Free Republic

Facing the prospect of a federal corruption indictment, former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell took the offensive Friday with the announcement he had passed a polygraph examination. The examination, which cost Campbell $600, was administered Friday by a former director of the FBI's polygraph unit who is now a private examiner in Knoxville. Kendall Shull, who retired from the FBI in 2001, said he asked Campbell questions about whether he took bribes as mayor and engaged in illegal fund-raising activities. "He passed," Shull said. This summer, federal investigators have interviewed witnesses and lawyers representing witnesses who are cooperating in the corruption...

Too Hot of a Potato: A Citizen Soldier's Encounter With the PolygraphGeorge W. Maschke2 February 2004On Monday, 15 May1995, FBI polygrapher Jack Trimarco met me for the first time in his life and within three hours concluded that I am a spy, drug dealer, and drug abuser.The FBI rejected my application to become an FBI special agent and entered my polygraph examiner's false accusations of deception into my permanent FBI Headquarters file. The FBI's accusations have had life-changing consequences for me, and I am telling my story to help hasten the day that our government ends its misplaced reliance on...

<p>WASHINGTON - Army counterintelligence agents are forcing many Iraqi employees of the U.S.-led civilian authority in Baghdad to submit to polygraph tests after a list of Saddam Hussein's spies was discovered in his briefcase, The Post has learned.</p> <p>Military officials said yesterday "several" Iraqis working as translators and low-level functionaries for the Coalition Provisional Authority and some who have been hired for the police are being given lie-detector tests this week on suspicion they are giving inside information to Ba'athist terrorist cells.</p>

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Greenville, S.C., postal workers and truckers are being forced to take lie detector tests after the poison ricin was found in an envelope in a Greenville post office in October and last week a mysterious powder was found in a mail bin at a nearby postal facility. The Gaffney, S.C., post office was evacuated Nov. 7 after workers found an unidentified powder in a mail bin but it turned out to be "body powder." In October, an anonymous letter threatening to take hostage the new Hours of Service rules was found in addition to a vial of...

<p>The FBI has begun polygraphing Greenville postal workers and truck drivers as the investigation into who delivered a package containing the deadly poison ricin to a Greenville mail facility moves into the third week, the president of the local postal workers union said Thursday.</p>

<p>PHILADELPHIA — In a quiet corner of the University of Pennsylvania campus, professor Britton Chance is using near-infrared light to peek at lies as they form in the brains of student volunteers.</p> <p>Eventually, Chance hopes to see something else: a day when a device like his replaces the old, often inaccurate polygraph as the best way for the U.S. government to detect lies told by spies, saboteurs and terrorists.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON - The White House yesterday hinted it would allow lie-detector tests for President Bush's staff in the investigation into the CIA leak.</p> <p>Probers began poring through records and phone logs to hunt for anything related to the leak that has sparked a political furor.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House pledged full cooperation Wednesday with a Justice Department probe into the leak of a CIA operative's name, and a spokesman did not rule out the possibility that Bush administration employees could face lie-detector tests.</p>

The 3rd edition of AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, is now on-line and may be downloaded as a 1 mb PDF file here: http://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdfThis new, revised and expanded edition includes updated chapters on polygraph validity, policy, and procedure, as well as detailed information on how to pass (or beat) a polygraph test. It will be of interest to anyone who may some day face a polygraph examination, whether in the context of a criminal investigation, or as a requirement for employment with a government agency or contractor.

I'm going on record right now. I will not submit voluntarily to a polygraph test at any time, for any reason. Even if I'm innocent - especially if I'm innocent. The use of the lie-detector test has not gone the way of reading bumps on the head and tea leaves as it should have, and people must stand up against it. Polygraphs are ostensibly used to indicate whether or not a person is lying. However, authorities are always careful to not call it a "lie-detector" because they know it isn't. They say it's a "tool" they use in investigations. Well,...

