Ohio Judge Orders Victims in Sexual Assault Cases to Submit to Lie Detector Tests

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Rachel Dissell of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Floyd has ordered the victims in four sexual assault cases to submit to polygraph “testing.” In addition, Floyd has ordered the perpetrators of the assaults, who have already been found guilty, to submit to polygraph tests for sentencing purposes. It would appear that Judge Floyd acted ultra vires in ordering the victims to submit to lie detector testing.

The Ohio legal system has a long and shameful history of relying on the pseudoscience of polygraphy, from the case of Floyd Fay, who in 1978 was wrongly convicted of murder based on polygraph “evidence,” to the more recent case of Sahil Sharma, where in 2007 Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter was duped into admitting polygraph “evidence” over prosecutors’ objections.

Kaiser Fung on Lie Detectors

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AntiPolygraph.org has received a complementary copy of statistician Kaiser Fung’s new book, Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence of Probability and Statistics on Everything You Do (New York: McGraw Hill, 2010), a short primer on statistics written for a general audience.

In Chapter 4, Fung addresses the trade-off between false positives and false negatives in diagnostic testing, using as examples drug testing of athletes, polygraph testing of criminal suspects, job applicants, and employees, and data mining for terrorists. Fung explains how altering decision thresholds to lower the rate of false positives necessarily increases the rate of false negatives, and vice versa, and how a low base rate of the thing being tested for in the population being tested can make attempts to detect it impractical.

With regard to polygraphy, Fung in particular focuses on the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (PCASS), the hand-held lie detector developed by the U.S. Department of Defense to screen locally hired workers and suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fung shows that even if we were to assume a 90% accuracy rate for the procedure (an assumption not warranted by scientific evidence), given the low incidence of insurgents seeking employment with the US armed forces, many false positives can be expected for every true positive. (Of course, there is also the problem of countermeasures: any insurgents among the hiring pool can readily fool the PCASS.)

Fung closes his treatment of PCASS with a take-home quote from Dr. Stephen Fienberg, who chaired the National Academy of Sciences panel that in 2002 authored a landmark report on polygraphy: “It may be harmless if television fails to discriminate between science and science fiction, but it is dangerous when government does not know the difference.”

Fung also tells the story of Jeffrey Deskovic, from whom interrogators extracted a false confession to the murder of a high school classmate after he failed a polygraph test. After 16 years in prison, Deskovic was vindicated by DNA evidence and released. Fung concludes, “Statistical analysis confirms that many more Deskovics, perhaps hundreds or thousands a year, are out there, most likely hapless.”

A complete review of Numbers Rule Your World is beyond the scope of this blog, but for further commentary, see reviews by Wayne Hurlbert, Andrew Gelman, and Christian Robert.

Dueling Polygraphs in Pittsburgh Beating Case

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Jordan Miles

Jordan Miles after police beating

Three Pittsburgh police officers who stand accused of wantonly beating 18-year-old honor student Jordan Miles have all passed lie detector tests. But Miles also passed a lie detector test regarding the incident. So whose lie detector is lying?

Jill King Greenwood reports for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Three Pittsburgh police officers accused of beating a Homewood teenager during a January arrest near his home passed polygraph tests over the weekend, the president of the police union said.

Officers David Sisak, Richard Ewing and Michael Saldutte took the tests from a private polygraph administrator at the same time that nearly 100 other city officers marched in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Downtown on Saturday wearing T-shirts in support of the three, who are on paid administrative leave while the city and FBI investigate the Jan. 12 incident.

Continue reading ‘Dueling Polygraphs in Pittsburgh Beating Case’ »

Customs and Border Protection Polygraph Failure Rate Pegged at 60%

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Customs and Border ProtectionOn Thursday, 11 March 2010, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, it was disclosed that the failure rate associated with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pre-employment polygraph screening program stands at 60 percent. New York Times correspondent Randal C. Archibold reports, among other things:

Polygraph examinations, which officials call an important tool to help weed out bad hires, were administered to about 15 percent of applicants by the end of 2009.

