US troops to receive handheld lie detectors

In a move sure to bring the polygraph haters out of the woodwork, the US Army is issuing a handheld lie detector to select soldiers in Afghanistan in order to "root out potential terrorists" and help "narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing." The DoD isn't asserting that the device is perfect, but it's hoping the detection capabilities are accurate enough to save American lives and sniff out allegiances that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. Hailed as PCASS (Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System), the underlying unit is a TDS Ranger that relies on three sensors connected to a respondent and integrated software that uses Green to signify truth, Yellow if it can't decide and Red if it recognizes a filthy liar on the other end. Nevertheless, we're certain Lafayette Instrument Company is stoked about the deal -- you know, considering that the Army has already purchased 94 of 'em at $7,500 apiece.

[Thanks, ladderless]

[Bevon Findley @ Apr 9th 2008 3:06PM]

Soon they will have this at the airport, the police will be carrying them in their back pockets, watch.

[OneLove @ Apr 9th 2008 4:21PM]

...it comes with a free pair of x-ray glasses.

[Homeboy @ Apr 9th 2008 5:45PM]

Not a problem. While getting tested, constantly clinch and relax your a-hole as if you're taking a dump and the readings will be all over the place totally messing up the test.

[Onetruebill @ Apr 9th 2008 6:13PM]

But they are making them illegal in washington DC.

What did you say mister president? I can't hear you over the beeping.

[Flashpoint @ Apr 9th 2008 7:25PM]

I want to see BUSH, CHENEY and RUMSFELD SUBMIT TO A POLYGRAPH.

[jay sea @ Apr 9th 2008 10:21PM]

Id love this on my iphone... and the taser attachment too...

[Russ Hughes @ Apr 10th 2008 5:12PM]

What the fuck happens when a US soldier asks 'did you beat the shit out of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison?' Does it turn round and bite him on the ass?

[Dan Davis @ Apr 9th 2008 3:09PM]

And we have a new #1 gift NOT to buy your girlfriend this year.

[mikejhitchcock @ Apr 9th 2008 3:11PM]

Remember, its not a lie if you believe it!

[JeffKay @ Apr 9th 2008 3:42PM]

Funny Dan!!!!

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 9th 2008 5:06PM]

Girlfriend?

Whats that?

[YankeeDooda @ Apr 9th 2008 3:09PM]

actually i think tons of paranoid wives are going to be looking for these things on ebay, and then men will be truely trapped.

[Anonymoose @ Apr 9th 2008 3:09PM]

soldier: do you have a gun?
civilian: no
*soldier waits for light*
soldier: hey, that's re..
/scene

[KYDS3K @ Apr 9th 2008 4:36PM]

okay you just made me actually LOL for the first time today . . . hahahahaha!!!

[Blue Sunshine @ Apr 9th 2008 3:10PM]

What they need to do is try this out on the people who actually made the device.

[Sukhminder @ Apr 9th 2008 3:11PM]

Sir you have been randomly selected for a test! You could win a free flight to the Caribbean!

[crapface @ Apr 9th 2008 3:11PM]

Any chance we can get our hands on the false positive and false negative rates for these things?

[Sporkinum @ Apr 9th 2008 3:37PM]

From the article..
"BACKGROUNDER
How accurate is it?

The Defense Department has paid for three studies of the handheld lie detector, PCASS. Here are brief descriptions. Follow the links to read the full study reports.

Test one
In the first test, Army basic trainees at Fort Jackson, S.C., were put through what's called a mock-crime drill. Some recruits were told to place a fake bomb by a roadside, while others remained inside. After a detonation was heard, each was questioned.

They were given an incentive to tell the truth: If they were found to be deceptive, they would have to give a 10-minute speech to their unit on the subject of honesty. (That threat was itself a lie.) The examiners were all polygraph instructors, and the interviews were in English.

The test was performed in three rounds: first with a traditional polygraph, then twice with PCASS.

In the first round, with a polygraph, the examiner was correct 79.7 percent of the time, or 55 out of 69. The Pentagon prefers to cite an accuracy rate that sets aside the "yellow" results, or inconclusives; that yields a success rate of 85.9 percent, or 55 out of 64. (The polygraph was uncertain in 5 cases out of 69, or 7.2 percent.)

