Pass a Polygraph or Else

You better pass a polygraph test if you are ever given one. The consequences of failure can be severe, as the examples that follow show.

After 9/11, the polygraph failure rate went to 50% for agent applicants at the FBI. Did liars suddenly start applying for jobs? No, the testers were instructed to read the tests differently, even though this meant throwing out some honest people with the few dishonest ones.

Imagine what this would do to your future. For all of their lives these mostly innocent people will have a record of a failed FBI polygraph following them as they apply for other jobs. Does that seem fair?

The public has been led to believe in the "science" of the polygraph or "lie detecting" machine. But most scientists now agree that polygraph "testing" is junk science. In fact, John Larson, one of the pioneers of polygraphic lie detection, says "I'm sorry I ever had any part in its development."

Unfortunately, the test is actually biased against those who are most honest. This is because the more honestly one answers the "control" questions, the more likely one is to fail -- to have a "significant" reaction to the later questions. Meanwhile, hardened criminals have proven they can lie throughout the test without detection.

A True Story About the Polygraph

In the early 1980s, over a period of about two to three years, the Green River Killer murdered 50 women or more near Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. During this time, Gary Leon Ridgway was briefly a suspect, and he was given a polygraph test. The test, done in 1984, determined that he was telling the truth about his innocence. He was free to keep killing, and he did.

In 2001, DNA evidence (and other evidence) proved that he was the killer. In 2003 he pleaded guilty to 48 of the murders.
Meanwhile, Melvin Foster, a taxi driver who had also been a suspect in the case, had taken the polygraph test in 1982. He failed -- the test indicated he was lying, although police could not gather enough evidence to arrest or prosecute him. Of course, this lack of evidence was due to the fact that he was innocent.

Unfortunately, Foster was under a cloud of suspicion for almost 20 years. Gary Ridgway's confession, and the DNA evidence, finally exonerated him. According to an article in the King County Journal, in 2003 Foster asked for the King County Sheriff's Office "to apologize and return his rock tumbler and all the rest of the stuff police took from his home in 1982."

It would be nice to think that this doesn't happen often, but how do we know? There are certainly many other stories about innocent people pointed at as guilty due to a failed polygraph, but we only know about the ones where the truth comes out. Had Ridgway not been caught, many would still think Melvin Foster was guilty. How many other cases are left like that, with a cloud of suspicion over an innocent man or woman?

Continues here... Are Lie Detectors Accurate?

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