The truth about polygraphs

A National Academy of Sciences study validates long-held doubts about the reliability of polygraphs. So why does the government still rely on them to screen applicants for jobs?

AS HE SWEATING?

Of course he was sweating.

But he didn't want to be sweating, and he didn't want his heart to race this way, because he knew what that did to his blood pressure, and he knew that he was in a situation here in the Boston office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Everybody there knew him from the days when he'd been the law-enforcement equivalent of a phenom pitcher straight out of the minors. So they knew why he was standing there, and he knew why he was standing there, and they knew that he knew. He was standing there because there was a man behind a closed door with a machine that claimed to know the truth of him better than he did. And he wasn't sure what the machine knew about him that he didn't know. He knew this situation well. He'd been trained to put suspects in this kind of a box.

Once, when he was 16 and at a party, he'd smoked a little weed. The joint came by -- maybe once, maybe twice -- and he'd taken a puff. Maybe two. It was a long time ago and hard to remember, but it was long before he'd become interested in law enforcement and long before he'd become so good at it. It was long before he'd graduated from Northeastern University summa cum laude with his degree in criminal justice and long before the co-op job with the DEA. He'd planned on entering the DEA upon graduation but was tripped up by the budget shutdown of the mid-'90s.

http://www.boston.com/globe/magazine/2003/0803/coverstory.htm

http://darker0darker.tripod.com/

Maury Povich and Jenny Jones!
:evilgrin:

Did it mention that the polygraph machine was invented by the creator of the Wonder Woman comic strip? It's true!

Polygraphs are utterly useless. I applied for a job once that I didn't want, but knew they polygraphed prospective employees. I lied about *everything*, including my real name, and passed with no problems. That doesn't prove or disprove polygraph, of course, but it *was* funny as hell.

Anyway, the first two pages were excellent.

How did US officials know that? Because Iraqi officials kept saying "no WMD" and the polygraph recorded that as a truthful answer -- but the US officials knew they were lying.
:shrug:

ON EDIT ADD
The story is Iraqi Prisoners Beat Lie Detectors