That was an increase from the 10 percent of the previous year, but made possible only because hiring slowed for the first time in several years.

James F. Tomsheck, who is in charge of internal affairs for Customs and Border Protection, said that about 60 percent of candidates failed the test and were turned away, including some who officials believed had ties to criminal organizations.

Senator Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat and chairman of the subcommittee that held the hearing, described the failure rate as “alarming to me.”

“It is to me, too, sir,” Mr. Tomsheck replied.

He said the agency had 31 polygraph examiners but needed 50 more to reach a goal of screening all new hires.

In addition, he said, the agency is far behind in conducting periodic background checks of current law enforcement employees.

He also proposed giving periodic polygraph examinations to those employees but said that Congressional authorization and financing would be needed.

In assessing the significance of the 60% polygraph failure rate, it is important to bear in mind the 2002 finding of the National Academy of Sciences that polygraph screening is completely invalid. Upon completion of a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence on polygraphy, the NAS advised that “its 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.”

Applying polygraph screening to all CBP applicants will not solve the problem of corruption within the organization. Polygraphy is highly vulnerable to countermeasures, and members of criminal enterprises seeking to infiltrate CBP will likely fool the lie detector. Meanwhile, given polygraphy’s complete lack of scientific underpinnings and inherent bias against the truthful, many well-qualified applicants will be wrongly excluded from the agency. Anecdotally, AntiPolygraph.org has heard from a number of CBP applicants who report having been falsely accused of deception.

NSA Leaflet: Your Polygraph Examination

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Your Polygraph Examination

Detail from NSA Polygraph Leaflet

AntiPolygraph.org has obtained a copy of an NSA leaflet (1.7 mb PDF) titled, “Your Polygraph Examination: An Important Appointment to Keep.” This leaflet, which has blanks for filling in the time, date, and place of an appointment, merits some discussion.

The leaflet begins with a section on what to do before the polygraph:

Prior to Your Appointment
  • Get a good night’s sleep
  • Follow your usual routine
  • Take your regular medications
  • Don’t skip any meals
  • Come in with an open mind
  • It’s a unique experience each time
  • Allow enough time in your schedule

This much is fairly uncontroversial. But while the NSA urges keeping an “open mind” about the polygraph, we should also heed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ wise counsel: “By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.” The National Academy of Sciences in 2002 found polygraph screening to be completely invalid, concluding that ”its 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.” Continue reading ‘NSA Leaflet: Your Polygraph Examination’ »

An Example of How the Myth of the Lie Detector Is Perpetuated

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An article published today in a small town newspaper provides a good example of the sort of shoddy reporting that perpetuates the myth of the lie detector. Lisa Rogers reports for the Gadsden, Alabama Times:

Polygraphs useful law enforcement tool
By Lisa Rogers
Times Staff Writer
Published: Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 9:37 p.m.

A suspect in a sex crime confessed after failing a lie detector test and even confessed to trying to beat the test by doing research on the Internet.

There are several Web sites that claim to have information that teaches someone how to beat a test, said Fred Lasseter, a licensed polygraph examiner and investigator with the Etowah County Sheriff’s Office.

“They tell you things to do to try to beat the system,” Lasseter said, “but beating it takes years of practice. It is very difficult to try to manipulate the system.”

Polygraph operator Fred Lasseter is lying. It doesn’t take “years of practice” to learn how to beat a lie detector test, nor is it difficult. In peer-reviewed research (cited in the bibliography of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector), about half of test subjects were able to fool the polygraph with no more than 30 minutes of training. The fact that a stupid criminal failed to pass a lie detector test and confessed should not be misconstrued as evidence that 1) the polygraph is difficult to beat or 2) that the polygraph is accurate as a lie detector. It is neither. Continue reading ‘An Example of How the Myth of the Lie Detector Is Perpetuated’ »

Scott Horton Interviews George Maschke Regarding Bruce Ivins’s Polygraph Examination

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On Wednesday, 24 February 2010, Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio interviewed AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke about the polygraph examination of Dr. Bruce Ivins, the DoD microbiologist the FBI asserts was the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax mailings. Ivins passed a polygraph screening test in 2002. The interview is now available on-line here.

