Neuroscience-based lie detection: The urgent need for regulation

American Journal of Law and Medicine

Volumn 33, Issue 2-3, 2007, Pages 377-431

  Greely, Henry T ^a   Illes, Judy ^b  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM; FORENSIC MEDICINE; HUMAN; JURISPRUDENCE; MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAPHY; MEDICAL LITERATURE; MEDICAL RESEARCH; MULTICHANNEL RECORDER; NEAR INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY; NEUROIMAGING; NEUROSCIENCE; NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; PEER REVIEW; POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY; REGULATORY MECHANISM; REVIEW; SINGLE PHOTON EMISSION COMPUTER TOMOGRAPHY; THERMOGRAPHY;

EID: 34548555340     PISSN: 00988588     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/009885880703300211     Document Type: Review

References (217)

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3. For the beginning of discussion of these legal issues, see Henry T. Greely, Prediction, Litigation, Privacy, and Property: Some Possible Legal and Social Implications of Advances in Neuroscience, in NEUROSCIENCE AND THE LAW: BRAIN, MIND, AND THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 114-156 (Brent Garland ed., 2004);
4. Henry T. Greely, The Social Consequences of Advances in Neuroscience: Legal Problems; Legal Perspectives, in NEUROETHICS: DEFINING THE ISSUES IN THEORY, PRACTICE AND POLICY 245 (Judy Illes ed., 2006);
5. Michael S. Pardo, Neuroscience Evidence, Legal Culture, and Criminal Procedure, 33 AM. J. CRIM. L. (forthcoming 2007) (discussing the search and seizure clause, self-incrimination clause, and due process clause);
6. Sarah S. Stoller & Paul Root Wolpe, Emerging Neurotechnologies for Lie Detection and the Fifth Amendment, 33 AM. J. L. & MED. 359, 359-375 (2007) (self-incrimination clause).
7. There are also two early discussions of the ethical issues involved in this technology. Judy Illes, A Fish Story? Brain Maps, Lie Detection, and Personhood, 6 CEREBRUM 73 (2004);
8. Paul R Wolpe, Kenneth R. Foster & David D. Langleben, Emerging Neurotechnologies for Lie-Detection: Promises and Perils, 5 AM. J. BIOETHICS 38, 42 (2005).
9. Finally, at the very end of the editing process, we discovered another article that discuss neuroscience-based lie detection technologies in some detail. Charles N.W. Keckler, Cross-Examining the Brain: A Legal Analysis of Neural Imaging for Credibility Impeachment, 57 HASTINGS L. J. 509 (2006).
10. Much of this section is based on Judy Illes, Eric Racine & Matthew P. Kirschen, A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words, but Which 1000?, in NEUROETHICS: DEFINING THE ISSUES IN THEORY, PRACTICE AND POLICY (Judy Illes ed., 2006).
11. We thank Professor Stephen Rose for inspiring some of the following discussion.
12. Illes, Racine & Kirschen, supra note 4.
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14. W. Penfield & E. Boldrey, Somatic Motor and Sensory Representation in the Cerebral Cortex of Man as Studied by Electrical Stimulation, 60 BRAIN 389 (1937).
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17. Mazziotta, supra note 9.
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21. Judy Illes, unpublished data.
22. John E. Desmond & S. H. Annabel Chen, Ethical Issues in the Clinical Application of fMRI: Factors Affecting the Validity and Interpretation of Activations, 50 BRAIN & COGNITION, 482 (2002);
23. A.C. Rosen Arun et al., Ethical and Practical Issues in Applying Functional Imaging to the Clinical Management of Alzheimer's Disease, 50 BRAIN & COGNITION 498 (2002).
24. Mazziotta, supra note 9. See also Allyson C. Rosen & Ruben C. Gur, Ethical Considerations for Neuropsychologists as Functional Magnetic Imagers, 50 BRAIN & COGNITION 469 (2002).
