Polygraph in the News - 6/11/2009

The following are articles in which Polygraph is playing an important role in the World. (Article descriptions are mine)

** Please note that many news sources archive/move their articles after a certain period of time. If a story link no longer works, this may be what happened.

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• A Georgia man has been charged with kidnapping and rape. His defense team is putting together a case to show that the alleged victim was a willing participant and has a history of telling serious lies. A polygraph test was conducted on the suspect, which he passed and may help bolster the defenses requests for the charges to be dropped.
  http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2009/06/09/kidnap_suspect_polygraph.html

• There has been some hype claims over the past couple of years as to how fMRI and EEG brain-mapping will be far superior to our traditional polygraph methods. A new study suggests that is not the case. The study was published in the Journal Science, Technology & Human Values. I do not have access to this Journal, but if anyone does and would like to send me a summary from the polygraph perspective, it would be appreciated. It does not appear that this study had anything to do with traditional polygraph, but it appears the Professor who conducted the study has clumped in traditional polygraph with her sweeping statements regarding lie detection in general, which, in my opinion is an unwelcome all too common practice.
  http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1263231

Here is the Abstract from the study used as the basis for the above article

Science, Technology & Human Values May2009, Vol. 34 Issue 3, p365-392, 28p

Abstract: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and the electroencephalography (EEG)-based technology of Brain Fingerprinting have been hailed as the next, best technologies for lie detection in America, particularly in the context of post-9/11 anxiety. In scientific journals and the popular press, each has been juxtaposed and deemed superior to traditional polygraphy, which measures changes in the autonomic nervous system and correlates these fluctuations with emotions such as anxiety, fear, and guilt. The author contends that the juxtaposition of polygraphy and brain-based detection is a rhetorical strategy that foregrounds the corrective advantage of brain-based techniques, creates an artificial rupture between contiguous technologies, and ignores the shared assumptions foundational to fMRI, EEG, and two older "truth telling" technologies: polygraphy and fingerprinting. Far from describing the brain and its functions, fMRI and Brain Fingerprinting produce models of the brain that reinforce social notions of deception, truth, and deviance.

Here is another case where the truth doesn't seem to matter nearly as much as HOW a case is handled and a verbal reference to a polygraph test is at the center of it.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090605/NEWS02/906050301