Man vs. Machine
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.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?