A new article in the Nov/Dec issue of Mother Jones titled Lie Detector Roulette takes on the question of why, if polygraphs are unreliable, government employees are subjected to them?

The article highlights the hypocrisy of government officials over their use:

"Some of those who have promoted polygraphs in the past have changed their tune when faced with the prospect of taking a lie detector test themselves. In August, several members of the House and Senate intelligence committees refused to submit to polygraphs as part of an FBI investigation of who leaked classified information regarding the September 11 attacks. "I don't know who among us would take a lie detector test," says Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). "They're not even admissible in court." Shelby's reticence was an about-face from his stance two years ago, when he spearheaded the expansion of the Department of Energy's polygraph program as the only effective way of tracking down moles."

"Whether the government will continue to have faith in the polygraph depends largely on an upcoming report from the National Academy of Sciences, which is intended to be the definitive evaluation of the test's validity as a screening tool. If the academy echoes other studies that have found polygraphs unreliable, it could lead to a scaling back of lie detectors."

We'll be interested in the report as well. As far as we're concerned, polygraphs are as reliable as voodoo. Their primary usefulness to law enforcement occurs during the pre-test interview process in which they convince people to confess before taking the test. The F.B.I. is famous for this.