New anti-terror weapon: Hand-held lie detector

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: MSNBC

The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.

The Defense Department says the portable device isn't perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We're not promising perfection — we've been very careful in that,” said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. “What we are promising is that, if it's properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing.”



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23926278/

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I would like to use one of those attached to my TV

[MadHound]

1. Coming to cops near you

Pretty soon it will be SOP to hook up anybody dealing with the police to one of these devices, whether it's for a speeding ticket or reporting a crime.

I also predict that the number of false arrests will go up due to the use of these devices in the field. The accuracy of lie detectors suck, which is why they aren't allowed as evidence in any criminal courtroom in the country.

[Poll_Blind]

2. Man, I dunno...Put yourself in an Afghani's shoes. They put wires on you and all you can think...

...of is that if you fail the test they're going to attach more wires...



  I would be nervous and sweating even if I was telling the truth.

PB

[Bonobo]

3. "Sir, stand perfectly still and answer the question. Do you smoke marijuana. Yes or no?"

"Boooooowheeeeep weeeep weeeeep bzzzzzzzzzz..... response incorrect...bzzzzz....click"

"Sir, we are now going to search your vehicle on suspicion of marijuana use."

[FreepFryer]

4. Why, because carrying around a car battery, duct tape and electrodes is too heavy? (n/t)

[DetlefK]

5. Consider such a device in a WH press briefing

"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Please attach these patches to your forehead and lower arms. We just want to be sure you won't lie your ass off. Any problem with that?"

And what if such a policeman catches you in lie? Can this be used in court as an evidence?

Because lie detectors are so inaccurate, they are not allowed as evidence in german courts.

[elehhhhna]

6. Too bad lie detectors don't work so hot when you are both speaking different LANGUAGES, duh.

[MilesColtrane]

7. Oh boy, these things are going to work just GREAT.

Naw, no reason to believe that someone holding you at gunpoint, hooking you up to wires wouldn't give a false positive.

Sounds more like little justification boxes to ease any qualms about disappearing a suspect into a hellhole to be repeatedly tortured.

[Javaman]

8. “We're not promising perfection — we've been very careful in that,”

they are just promising yet another tool that may or may not work, just to scare the living shit out of people. Who cares if they are lying or telling the truth. That is far from the point.

[dipsydoodle]

9. Probably just a plain old simple

pair of :

[NoodleyAppendage]

10. Simple Countermeasure for PCASS = clinch your asshole during innocuous questions.

As a researcher into the neuroanatomical correlates of deception, I find the following statement in the MSNBC article is the most important:

"has no way to detect countermeasures, or efforts to fool the machine, such as by making unusual movements"

This means that the PCASS algorithm uses psychophysiological measurement during scattered innocuous questions to establish a baseline of comparison. Peripheral measurements of physiological reactivity are HIGHLY AMENABLE to countermeasures by simply denying the interrogator or device a way to establish a stable baseline. Typically this means covert clinching of one's asshole or scrunching one's toes to elicit psychophysical reactivity during innocuous questions will effectively make any determination of deception-associated responses very difficult to ferret out from all of the procedural "noise."

I can't believe that the military is relying upon peripheral psychophysiological measurement. While not perfect, they could have gotten more certainty with ERP recordings of CNS activity. But, then again, this is our military at work...it's not the best idea that wins the contract, but which ever of the contractors is greasing the political wheels to win it. Typical.

J

[Q3JR4]

11. Repeat after me...

http://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf.

Q3JR4.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods. -Einstein