25. Desmond & Chen, supra note 15.
26. Rosen & Gur, supra note 16.
27. Desmond & Chen, supra note 15; Kenneth S. Kosik, Beyond Phrenology, at Last, 4 NATURE NEUROSCIENCE 234 (2003).
28. Kosik, supra note 19.
29. G. Aguirre, E. Zarahn & M. D'esposito, The Variability of Human, BOLD Hemodynamic Responses, 8 NEUROIMAGE 360 (1998).
30. Rosen & Gur, supra note 16.
31. Illes, Racine & Kirschen, supra note 4.
32. Judy Illes & Eric Racine, Imaging or Imagining? A Neuroethics Challenge Informed by Genetics, 5 AM. J. BIOETHICS 5 (2005).
33. ESSAYS IN SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE (John T. Cacioppo & Gary G. Berntson eds., 2005).
34. Judy Illes & Stephanie J. Bird, Neuroethics: A Modern Context for Ethics in Neuroscience, 29 TRENDS NEUROSCIENCES 511 (2006).
35. Judy Illes, supra note 3.
36. Jonathan T. Rowell, Stephen P. Ellner & H. Kern Reeve, Why Animals Lie: How Dishonesty and Belief Can Coexist in a Signaling System, 168 AM. NATURALIST 180, 187-93 (2006) (discussing various helpful articles), http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AN/journal/issues/v168n6/41663/ 41663.web.pdf.
37. See generally Ken Adler, THE LIE DETECTORS: HISTORY OF AN AMERICAN OBSESSION (2007) (detailing history of lie detection in the United States, focusing on the period until about 1960).
38. See Committee To Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph, THE POLYGRAPH AND LIE DETECTION, Appendix E, Historical Notes on the Modern Polygraph (2003) [hereinafter NRC].
39. Id.; Adler, supra note 29, at 48-51, 181-195 (discussing Marston's unusually interesting life).
40. Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923).
41. NRC, supra note 30, at 293-94. See also Adler, supra note 29, at 39-40, 51-54. Late in life, Marston, along with his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, invented the comic book character, Wonder Woman. One of Wonder Woman's attributes was her possession of the magic lasso, forged from the Magic Girdle of Aphrodite. NRC, supra note 30, at 295. The lasso would make anyone it encircled tell the truth.
42. Frye, 293 F. at 1024.
43. NRC, supra note 30, at 12-13.
44. See, e.g., United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 333 (1998). Recently, however, the New Mexico Supreme Court concluded that polygraph evidence would be presumptively admissible in New Mexico courts. Lee v. Martinez, 96 P.3d 291 (N.M. 2004). A few federal courts, applying the newer Daubert standard for admissibility of scientific evidence, have also found polygraph evidence admissible in particular cases, albeit under unusual circumstances. United States v. Allard, 464 F.3d. 529 (5th Cir. 2006); Thornburg v. Mullin, 422 F.3d 1113 (10th Cir. 2005); United States v. Piccinonna, 885 F.2d 1529 (11th Cir. 1989) (en banc).
45. NRC, supra note 30, at 6.
46. Id. at 166-68.
47. Wolpe, Foster & Langleben, supra note 3, at 42.
48. Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories Home Page, http://www.brainwavescience. com/HomePage.php (last visited July 6, 2007).
49. Id.
50. Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, http://www.brainwavescience.com/ criminal-justice.php (last visited July 6, 2007).
51. Wolpe, Foster & Langleben, supra note 3, at 43.
52. Lawrence A. Farwell & Sharon S. Smith, Using Brain MERMER Testing to Detect Knowledge Despite Efforts to Conceal, 46 J. FORENSIC SCI. 135, 135 (2001).
53. Method for Electroencephalographic Information Detection, U.S. Patent No. 5,467,777 (filed Sept. 15, 1994); Method and Apparatus for Truth Detection, U.S. Patent No. 5,406,956 (filed Feb. 11, 1993); Method and Apparatus for Multifaceted Electroencphalographic Response Analysis (MERA), U.S. Patent No. 5,363,858 (filed May 5, 1993); Method and Apparatus for Detection of Deception, U.S. Patent No. 4,941,477 (filed Dec. 12, 1988).