In the second round, with PCASS, the device was correct in 63.0 percent of the cases, or 46 out of 73. The Pentagon cites an accuracy rate, setting aside the inconclusives, of 86.8 percent, or 46 out of 53. (The PCASS was uncertain in 20 out of 73 cases, or 27 percent.)

In the third round, with PCASS, the device was correct in 62.2 percent of the cases, or 51 out of 82. The Pentagon cites an accuracy rate, setting aside the inconclusives, of 73.9 percent, or 51 out of 69. (The PCASS was uncertain in 13 out of 82 cases, or 16 percent.)

Test two
In the second test, in Columbus, Ohio, civilians who answered a classified ad for a scientific study on deception. Their incentive: Participants were paid a $50 bonus if the machine showed them to be truthful. Battelle Memorial Institute, a defense contractor, was paid $305,000 to perform this test. The instructors were experienced law-enforcement polygraphers, and the participants were all American, English-speaking and college-educated.

Again, this was a mock-crime test, with the fake theft of a ring from a secretary's desk. Both those who did and didn't steal the ring were then questioned.

The PCASS was correct in 78.9 percent of the cases, or 56 out of 71. Setting aside the inconclusive, the Pentagon cites an accuracy rate of 91.8 percent, or 56 out of 61. (The PCASS was uncertain in 10 out of 71 cases, or 14 percent.)

Test three
In the third test, the algorithm that makes the decisions was tested in the lab by its creators at the Johns Hopkins University Advanced Physics Lab. The university was paid $1.2 million for its work.

The PCASS was still being developed while they wrote the software, so they had no PCASS exam data to work with. They used a set of polygraph exam records, part of the same set of records that were used to develop the device. All of these records had been independently verified, such as using urinalysis to prove whether or not someone was lying about using drugs.

For every 100 deceptive people, the researchers reported, the device would detect 86 (red), with two false negatives (green) and 12 uncertain (yellow).

For every 100 truthful people, they said, it would detect 50 (green), with eight false positives (red) and 42 uncertain (yellow)."

[Dan @ Apr 9th 2008 3:40PM]

Click on the read link. The article contains a side bar that links and discusses three studies on the device.

[Kurian @ Apr 9th 2008 3:41PM]

TLDR

[Ghen @ Apr 9th 2008 3:45PM]

the TLDR version:

its right 3/4 of the time in mock tests.

My point is this: Everyone who just witnessed a REAL roadside bomb including the bomber are going to be incredibly stressed out and want to get away from the scene as soon as possible. That will screw up the tests even more.

[PeterF @ Apr 9th 2008 3:12PM]

Go Windows Mobile! Lets see the iPhone do this!

[OmiMoAK @ Apr 9th 2008 3:12PM]

Any notice its running on some form of Windows Mobile? If so time to look for the torrent!!

[Yankees368 @ Apr 9th 2008 3:16PM]

I wonder if these fancy handheld things will go way over budget like the Census handheld things did, and then get scrapped. But dont forget, the contractor will still get the $!

[BigD145 @ Apr 9th 2008 3:43PM]

All things military go over budget. Why else would they have such a bloated budget, that gets extensions every 3 months, in the first place?

[ishism @ Apr 9th 2008 4:02PM]

It's almost as bad as the budgets for every bad movie that comes out of hollywierd.

[Fred @ Apr 9th 2008 3:17PM]

Is there any kind of a language barrier issue here? How about the fact that someone who has just had a car explode next to them is likely to be a little edgy?

[Bender Bending Rodriguez @ Apr 9th 2008 3:18PM]

Holding a gun to someone's head and threatening to kill them if they don't tell you the truth is quite effective and they already have those.

Spend the money on body armor, instead. Or perhaps use the funds to create an exit strategy.

[emagius @ Apr 9th 2008 7:56PM]

That only works on 24 and similarly insipid shows.

In real life, that's only likely to get you what the subject thinks you want to hear, not the truth. The CIA, FBI, and military have all gone on record as saying so, in fact.

[Matt @ Apr 9th 2008 3:20PM]

Oh God, I can just see where this is going.

GREEN = Eye warily, let them go on their way
YELLOW = Eye warily, lock them up and ship them to a camp for further questioning
RED = Shoot on the spot. Eye the carcass warily.

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 9th 2008 5:15PM]

Warily doesn't even sound like a real word now after reading your comment.

