IS THE LIE DETECTOR CONTROVERSIAL? ITS MAIN INVENTOR denied that he had invented anything. Its early developers admitted that it could not detect lies. The United States government has published many studies critical of its performance, yet key elements of our national security rest on its reliability. Lie-detector advocates say the device is virtually infallible; detractors say it is grossly inaccurate. Police embrace the technology; scientists scorn it. It’s widely used in the United States and almost unknown in Europe. It induces confessions from hardened criminals, but a child can learn to beat it.

In 2002 a committee of the nonprofit National Research Council completed an exhaustive review of lie-detector screening. While admitting that it works in some cases, the committee’s chairman disparaged the device as a “blunt instrument” and concluded that “overconfidence in polygraph screening presents a danger to national security objectives.” Yet use of the lie detector is booming. A device that purports to detect untruthfulness has enormous appeal.

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