Mother Jones: Lie detector truth

Please thank Brendan Koerner for "Lie Detector Roulette" (November/December). Years ago, the FBI chose me for a program that would have sent me to Quantico, Virginia. I passed the extensive background check and was given a tour of the Sacramento FBI office. There was just one hurdle left: a polygraph. I was faced to a wall and hooked up to several devices. There was no modification allowed for my hearing impairment, which requires me to rely heavily on lipreading. Faced away from the tester, I failed the polygraph, probably because I overanalyzed the questions I did hear (Does drug use include the daily dose of five ibuprofen tablets from when I was a wrestler? Does one comment about my boss mean I have spoken against my previous employers?). I still remember asking the tester to repeat one question. I was met with silence, as answering with anything other than yes/ no meant you'd screwed up the result. That experience diminished my faith in our domestic security.

Nevertheless, lie detector tests will always appeal to law-enforcement agencies because they favor people who think in black and white (you're either with us, or you're against us) and who dismiss nuance as obfuscation. Unfortunately, the ability to see nuances in human behavior, as well as an interest in global affairs, is what allows tragedies like 9/11 to become foreseeable.

MATTHEW MEHDI RAFAT
Campbell, California

I am a 12-year veteran of law enforcement. Our department frequently administers lie detector tests to criminal suspects. I cannot argue that our conviction rate on crimes is augmented by the use of the tests. However, I know that a court officer or judge would throw out a confession that was compelled at the point of a gun or nightstick. Likewise, if we use psychological warfare (guilt, ego, plying emotion) to urge a confession, they can throw it out. Why, then, is it any different if a person submits to a lengthy psychological beating through a lie detector test that forces a confession?

I wonder how many innocent people just give up and admit to a crime out of sheer exhaustion? I have never offered a lie detector test to a suspect. I could not rest well at night after convicting someone on the basis of a confession that I had beat out of him with a machine.

S. ANDREW MARTH
Mount Carroll, Illinois