Thanks, thanks alot.

[jbodar @ Apr 9th 2008 5:43PM]

It's to bring all that WoW PvP server training into use: Red = Dead

[Chris @ Apr 9th 2008 3:21PM]

What a joke. The polygraph doesn't work and neither does this. It's just a tool to fool an ignorant suspect.

[Tim McCarty @ Apr 9th 2008 3:27PM]

That price strikes me as fairly rediculous. I understand you need to pay the engineers for writing the software and all, but isn't the device itself just a PDA and a few sensors (galvanic skin response, heart rate, ect?)? It seems to me they'd be hard-pressed to price something like this over $1,200.

[Ghen @ Apr 10th 2008 11:17AM]

Hopefully they have software designers in house. The software wouldn't be very hard to write either. You take data from the inputs, run it through a predetermined filter based on years of polygraph knowledge, maybe enter the person's weight/height/sex (not sure how polygraphs can vary), and then output a % lying on the screen.

I say the programming would add $500 to the cost of an individual unit based on governmental oversight inflation bringing your total cost to $1700

[JC @ Apr 9th 2008 3:30PM]

There need to be 5 threat levels, to bring this in line with the Homeland Security Advisory System. I won't stand for inconsistency in a police state.

[Shinigami @ Apr 9th 2008 3:38PM]

Will they shoot me if I lie?

[bob @ Apr 9th 2008 8:00PM]

They'll shoot you anyway for lulz when Sarge isn't looking.

[Doctor Quack @ Apr 9th 2008 3:40PM]

False Science rules!

>>> ...94 of 'em at $7,500 apiece...

Sweet!

[IT-Accountant @ Apr 9th 2008 3:43PM]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this thing seems to be running on some form of Windows Mobile, as OmiMoak pointed out. If so, couldn't you run this thing on any old PDA? Why the super-rugged (and bulky) unit and staggering price tag?

Tax dollars going to waste, anyone? I'm all for our soldiers getting the best gear available, but this is ridiculous.

[skim @ Apr 9th 2008 4:42PM]

It probably requires hardware components that a typical PDA doesn't have.

[Benson @ Apr 9th 2008 5:19PM]

No, most PDAs have a color screen these days, and something you can hook a cable up to. (And are capable of being held by a soldier who looks like he just wants an excuse to shoot.)

Then they know they're on a lie detector (and that dude wants to shoot them as soon as the light goes red), and bingo!, they tell the truth.

It's almost as reliable at determining what is true, and exactly as reliable at procuring information.

[skim @ Apr 9th 2008 5:24PM]

Um, yeah, a lie detector only requires a color screen and a port. Okay.

[Ian @ Apr 9th 2008 6:41PM]

@Benson
ok so maybe lie detectors arent perfect. but why do you have to go hate on the soldiers? yes there are the few that just want to shoot anything that moves, but a lot of them probably dont want to hurt anyone. they are people and are moral. not everyone who goes into the army to kill people. i mean unless your in the army i dont see you doing anything to help that situation over there.

[Allen @ Apr 9th 2008 3:45PM]

Add Stun gun capability to this and you have an "all in one" Torture/interrogation device. Add MMS messaging and the troops will be able to entertain each other endlessly....

[jbodar @ Apr 9th 2008 10:15PM]

You forgot the 3 megapixel camera for "action shots" to send via aforementioned MMS.

[Blue Sunshine @ Apr 9th 2008 3:46PM]

They should make an AIM version of this:

"omg this iznt a rick roll link LOL"

LIE LIE LIE

[phanbouy @ Apr 9th 2008 5:51PM]

im in ur lie detekters, moniterin ur suspeks

[giantenemycrab @ Apr 9th 2008 3:58PM]

I thought the military didn't have enough money to get all soldiers front and back bullet proof vests. Shouldn't they be working on that first?

How's this work in the first place? I thought that for lie detectors to work, you had to ask a bunch of meaningless question so you could see when their blood pressure goes up naturally.. Of course, anyone is going to be nervous when a soldier or a cop walks up to you accusing you of lying. So aren't there going to be a ton of false positives? *sigh* this has disaster written all over it.

[palehorse @ Apr 9th 2008 11:12PM]

Every soldier in Iraq has a bulletproof vest, so please join us in 2008 when you're finished reliving 2005...

kkthnx.