Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

FBI File of Lie Detector's Creator

Posted by kdawson on Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:24 PM
from the lasso-of-truth dept.
Technology Hardware
George Maschke writes, "It appears that the FBI considered William Moulton Marston (1893-1947), who invented the lie detector and created the comic book character Wonder Woman under the pseudonym Charles Moulton, to be a 'phony' and a 'crackpot.' He is alleged to have misrepresented the result of a study he conducted for the Gillette razor company in 1938, for which he reportedly received some $30,000, a handsome sum in those days. Despite these misgivings, the FBI today uses Marston's creation (the polygraph, not the Lasso of Truth) to guide investigations as well as to screen applicants and employees. You can download Marston's FBI file here (736 KB PDF)."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Your Rights Online: Ohio Court Admits Lie Detector Tests As Evidence 198 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Last month, an Ohio court set a new precedent by allowing polygraph test results to be entered as evidence in a criminal trial. Do lie detectors really belong in the court room? AntiPolygraph.org critiques the polygraph evidence from the this precedential case (Ohio v. Sharma)."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

FBI File of Lie Detector's Creator 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Reciprocate (Score:4, Funny)

    by psykocrime (61037) <mindcrime@@@cpphacker...co...uk> on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:28PM (#16669097) Homepage Journal
    That's ok with me, as I happen to consider the FBI to be a bunch of phonies and crackpots themselves.
    • Phony super legal, counter subversive police force? I'd say they're pretty good at it.
    • you are probably more right than you meant to.

      The lie detector is crackpot science. Apparently the idea of forcing people to tell the truth rings some arch-american instinct, so the attempts to abolish it on scientific grounds have been unsuccsessful so far (as with other highly questionable practices, like the death penalty, or the unlimited "adult" criminal responsibility of children, that also appeal to brutish instincts of the american populace).

      Virtually nobody outside of the US uses it any more.

  • A way out? (Score:3, Funny)

    by BalorTFL (766196) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:28PM (#16669099)
    Is there any chance that this could be used in court cases to challenge polygraph test results? After all, if the FBI believes that the machine's inventer was a lunatic, couldn't it be argued that perhaps his so-called "lie detector" is inaccurate and inadmissable as evidence?

    • Re:A way out? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CoverStory (1020095) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:43PM (#16669187)
      As shown recently on MythBusters, Cleve Backster [backster.net] the man that originated the comparison test used by most law enforcement agencies to determine the results of a polygraph test spent most of his career using those tests on plants.

      From any interview [derrickjensen.org] given in 1997
      ... the imagery entered my mind of burning the leaf I was testing. I didn't verbalize, I didn't touch the plant, I didn't touch the equipment. The only new thing that could have been a stimulus for the plant was the mental image. Yet the plant went wild. The pen jumped right off the top of the chart.

      If that won't convince someone about the accuracy of the test, I don't think TFA will.

    • Re:A way out? (Score:5, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman (238306) * <akaimbatman@gm a i l . com> on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:44PM (#16669195) Homepage Journal
      Is there any chance that this could be used in court cases to challenge polygraph test results?

      Polygraphs are already inadmissable as court evidence, and can no longer be used to screen employees. Pretty much the only area you'll run into them is in federal jobs requiring security clearance. Investigators also use them on occasion to determine if the suspect is misleading them during an investigation, but the results can't be held against the subject of the test.

      The truth is that the polygraph is a form of psychological testing. The results are meaningless unless the "operator" is a well trained psychologist. Even then, he may be unable to extract the "truth" from you; partly because "truth" is a subjective matter. In addition, some people don't do well (or do TOO well) under stress testing. So the results can be bogus in those cases. Basically, polygraphs are unreliable at best, and should never be counted on for accurate information.

      • Re:A way out? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Dun Malg (230075) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:59PM (#16669307) Homepage
        The truth is that the polygraph is a form of psychological testing. The results are meaningless unless the "operator" is a well trained psychologist. Even then, he may be unable to extract the "truth" from you; partly because "truth" is a subjective matter. In addition, some people don't do well (or do TOO well) under stress testing. So the results can be bogus in those cases. Basically, polygraphs are unreliable at best, and should never be counted on for accurate information.
        Indeed, the best description I've heard of a polygraph test is that it's a little theatrical play designed to trick the gullible into confessing and/or acting guilty.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by DrVomact (726065)

          The truth is that the polygraph is a form of psychological testing. The results are meaningless unless the "operator" is a well trained psychologist.

          Actually, the operator has to be a well-trained interrogator. Lie detectors have nothing to do with science. There has never been a credible peer-reviewed study that shows "polygraphs" really work--that is, that they can distinguish truth from lies. As far as I know, no other civilized country uses "polygraphs". The "polygraph" is an instrument of intimidation

    • "Is there any chance that this could be used in court cases to challenge polygraph test results?"

      Hmmmmm, being that the linked article is to www.antipolygraph.org [antipolygraph.org], there might, just maybe, be a chance that they're all over that very possibility... :-)

    • Isn't it completely inadmissable in courts outside of the USA? I would be surprised and disgusted if it was admissable in courts within the USA.

      • Wrong... (Score:3, Informative)

        by BalorTFL (766196)
        According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], the value of the polygraph in court is up to the individual jurisdiction. More specifically:

        In the United States, the State of New Mexico admits polygraph testing in front of juries under certain circumstances. In many other states, polygraph examiners are permitted to testify in front of judges in various types of hearings (Motion to Revoke Probation, Motion to Adjudicate Guilt).

        Nice try, though...

        • Holy Crap!

          Time for a class-action suit in New Mexico. Thanks for pointing that out. What next, Ouija boards?

          -jcr
            • Wow. Just wow. Time to move out of the country, I'd say. For if you didn't know it - no such government-harassment would follow your friends outside the US, you know; there's a whole developed world out there, English speaking an' all.
  • That's pretty interesting that the basic blood pressure based lie detector that William Marston created formed the basis behind the Wonder Woman comics (e.g. he "proved" in his tests that women are more honest than men).

    Strange that the FBI now relies so heavily on polygraph's when their initial assessment of the device was so negative, and most current research shows them to be relatively inaccurate [antipolygraph.org].
  • Now with lie detection !!!

  • correct category? (Score:3, Funny)

    by fortinbras47 (457756) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:46PM (#16669211)
    Is this really your rights online?

    Is the FBI going to jump out of my cable modem and polygraph me?

    • It's about rights (sort of). You are reading it. You are online.

      Someone always brings up this observation in every discussion under "your rights online". If you want another category, suggest it to Taco.

    • Yes. Wonder Woman.

  • Bondage (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:47PM (#16669217) Homepage Journal
    He wasn't so interested in lie detection, he just liked tying people up. A lie detector that didn't require strapping things on people wouldn't interest him. Look at what happened to so many women in the WW comics.

  • That's not an investigative file. That's just his correspondence with Hoover's office. There's not even anything from Hoover himself in there. Nor anything from Tolson. It's staff people in Hoover's office. Helen Gandy was Hoover's secretary.

  • What if a high false positive rate doesn't matter? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dircha (893383) on Tuesday October 31 2006, @11:49PM (#16669239)
    According to the studies linked from the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraph) it seems that while the test has a high false positive rate, the false negative rate is lower than one would expect of random chance. Does anyone read it otherwise?

    While I think it would be abhorrent to allow such a device to be used against a defendant in our criminal justice system, it the above is true it doesn't seem to me so unreasonable at all that it be used in the hiring of FBI and CIA agents and the like.

    A better chance of keeping Russian and Chinese spies out of our security forces may very well outweigh turning away candidates incorrectly classified as deceitful.

    Whereas in matters of criminal justice most seem to agree it is better that 10 guilty men should go free than that 1 innocent man should be condemned.

    Also, I've always wondered whether this isn't really more of a "nervousness test" than anything else.

    • Re:What if a high false positive rate doesn't matt (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dun Malg (230075) on Wednesday November 01 2006, @12:18AM (#16669427) Homepage
      According to the studies linked...it seems that while the test has a high false positive rate, the false negative rate is lower than one would expect of random chance. ...if the above is true it doesn't seem to me so unreasonable at all that it be used in the hiring of FBI and CIA agents and the like.
      As clearly demonstrated by the above mentioned stats, the problem is that polygraphs achieve their low false negative by basically lowering the thresholds, casting a wider net of "guilt" and snaring more innocent people. I can guarantee a 0% false negative rate-- so long as you let me declare everyone who walks in the door "deceptive". Polygraph is just theater. It's pretty much bog-standard interrogation techniques dressed up with a few electronic props to trick people into essentially admitting guilt.
      • There's nothing wrong with an interviewer watching you carefully to try and determine if you are telling the truth. This is the same kind of thing taken to another step. Remember with security clearance they are trying to make a value judgement. They are trying to determine if you are the kind of person that can be flipped to give away secret information. A lot of that just comes down to knowing if you have anything you want to hide. They don't care if you are gay, for example, they care if you are secretly

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Catbeller (118204)
            For that matter, why are we relying on the interrogator's lie detection abilities? What's his error rate? Where's the data?
    • Without a true scientific study the false postive rate and the false negative rate measured are meaningless anyway.

      A valid study would require at a minimum that the examiner and the interpreter of the polygraphic measurement be seperate and blind to each other with neither knowing the truthfulness of each statement made by the subject. A third blind party would score the results by comparing the known truth to the interpreters determination.

      That's probably not sufficient, but it would be a start.

      I doubt tha
    • There's certainly a case for performing the test for hiring security related positions. Considering that the CIA (not sure about the FBI) uses the polygraph simply as one of their many 'weed out' tools, the test is certainly not going to contribute to hiring deceitful spies (although it likely turns away potentially good ones).

      The illegitimacy of the test is most apparent in the private sector, where companies used it decades ago (up until 1988 when congress basically banned it) as part of the standard
    • A better chance of keeping Russian and Chinese spies out of our security forces may very well outweigh turning away candidates incorrectly classified as deceitful.

      The problem is that any professional spies are going to be good at lying. Perhaps if you know that the FBI uses this device as a standard employment screen, you might study and practice the simple techniques needed to decieve the device operator.

      Of course, and honest and patriotic minded indivdual wouldn't think to trying to 'beat' the machi

  • The polygraph is useless. It's not a "lie detector". At best, it's a "nervousness" detector. It's utterly useless against anyone who can lie without exhibiting any physiological symptoms - sociopaths, for instance.

    • At best, it's a "nervousness" detector.

      True. I think a little valium taken beforehand would render it completely useless...
        • Well, at least the CIA is consitent. They use unscientific tools ("he mentioned that the polygraph was required") and draw unsupported conclusions from the evidence ("the assumption being that if they refused to take the test, then they CERTAINLY had something they wanted to hide from the CIA") .
          • Actually this would be brilliant if followed to its logical conclusion.

            *Everyone* has *something* they want to 'hide from the CIA' ergo all current CIA employees should be fired and the organisation disbanded.

            Best for all involved, really.
    • ...there's a lot of interest in work being done to use fMRI for lie detection. There are specific areas of the brain that light up when you lie, even if you aren't conciously aware that it is a lie, from what I understand. However, nobody has the foggiest what the accuracy level is (it's too new of an approach), fMRI is vastly more expensive than a polygraph system, only those who did the one study are even remotely qualified to conduct such a test, the psychological aspect is completely unknown (as opposed
      • "There are specific areas of the brain that light up when you lie..."

        I am sure there are, but it has also been shown an individual can train his own "mood lights".

        ...even if you aren't conciously aware that it is a lie, from what I understand."

        You only need to understand the nature of a lie, by definition a lie is delibrate. If you are not consiously aware of it then it cannot possibly be considered a lie. You may be repeating a lie but you sure as hell are not lying - well maybe to yourself, but t
  • There's no way Wonder Woman's breasts could be that perky. It defies physics! And who but a crackpot would create an invisible aircraft that left the pilot perfectly visible?
  • Because no one who invented anything, let alone a tool that the FBI uses, could ever be dishonest. Not even one time.

    I wonder if the FBI uses ReiserFS on any of their computers?
  • The FBI file actually says that the deal fell through, and that he stood to make 30k if he could make the study appear favorable to Gilette. Apparently he couldn't do this because he couldn't get the guy who was helping him with the study to help with the lie. Since it turned out that the study showed half preferred the gilette blade and half the generic. This doesn't prove that the lie detector doesn't work, but it might prove that gilette blades of that time period were no better than generic blades. S
  • "It appears that the FBI considered William Moulton Marston (1893-1947), who invented the lie detector and created the comic book character Wonder Woman under the pseudonym Charles Moulton, to be a 'phony' and a 'crackpot."

    Am I the only one who got a mental image of Marston excitedly waving around a piece of yellow rope, trying to convince the FBI agents that it was the Lasso of Truth?
  • The polygraph doesn't pass any scientific validity tests. It is an interrogation device, that's all. See The Lie Behind the Lie Detector [antipolygraph.org].
      • it's much more than just some simple interrogation device.

        Yeah, it's an entire flim-flam industry.

        -jcr
  • The unspoken implication being that anyone who is considered a crackpot, liar, or cheat by a government's law enforcement could not be a legitimate inventor? Or that their inventions are faulty? The device should be judged on its own merits.
    • The device should be judged on its own merits.

      It has been, and it's crap.

      -jcr

  • workplace drug testing. Most drugs are either not detectable unless you did them a few hours before hand (or in the case of LSD, less than an hour) and the deadliest in sheer body count, alchohol, usually isn't tested for at all.

    Worthless. The only function it seems to serve is to remind people who are the serfs and who are the masters.
  • Lie detectors are not a device that detects lies of the interrogated, its a device that enables the interrogator to lie. He tells you that he can detect when you are lying, and maybe you believe him so say thing you might normally censure. However he can also interpret your responses to meet his own agenda. If he has no legal basis to fire you, not hire you, or discredit you, he can use a lie detector as a way to implicate that you are a liar. Since the results of a polygraph are tantamount to biorhyth
  • In the 20th and 21st Centuries we should know better than to use lie detectors and pychos I mean psychics.
  • Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ, when are people going to quit using that stupid, wishful-thinking name for that pile of voodoo?

    When lazy bureacrats in law enforcement convince themselves that they can just use a machine to save them the trouble of real detective work, we get results like Aldrich Ames getting nearly every CIA agent in Russia killed. We see cold-blooded killers able to convince the cops that they're clean, and any number of innocent people having their lives ruined because "the machine said so"
    • Indeed, simple and effective countermeasures to the polygraph have long been readily available (and nowadays, with the Internet, are even more so). See for example AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector [antipolygraph.org] (1 mb PDF). Polygraph procedure is explained in detail in Chapter 3, and methods for passing are discussed in Chapter 4.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.