), I stand by my claim that, on the ethico-logical grounds (i.e., the CQT Polygrapher's Dilemma formulated in my 1993 paper [1]), as well as ethical, methodological, and evidential grounds (which have been detailed elsewhere), the CQT should be abandoned as a serious method of *detecting* deception, no matter how useful it may be to practitioners as an interrogatory prop.

• Furedy, John J. "The North American Polygraph and Psychophysiology: Disinterested, Uninterested, and Interested Perspectives," International Journal of Psychophysiology, Vol. 21 (1996), No. 2-3 (spring/summer). Abstract:

  From both a scientific and an applied psychophysiological point of view, the related but different ideas of using physiological measures to differentiate and detect deception are of considerable potential interest. This paper's primary concern is with psychophysiological detection, and it is mainly focussed on the North American "Control" Question "Test" (CQT). The treatment is disinterested in the sense that there is an insistence on employing fundamental terms in a logically consistent way. Following a detailed description of the CQT, and an analysis of it and related psychophysiological deception procedures, it is suggested that, by and large, the North American research psychophysiological community has failed to measure up to the standards of disinterestedness with respect to the psychophysiological detection of deception. Instead it has adopted an _uninterested_ perspective, which has allowed the _interested_ community of professionals who employ the CQT to hood-wink both themselves and others (including the American Psychological Association) that the CQT is a controversial, but scientifically-based, test for detecting deception. As the most cognate organization, the international psychophysiological research community needs to take a more active and disinterested role in this salient purported application of psychophysiology--the detection of deception.

• Government Executive Magazine. "Agencies, employees spar over lie detector tests."11 September 2000. An unusually well-researched article on polygraph security screening.

  Within a few days of each other in June, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Attorney General Janet Reno had to respond to internal security breaches. Both were faced with the option of hooking their employees up to polygraph equipment that would measure their blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and sweat gland activity-and ostensibly would uncover guilt.

• Honts, Charles R., Kircher, John C., & Raskin, David C. "Polygrapher's Dilemma or Psychologist's Chimaera: A Reply to Furedy's Logico-ethical Considerations for Psychophysiological Practitioners and Researchers," International Journal of Psychophysiology, Vol. 20, pp. 199-207. Abstract:

  We respond to Furedy's (1993) article in this journal where he raised an issue he referred to as the "Polygrapher's Dilemma." Furedy claimed that the control question test, the most commonly applied psychophysiological detection of deception test, is inherently subjective and harmful to subjects in both the field and the laboratory. Fortunately, Furedy's arguments were based on inaccurate representations of the control question test and on flawed logic. To correct Furedy's misrepresentations, we present an accurate description of how the control question test is used and evaluated. We then examine the results of empirical research that address Furedy's concerns. Furedy's concerns are found to be lacking on almost all counts. Finally, we discuss the findings from several studies that Furedy failed to mention but are directly relevant to the issues he raised.

  (See also Furedy's reply to Honts, et. al.)
   

• McCarthy, Susan. "Passing the polygraph: Professional criminals are the ones most likely to beat the lie detector," Salon, 2 March 2000. But for a better explanation of how to pass a polygraph "test," see chapter four of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.
   
• McCarthy, Susan. "The Truth about the Polygraph," Salon, 2 March 2000. This is one of the few published articles that exposes the trickery on which polygraph "testing" depends. The author also discusses polygraph policy. The following is an excerpt:

  Why does the Department of Energy want to do polygraph testing if it's junk science? Is it so stupid it doesn't know that?

  It is not stupid, though some congresspeople may be.

  When the scientists at the nuclear labs went public with their protest against being given polygraphs, retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, in charge of the DOE's security, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the test is a powerful deterrent.

  Polygraphs don't have to work to be a deterrent. People just have to believe that they work and can reveal whether they have committed crimes. The DOE doesn't have to believe they work, either.

• Sheldon I. Cohen & Associates. "Use of the Polygraph in Security Clearance Determinations." Security Management Magazine, September, 1998.
   
• Stein, Jeff. "Does the CIA stereotype Jews as security risks?" Salon, June, 1998. Discusses especially the case of CIA lawyer Adam P. Ciralsky:

  A lawyer for the Central Intelligence Agency, suspended from duty under suspicion of unauthorized contact with Israel, is preparing an unprecedented suit challenging the validity of the spy agency's "lie detector" test, which he claims stereotypes Jews as security risks.

• Stein, Jeff. "Lies, damned lies and polygraphs: 'Tea leaves and witchcraft' are keeping hundreds of qualified, innocent people out of government jobs," Salon, April 1997.
   
• Stein, Jeff. "Spies and lies: Scientist Wen Ho Lee passed a polygraph test, but the feds want to depend more on them to detect espionage," Salon, 27 May 1999.
   
• Stone, LeRoy A. "Using the Polygraph to Detect Lying and Deception: The Hoax of the Century." Electronic Journal of Forensic Psychonomics, 2003. The author is a retired National Security Agency senior clinical psychologist. Excerpt:

  ...[W]hen I was employed by the Federal intelligence agency, I had considerable contact with many of that agency¹s polygraphers, many of whom became 'at-work' friends. With most of these associations, I usually was able to, at least once, ask whether they thought they might be able to obtain the results they were after, even without ever turning on the machine (i.e., the polygraph). Almost all, admitted that not only that they believed that any good polygrapher could be successful even with a machine that was never turned on, but that in some cases they had actually proven to themselves that one could successfully carry off such a charade. To me this could be considered that the polygraphers themselves were fully aware that what they were doing was interrogation and that the polygraph merely was a prop that could be used to encourage the subject individual to confess.

   

Legal Resources

• Americans for Effective Law Enforcement: Polygraph Exams. This page provides a list of legal cases upholding and rejecting mandatory polygraph "tests," as well as admissibility and other legal issues.
   
• DaubertOnTheWeb.com. The linked page on this website provides summaries of federal cases where rulings on polygraph admissibility were made.
   
• Henseler, Timothy B. "A Critical Look at the Admissibility of Polygraph Evidence in the Wake of Daubert: The Lie Detector Fails the Test." Published in Catholic University Law Review, Summer 1997.
   
• Polygraph Law Resource Page. Maintained by Professor Charles R. Honts of Boise State University, this page provides transcripts of polygraph-related testimony and other legal documents.
   

Labor Organizations

• Missouri Union of Law Enforcement. MULE 57 is a police officers' benevolent association that opposes polygraph "testing." The MULE site includes a form which members have designed to protect officers that are forced to submit to polygraph "exams."
   
• National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. "[A]n independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation's borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct."
   
• Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers. Provides links to documents regarding the Department of Energy's polygraph screening program.
   
• Virginia Coalition of Police and Deputy Sheriffs. The Virginia COPS organization is working hard on the state level to prevent police officers from being forced into submitting to polygraphs. Their site has a page condemning polygraphy.