Man vs. Machine

Jacob Sullum | November 27, 2002

The Justice Department's inspector general says the FBI polygrapher who examined Abdallah Higazy, the Egyptian who was jailed because of a baseless perjury charge after the September 11 attacks, did nothing wrong. "The polygraph was administered appropriately," the inspector general concluded, and "the results were properly read to indicate that Higazy was deceptive." Since the polygraph machine supposedly showed that Higazy was lying when he denied owning an aviation radio that he did not in fact own, this is yet another piece of evidence against the pseudoscientific gizmo. A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences explains in detail why lie detector is a misnomer.