DOJ Rationalizes Away Polygraph’s Failure to Catch Alleged Anthrax Killer Bruce Ivins

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Bruce E. Ivins

Bruce E. Ivins

On Friday, 19 February 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the conclusion of its investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. The DOJ maintains that  Dr. Bruce Edwards Ivans, who in 2002 passed a polygraph test regarding the anthrax attacks, was the sole perpetrator.

In an investigative summary (640 kb PDF), the DOJ characterizes Ivins’ passing of the polygraph as part of an effort to “stay ahead of the investigation,” alleging (at p. 84, fn. 51) that he used countermeasures to fool the polygraph:

In some sense, Dr. Ivins’s efforts to stay ahead of the investigation began much earlier. When he took a polygraph in connection with the investigation in 2002, the examiner determined that he passed. However, as the investigation began to hone in on Dr. Ivins and investigators learned that he had been prescribed a number of psychotropic medications at the time of the 2002 polygraph, investigators resubmitted his results to examiners at FBI Headquarters and the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute for a reassessment of the results in light of that new information. Both examiners who independently reassessed the results determined that Dr. Ivins exhibited “classic” signs of the use of countermeasures to pass a polygraph. At the time the polygraph was initially examined in 2002, not all examiners were trained to spot countermeasures, making the first analysis both understandable under the circumstances, and irrelevant to the subsequent conclusion that he used countermeasures.

Although the summary doesn’t state what “classic” signs of countermeasures Ivins allegedly displayed, Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported in 2008 that the FBI “concluded he’d used ‘countermeasures’ such as controlled breathing to fool the examiners.”

Continue reading ‘DOJ Rationalizes Away Polygraph’s Failure to Catch Alleged Anthrax Killer Bruce Ivins’ »

Former Aide to Colin Powell Accused of Espionage, Fired Based on Polygraph Results

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DIA sealA recently filed federal lawsuit documents how a veteran intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was accused of espionage and summarily fired after failing a series of polygraph “tests” (a procedure roundly rejected by scientists as being without scientific basis). The following is an excerpt from the statement of complaint (160 kb PDF) filed on 7 January 2010 by attorney Mark S. Zaid in behalf of Lieutenant Colonel John Dullahan, United States Army (retired) against the DIA and others:

19. Dullahan retired from the Army in 1992 as a Lieutenant Colonel after more than two decades of distinguished military service, including airborne and Ranger training, with the 82nd Airborne Division, and combat in Vietnam as an artillery forward observer. During his career, Dullahan learned German, French, and Arabic, became both a European and Middle Eastern Foreign Area Officer, and served in various capacities for the U.S. government in Europe and the Middle East.

20. In September 1997, Dullahan returned to DIA as a civilian employee. In the course of his work for DIA, he successfully completed a polygraph examination during which no issues surfaced.

21. In early 2008 two FBI agents asked Dullahan if he would participate in a special program, subject to approval by then-Director of DIA LTG Michael Maples. In or around February 2008, Dullahan willingly participated in an FBI polygraph as a condition of his participation in the special program.

Continue reading ‘Former Aide to Colin Powell Accused of Espionage, Fired Based on Polygraph Results’ »

Scott Horton Interviews AntiPolygraph.org Co-founder George Maschke

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Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio interviewed AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke on Wednesday, 30 December 2009. The opening part of the interview concerns a non-polygraph related topic–a document published by The Times of London purportedly from an Iranian nuclear weapons research project. For more on this, see “Typography Casts Additional Doubt on Authenticity of Alleged Iranian ‘Nuclear Trigger’ Document.” Discussion of polygraph matters begins at about 13 minutes into the 27-minute interview, which may be downloaded as an MP3 file here.