Summary
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun administering polygraph tests to employees in an effort to identify individuals leaking information about immigration operations.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and border czar Tom Homan have blamed recent leaks for lower-than-expected ICE arrest numbers.
Noem stated that two leakers had been identified and would be prosecuted, though it’s unclear if polygraphs were used.
While DHS has used polygraphs before for hiring screenings, they are now being used to question employees about leaks of classified or sensitive law enforcement information.
Glad they’re using polygraphs, they’re unreliable enough that the leakers won’t be caught.
No, they’re unreliable enough that whoever they want to be caught, will be caught.
Hit the nail on the head here.
5 bucks says the “suspects” all end up being gay, women, or non-white. You know. the same groups of people they blame everything on.
They’re just trying to scare people enough into having a reaction or admitting fault. Someone could also fail because they are afraid they will fail or they’re afraid they’re a suspect. If the actual leaker
thinks they’re doing the right thing andthat the poly can’t catch them, they probably won’t even have a reaction.Yeah but they’re unreliable enough that someone will get caught regardless of whether they leaked anything.
As someone who has taken a polygraph, there’s nuance.
First, they’re unreliable because they can be beat- but neither you or I are beating them, you have to be trained to beat it.
Second, the reason they don’t work is because you can just not talk. But if you’re forced to talk to keep your job, you’re gonna show lots of lying indicators.
Third, it’s not a binary “did you lie”. They’re watching your blood pressure, heart rate, detecting any fidgets; things you subconsciously do when you lie. The person administrating the polygraph will then press you into a confession.
Edit: Not going to bother responding to the silly replies from armchair psychologists who feel smart “knowing” polygraphs are unreliable. For the vast majority of the population, when answering binary questions, you will answer them differently depending on whether or not you lie. Regardless of whether or not “this is admissible in court”, it’s more than enough to deny someone a clearance renewal. Rub your brain cells together and extrapolate.
Thats just plainly false.
There’s no reliable correlation between lying and heart rate or any other bodily functions. It’s an intellectual act after all not a physical one. It simply doesn’t compute.
The physiological response could be driven by literally anything and there’s no way to isolated it to “lying” - what if I’m nervous just because I’m being interrogated by people who are known to be dirty and untrustworthy?
Polygraph is the biggest snake oil in contemporary crime “science” and frankly its infuriating that it still exists and everyone who defends it should be bullied into returning back to sanity.
This is why they’re unreliable. Too many false positives. But the stress of lying can produce a physiological response, which is the basis for the polygraph in the first place.
But people can also control their responses, so there’s also a high possibly of false negatives.
The true positive and true negative rate is too low to be considered reliable, but it’s not like there’s zero basis in fact, like those bomb scanners that were literally empty shells.
There is no machine or drug or anything else that can “detect” a lie or signs of deception. Polygraph results are purely interpretive, and anything that’s given to interpretation is given to the bias of the interpreter. Polygraph results are also wildly inconsistent. That’s why they are generally not admissible in court.
I am Sparticus.