54. Id.
55. Harrington v. Iowa, 659 N.W.2d 509, 525 (Iowa 2003) (holding that Harrington's conviction violated the Due Process clause under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), because the prosecution had failed to disclose material exculpatory information in its possession to his counsel before trial).
56. Id. at 516.
57. Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, http://www.brainwavescience.com/ Ruled%20Admissable.php (last visited July 6, 2007).
58. Britton Chance et al., A Novel Method for Fast Imaging of Brain Function, Non-Invasively, with Light, 2 OPTICS EXPRESS 411, 413 (1998).
59. For a less technical description, see Steve Silberman, The Cortex Cop, 14 WIRED 149 (2006).
60. Silberman, supra note 50.
61. Id.; Richard Willing, Terrorism Lends Urgency To Hunt for Better Lie Detector, USA TODAY, Nov. 4, 2003;
62. Susan Frith, Who's Minding the Brain?, THE PENN. GAZETTE, Jan./Feb. 2004.
63. Britton Chance, Shoko Noka & Yu Chen, Shining New Light on Brain Function, 3 OE MAG. 16 (2003);
64. Detecting Deception (Interview with Chance), 68 ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE GAZETTE 2 (2006), available at http://www.gazette.rcmp.gc.ca/article-en.html?&lang_id= 1&article_id=246.
65. Paul Ekman & Maureen O'Sullivan, Who Can Catch a Liar?, 46 AM. PSYCHOLOGIST 913, 915 (1991).
66. Paul Ekman & Wallace V. Friesen, Nonverbal Leakage and Clues to Deception, 32 PSYCHIATRY 88 (1969).
67. See Siri Schubert, A Look Tells All, SCI. AM. MIND, Oct.-Nov. 2006, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm? articleID=0007F06E-B7AE-1522-B7AE83414B7F0182. The power point slides from a presentation he made to a meeting of the National Research Council committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention and Other National Goals on April 28, 2006 can be found at http://cstb.org/ terrorismandprivacy/ml/ekman.pdf.
68. See also Paul Ekman & Maureen O'Sullivan, From Flawed Self-Assessment to Blatant Whoppers: The Utility of Voluntary and Involuntary Behavior in Detecting Deception, 24 BEHAV. SCI. & L. 673, 684 (2006).
69. Ioannis Pavlidis, James Levine & Paulette Baukol, Thermal Imaging for Anxiety Detection, PROC. IEE WORKSHOP ON COMPUTER VISION BEYOND THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM: METHODS & APPLICATIONS (2000)
70. [hereinafter Pavlidis et al., Thermal Imaging for Anxiety Detection].
71. Id.
72. Ioannis Pavlidis & James Levine, Monitoring of Periorbital Blood Flow Rate Through Thermal Image Analysis and its Application to Polygraph Testing, 3 ENGINEERING MED. & BIOLOGY SOC'Y 2826, 2826 (2001);
73. Ioannis Pavlidis & James Levine, Thermal Facial Screening for Deception Detection, 2 ENGINEERING & MED. 1183, 1183 (2002);
74. Pavlidis et al., Thermal Imaging for Anxiety Detection, supra note 57, at 56;
75. Ioannis Pavlidis, Norman L. Eberhardt & James A. Levine, Seeing Through the Face of Deception: Thermal Imaging Offers a Promising Hands-off Approach to Mass Security Screening, 415 NATURE 35, 35 (2002);
76. Dean A. Pollina, Andrew B. Dollins, Stuart M. Senter, Troy E. Brown, Ioannis Pavlidis, James Levine & Andrew H. Ryan, Facial Skin Surface Temperature Changes During a 'Concealed Information' Test, 34 ANNALS BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 1182, 1182 (2006) (researching in collaboration with the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute).
77. Jeffrey Kluger & Coco Masters, How To Spot a Liar, TIME, Aug. 20, 2006.
78. NRC, supra note 30, at 157.
79. Vicki Haddock, Lies Wide Open, SAN FRANCISCO CHRON., Aug. 6, 2006.
80. No Lie MRI Home Page, http://www.noliemri.com/ (last visited July 6, 2007).
81. No Lie MRI, Process Overview, http://www.noliemri.com/products/ ProcessOverview.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
82. No Lie MRI, Test Centers, http://www.noliemri.com/centers/centers.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
83. No Lie MRI, Market Opportunity, http://www.noliemri.com/investors/ MarketOpportunity.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
84. Id.
85. As to price, in projecting the size of the world market, it assumes a price of $1,800 per test and later says "the cost of testing is $30/minute." Id. Although that might refer to the cost to the firm, it seems more likely to be intended as the price to the customer, which, for a 60 minute MRI session, would be $1,800.
86. No Lie MRI, Process Overview, http://www.noliemri.com/products/ ProcessOverview.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
87. No Lie MRI, Customers - Corporations, http://www.noliemri.com/customers/ GroupOrCorporate.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
88. Id.
89. No Lie MRI, Customers - Lawyers, http://www.noliemri.com/customers/ Lawyers.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
90. By "international governments," it presumably means non-U.S. national governments and not international organizations like the United Nations. No Lie MRI, Customers - Government, http://www.noliemri.com/customers/ Government.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
91. No Lie MRI, Customers - Individuals, http://www.noliemri.com/customers/ Individuals.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
92. No Lie MRI, Customers - Legal and Ethics, http://www.noliemri.com/ customers/LegalAndEthics.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
93. Id.
94. Id.
95. Id.
96. Glenn Smith, Deli Owner Lays Hope on New MRI Lie Detector, POST AND COURIER (Charleston, S.C.), Jan. 16, 2007, at A1.
97. Id. Its publicity-attracting skills do have some limits. In late October 2006 one of the authors (Greely) was taped by the Today Show for a segment on No Lie MRI. The firm was going to do a truth assessment on camera for Today, supposedly of a woman who wanted to prove to her husband that she was sexually faithful. Several days after the taping, the author was told that the segment had been cancelled because the woman had changed her mind.
98. CEPHOS Corporation Home Page, http://www.cephoscorp.com/index.html (last visited July 6, 2007).
99. CEPHOS Corporation, http://www.cephoscorp.com/management.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
100. CEPHOS Corporation, http://www.cephoscorp.com/ (last visited July 6, 2007).
101. Cephos Corporation to Offer Breakthrough Deception Detection Services Using fMRI Technology with over 90% Accuracy in Individuals, BUSINESS WIRE, Sept. 27, 2005.
102. Steven Laken, CEO, CEPHOS Corporation, Remarks at the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences Conference, Reading Minds: Lie Detection, Neuroscience, Law, and Society (Mar. 10, 2006). Both authors spoke at this conference, which Professor Greely organized, and heard Dr. Laken's presentation.
103. Id.
104. CEPHOS Corporation Home Page, http://www.cephoscorp.com/index.html (last visited July 6, 2007). See also Press Release, Steven Laken, CEO, CEPHOS Corporation, CEPHOS' CEO Speaks on Commercial Testing (Dec. 2006), http://www.cephoscorp.com/cephos_comm_testing_20061215%20v2.pdf.
105. Our impressions are based on Dr. Laken's presentation at the Stanford conference and Dr. Kozel's commentary on a paper Judy Illes delivered on January 9, 2007 at the University of Texas, Dallas, entitled "The Ethics of Brain Imaging: Authenticity, Bluffing and the Privacy of Human Thought." Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences Conference, Reading Minds: Lie Detection, Neuroscience, Law, and Society (Mar. 10, 2006); Judy Illes, Associate Professor (Research) of Neurology, Stanford University, The Ethics of Brain Imaging: Authenticity, Bluffing and the Privacy of Human Thought, Lecture given at the University of Texas, Dallas (Jan. 9, 2007). Greely also had e-mail correspondence with Kozel during 2006 in which he was impressed with Kozel's concern about the ethical implications of this technology.
106. Department of Defense, Small Business Innovation Research, Small Business Technology Transfer, http://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/ (last visited July 6, 2007).
107. Langleben also describes his results in a peer-reviewed article he co-authored in the American Journal of Bioethics, but it does not discuss any results not published in his other work. Wolpe, Foster & Langleben supra note 3, at 39.
