Yet another canary in the coalmine is wheezing.
Somewhere in the bowels of the Home Office, a plan to drive a coach, horses, numerous footmen, camp followers and Mutter Courage herself through the *basic* principles of justice has been cooked up: The compulsory use of lie detector tests.
Most of us will probably be unnerved to read this news, but many will shrug their shoulders upon discovering that it involves a group of people no-one has any time for - sex offenders on probation.
I cannot say that I am exactly keen on these individuals either, but if there is one thing that is blindingly clear it is that liberty, justice and the rule of law have to be defended at the margins if they are to mean anything at all.
Switching back from the abstract to the practical, polygraphs are unreliable, as the US National Academy of Science has noted: "a polygraph test regarding a specific incident can discern the truth at “a level greater than chance, yet short of perfection”....When polygraphs are used as a screening tool (in national security matters and for law enforcement agencies for example) the level of accuracy drops to such a level that “Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies.” In fact, the NAS extrapolated that 10,000 polygraph tests searching for spies would incorrectly classify 99.5% of “deceptive” results (those telling the truth yet incorrectly deemed to be deceitful), and incorrectly classify 20% of deceitful subjects". (Source)
Most of us will probably be unnerved to read this news, but many will shrug their shoulders upon discovering that it involves a group of people no-one has any time for - sex offenders on probation.
I cannot say that I am exactly keen on these individuals either, but if there is one thing that is blindingly clear it is that liberty, justice and the rule of law have to be defended at the margins if they are to mean anything at all.
Switching back from the abstract to the practical, polygraphs are unreliable, as the US National Academy of Science has noted: "a polygraph test regarding a specific incident can discern the truth at “a level greater than chance, yet short of perfection”....When polygraphs are used as a screening tool (in national security matters and for law enforcement agencies for example) the level of accuracy drops to such a level that “Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies.” In fact, the NAS extrapolated that 10,000 polygraph tests searching for spies would incorrectly classify 99.5% of “deceptive” results (those telling the truth yet incorrectly deemed to be deceitful), and incorrectly classify 20% of deceitful subjects". (Source)
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on Friday, December 01, 2006 at 11:44 am.
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By your canary I suppose you are talking slippery slope and thin end of wedges. The real point is this . What on earth is anyone ,whose danger is such that lie detection is required, doing out with balls intact.
Compusory shot gun aimed at the bollocks would clear up the grey areas here. There really can`t be many of them .
( Do it on fireworks night an d no one will notice)
polygraphs are easy to fiddle if you know what you're doing.you can get the machine to neutralise the results.they only work on somepeople some of the time.
therefore they're inevitable with thisa govt
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