[EAS] Battlefield Polygraph

[Peter J. Kindlmann]

Dear Colleagues -

This from Bob Parks' "What's New" newsletter of today 
<http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN08/wn042508.html>:

>POLYGRAPH:  ARMY ISSUES HAND-HELD POLYGRAPH.
>In a story I've been sitting on for two weeks because it seemed too far
>out to be real, we must tell you that the Pentagon is issuing portable lie
>detectors to soldiers in Afghanistan.  It can't be used on U.S. personnel,
>but they don't lie anyhow.  It has two electrodes to measure conductivity
>of skin and a finger clip that monitors heartbeat.  It sells for $7,500.
>What's New is prepared to certify that it works exactly as well as the non-
>portable version.

Even though the results of from full-fledged polygraphs, administered 
under much more controlled conditions, are inadmissable in court, 
this does not stop the march of polygraph progress, especially not 
when progress costs the tax payer $7,500 per device.

You can find much more via Google, e.g. 
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23926278/>, where some have called the 
picture racist, 
<http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/04/handheld-lie-de.html>, and 
much else.

The software was written by by the Advanced Physics Lab at Johns 
Hopkins University. Opening in 1876, Johns Hopkins was the first 
university in the US to emphasize research, based on Wilhelm von 
Humboldt's German university model.  It became the model for most 
large research universities in the United States. Is it leading the 
way again?

    --PJK