Polygraph thwarts suspicion of moles and traitors.

[lonestarnot]

DAVID LYKKEN AND THE POLYGRAPH MYTH

public education on the limits and abuses of polygraph testing,
died last week at age 78.

With exceptional clarity he demonstrated that the polygraph is not
a "lie detector" but simply a recorder of physiological responses
to verbal stimuli. And, he explained, there is no set of
physiological responses that corresponds uniquely to deception.

That does not mean the polygraph is worthless. There is empirical
evidence to support its use in the investigation of specific
incidents, where "guilty knowledge" of particular details may
be usefully revealed by the polygraph.

"The use of the by the police as an investigative
tool, while subject to abuse like any other tool, is not
inherently objectionable," Lykken wrote.

(Not only that, "It seems reasonable to conclude that whether
O.J. Simpson did or did not kill his wife could have been
determined with high confidence using a Guilty Knowledge Test
administered within hours after he was first in police custody.")

On the other hand, he said, the use of the polygraph for security
screening of personnel, as is commonly done by U.S. intelligence
agencies, cannot reliably achieve its purported goal of
identifying spies or traitors and in many cases becomes
counterproductive.

"I think it is now obvious that polygraph testing has failed to
screen out from our intelligence agencies potential traitors and
moles. On the contrary, it seems to have served as a shield for
such people who, having passed the polygraph, become immune to
commonsense suspicions."

Lykken produced a body of work that is prominently cited in every
bibliography of polygraph-related research. And he addressed the
interested public in a highly readable 1998 book called "A Tremor
in the Blood" (an allusion to Defoe), which is full of colorful
observations as well as analytical rigor.

So, for example, he reports that Pope Pius XII condemned polygraph
testing in 1958 because it "intrude into man's interior
domain" (Tremor, page 47).

And "when Bedouin tribesmen of the Negev desert were examined on
the polygraph, they were found to be far less reactive than
Israeli Jews, whether or Near Eastern or European origin" (page
273).

Dr. Lykken was profiled in a September 20 obituary in the New York
Times here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/obituaries/20lykken.html

It is a sign of our times that the scientific critique of
polygraph testing has gained almost no traction on government
policy. To the contrary, the use of the polygraph to perform the
sort of screening that Lykken termed a "menace in American life"
is actually on the rise.

"From FY 2002 through 2005, the FBI, DEA, and ATF conducted
approximately 28,000 pre-employment polygraph examinations" as
well as tens of thousands more for other purposes, according to a
major new report from the Justice Department Inspector General.

See "Use of Polygraph Examinations in the Department of Justice,"
September 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/polygraph/dojpoly.pdf

Characteristically, the new Inspector General report did not even
consider the question of the polygraph's scientific reliability.

In particular, as George Maschke of AntiPolygraph.org told CQ
Homeland Security, the Justice Department report failed to
grapple with a 2002 finding of the National Academy of Sciences
that " accuracy in distinguishing actual or
potential security violators from innocent test takers is
insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security
screening in federal agencies."

http://www.cq.com/public/20060919_homeland.html

Aldrich H. Ames, the former CIA officer whose years of espionage
against the United States went undetected by the polygraph,
reflected on the mythology of the polygraph in a letter that he
wrote to me from federal prison in November 2000. See:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/polygraph/ames.html

Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ ]

Support Secrecy News:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp

[meldroc]

1. I will NEVER allow myself to be subjected to a polygraph test.

They're about as reliable as a coin toss.

[displacedtexan]

2. with square brackets is your DU friend.

Interesting post, though.

[lonestarnot]

3. Fixed sort of. Thanks.

:hi: