DO LIE DETECTORS LIE?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000300020012-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 1998
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: August 29, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

THIS WEEK Magazine
Sanitized - Approved F5vr ele9ipe.9aIA-
HEADLINERS: CORNELIUS E. GALLAGHER , CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT.
est. The operator strapped her in the machine ;
nd began asking her a series of questions
An interview with Congressman
Cornelius E. Gallagher
CPYRG
Q. Congressman Gallagher, why did you initi-
ate a Congressional. investigation of the lie
detector?
A.r "Because I am convinced that the so-
calle& lie detector is a myth. And because I
found shocking evidence of its use to degrade,
and humiliate Americans seeking jobs in the
Federal government." . .
o Q. For example?
A. "A mother came to me and told me that
when her seventeen-year-old daughter applied
amua~a+d a >Q~i~o~~~
agency, she was required to. take .a lie-detector
bout her sex life. When she consistently',
enied any wrongdoing in this area, the oper-'I
tor sneeringly accused her of perversion."
. Is this typical?
A. "We heard many similar stories in the
ourse of our investigation. We also ' learned
hat the government spends almost five mil-
ion dollars a year administering some twenty
housand lie-detector tests - and this does
of include tests given by the Central Intelli-
ence Agency and the National Security
ency. Many of the people who give these
ests have taken nothing more .than a two- or
.hree-week training course. These people have '
he power to destroy a man or woman's repu-i
ation and career. And because they are sup-
posedly reporting only what this infallible
achlite said, there In no appeal."
f. You don't think the lie detector is infallible?
A. "J.' Edgar Hoover has said that it is not
the machine, but the operator, that draws
the conclusions. He told the Warren Com-
mission that the FBI has never felt the lie
detector is precise enough to' permit abso-
lute judgments of deception or truth without
qualification. Some time ago James Bennett,
head of Federal Prisons, did a survey of oper-
ators, asking them if they would take a lie-
detector test if accused of a crime. He con-
cluded from the answers that 'there were only
three operators in the country they would
trust. Dr. Stefan T. Possony of the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University, one of the
nation's foremost intelligence experts, did a
study of the lie detector and concluded that
there were at least 28 ways a person could
beat the machine. Another study, done for
the Air Force, tried to determine whether it
was possible to take the human element out of
lie detection. The study concluded it was i
impossible."
Q. Where did the lie detector get such a great
reputation?
A. "From people who have turned it into a
very profitable business. The Federal Gov-.
ernment is not the only employer in the coun-.
try who uses the lie detector. One Dallas con-
cern reported giving 42,000 tests to employees
of private industry in 1964. These pprilvatate
now t ey are really in usiness craar'ui
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000300020012-7
C
0 AUG 2 9 196;
CPYRGHT
innocent - but there is no denying that it is
the operator, not the machine, who is the real
lie detector.'And we found equally slight evi-
dence in private business of operators being
adequately trained. One witness estimated-
that eighty per cent of them are incompetent."
Q. What sort of mistakes can an untrained
operator make?
A. "In one case, a woman employee of a shoef
concern, taking a,periodic test required by the
company, had just lost her only son. She was
emotionally distraught, and her reacCions per-
suaded the operator to declare she flunked the
test. She was summarily fired. In a second,
more complicated case, a young bank execu-
tive flunked the question: have you ever stolen
money from the bank or its employees? The
bank could uncover no loss, and only after
months of psychiatric probing did they realize
that he had a strong hostility to his wife and
mother, both of whom were customers of the
bank. This explained the lie detector reaction.
The psychiatrist who reported this case, inti-
dentally, deplored the current use of the lie
detector in business and industry." . ,
Q. What do you recommend?
A. "I recently introduced a bill to virtually
ban the use of the lie detector in the Federal . 3
government, and by any company in business
done. under government contract, until, when,
and if, they can prove the machine is infallible. .
If it is to be used at all, it should be limited .
to the most serious national security and crim-
inal cases, and then we should see that the
operator is a person well trained in psychology
and criminology. Finally, we should make
sure that the person accused has a chance to
challenge the findings of the lie detector, and
than every, effort is made to establish his guilt
or innocence by other means." '
Q. Whin if they did make the machine infallible?
ses of a person's mind.. Nor does an employer- 1
A. "Even then, I would forbid its use on any-
thing but a voluntary basis. Every person in
this country has a constitutional right to pri-
vacy, and applying for a job does not give any
employer the right to probe the private reces-
have any right to give periodic tests to em-
ployees on the hypothetical chance that one-
in, a thousand may be dishonest." .. {
an from New Jersey, is serving his fm a term in fha
CORNEUUS GALLAGHER. Democratic Congresa-
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