<p>Captured Saddam Hussein loyalists in Iraq are proving adept at beating lie-detector tests, frustrating attempts to find banned weapons and to learn what happened to Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher.</p> <p>U.S. officials and military officers say trained interrogators in Baghdad have caught Iraqi Ba'ath Party loyalists lying while hooked up to the machine, which showed they were not being deceptive.</p>

Most of us understand the common polygraph. All it amounts to is a device that crudely records physiological responses. The operator makes a big deal of wiring up the subject, asks a few questions and records the physical response of the body. So, let's say the subject under investigation is like Bill Clinton, an "exceptionally good liar." What would the polygraph operator see? Probably nothing. And, that is exactly why polygraph data are not allowed to be used in court. Clearly, the results are not dependable. In truth, the most important part of a polygraph test is the interview given...

<p>Recently, the National Academy of Sciences issued a landmark report regarding the use of polygraphy by various federal agencies. Although many issues were explored and several conclusions were drawn, none was more important than the finding that polygraph screening is completely invalid as a diagnostic instrument for determining truth regarding counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, past activities of job applicants and other important issues currently so assessed by our various federal, state and local governments.</p>

  View Current Signatures   -   Sign the Petition To:  President George W. Bush President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Bush: We, the undersigned, ask that you issue an executive order immediately stopping all polygraph screening in the Executive Branch. On October 8, 2002, the National Academy of Sciences issued a landmark report regarding the use of polygraphy by various federal agencies. Although many issues were explored and several conclusions were drawn, none was more important than the finding that polygraph screening is completely invalid as a diagnostic...

<p>Police detectives in the Chandra Levy murder case are focusing on a suspect initially discounted after he passed a polygraph test investigators now believe was flawed, the Washington Post reported Sunday.</p> <p>Ingmar Guandique, 21, has been in prison since July 2001 -- two months after the 24-year-old intern disappeared. He was imprisoned after being convicted of assaults on two female joggers in Washington's Rock Creek Park, the paper reported.</p>

Edward Smart, the father of missing Salt Lake City teen Elizabeth Smart, submitted to a polygraph test and came out clean, a well-placed law-enforcement source tells Newsweek. But polygraph results for other members of the prominent Mormon family -- including Elizabeth's uncle, Tom Smart -- were "inconclusive," Newsweek reports in the current issue. In an interview with Newsweek, Tom Smart pledged full cooperation with investigators probing the disappearance of his 14-year-old niece who was snatched from her bed in the middle of the night June 5. It's all right, "tear me apart," if you have to, as long as...

Parents can't believe children's deaths last year were homicides Mourning without answers 05/30/2002 By ROBERT THARP / The Dallas Morning News The brightly painted house on North Cliff Street still looks like a home where children might play. Holiday decorations hang from the green walls and the yard overflows with flower gardens and lawn art. German Tovar and his wife, Martha Avitia, leave for work every day and return to their east Oak Cliff home. But for a year, they have been coming home to an empty house after the couple's two children were found slain a year ago...

FBI Chief Pledges More Polygraphs Wed Apr 3,12:36 PM ETBy TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - FBI (news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday promised broader use of lie detectors and a closer check of employee financial records to help deter or catch spies within America's elite law enforcement agency. Mueller acknowledged delicate issues of privacy and trust. But he said FBI employees must realize that security needs to be improved after last year's arrest of FBI agent Robert Hanssen (news - web sites), who has pleaded guilty to selling secrets to Moscow for nearly two decades....

FBI Investigates Employees Who Fail Polygraph TestWed Apr 3, 2:14 PM ETBy James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As many as seven FBI (news - web sites) employees with access to highly classified information face more investigation after taking polygraph tests given to tighten security following the discovery (news - web sites) of a Russian spy within the FBI, officials said on Wednesday. "We have identified up to 700 persons who were responsible for looking at highly classified information and have run a polygraph program that I believe has been successful in that we have some assurance on all but one...

The Denver woman who reported that a group of men beat her and carved derogatory words in her flesh declined a police request Thursday to take a polygraph test.Police would say that they are actively investigating the incident.April Mora, 17, was unavailable for comment Thursday.