108. Daniel D. Langleben et al., Brain Activity During Simulated Deception: An Event-Related Functional Magnetic Resonance Study, 15 NEUROIMAGE 727 (2002).
109. The experiment started with twenty-three subjects, eleven men and twelve women, all healthy and right-handed. Their average age was thirty-two and their average number of years of education was sixteen. Five subjects were excluded; four because they moved too much inside the scanner and one giving the "wrong" answer every time about the five of clubs (i.e., telling the truth). The paper does not report demographic information on the eighteen who actually completed the trial successfully.
110. Langleben et al., supra note 91, at 730.
111. Daniel D. Langleben et al., Telling Truth from Lie in Individual Subjects with Fast Event-Related fMRI, 26 HUM. BRAIN MAPPING 262, 262 (2005).
112. C. Davatzikos, K. Ruparel, Y. Fan, D.G. Shen, M. Acharyya, J. W. Loughead, R.C. Gur & Daniel D. Langleben, Classifying Spatial Patterns of Brain Activity with Machine Learning Methods: Application to Lie Detection, 28 NEUROIMAGE 663 (2005).
113. We owe this observation to Nancy Kanwisher, who pointed it out at a symposium at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on February 2, 2007. She in turn had it pointed out to her by Dr. Langleben shortly before that meeting.
114. F. Andrew Kozel et al., A Pilot Study of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Correlates of Deception in Healthy Young Men, 16 J. NEUROPSYCHIATRY & CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE 295, 295 (2004). This lie detection work has been under way for some time. The authors presented an abstract of their fMRI results from this paper in December 2000. The paper was submitted in June 2002 and accepted in January 2003, but not published until summer 2004.
115. F. Andrew Kozel, Tamara M. Padgett & Mark S. George, Brief Communications: A Replication Study of the Neural Correlates of Deception, 118 BEHAV. NEUROSCIENCE 852 (2004).
116. F. Andrew Kozel et al., Detecting Deception Using Functional Magnetic Imaging, 58 BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY 605 (2005). Steven Laken, the chief executive officer of CEPHOS Corporation, is an author of this paper.
117. The researchers labeled these three clusters of brain regions the first, second, and fourth out of the seven of special interest. The first cluster included the right and left anterior cingulate cortex, the right middle cingulate cortex, the right and left superior medial frontal cortex, and the right supplementary motor area. The second cluster included the right orbitofrontal cortex, the right inferior frontal cortex, and the right iinsula. The final cluster comprised the right middle frontal cortex and the right superior frontal cortex. Id. at 608.
118. Sean A. Spence et al., Behavioural and Functional Anatomical Correlates of Deception in Humans, 12 BRAIN IMAGING NEUROREPORT 2849 (2001).
119. Tatia M.C. Lee et al., Lie Detection by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 15 HUM. BRAIN MAPPING 157 (2002) (manuscript was received by the journal two months before Spence's earlier-published article had been received and, in that sense, may be the earliest of these experiments).
120. Lee's group reported "four principle regions of brain activation: prefrontal and front, parietal, temoral, and sub-cortical." Id. at 161.
121. Tatia M.C. Lee et al., Neural Correlates of Feigned Memory Impairment, 28 NEUROIMAGE 305 (2005).
122. G. Ganis et al., Neural Correlates of Different Types of Deception: An fMRI Investigation, 13 CEREBRAL CORTEX 830, 830 (2003).
123. Jennifer Maria Nuñez et al., Intentional False Responding Shares Neural Substrates with Response Conflict and Cognitive Control, 25 NEUROIMAGE 267 (2005).
124. Feroze B. Mohamed et al., Brain Mapping of Deception and Truth Telling about an Ecologically Valid Situation: Function MR Imaging and Polygraph Investigation - Initial Experience, 238 RADIOLOGY 679 (2006).
125. It is not entirely clear whether the number of people tested is important apart from its likely relationship to the diversity of people tested. One might argue that, apart from being less diverse, studies with smaller numbers of subjects provide a stiffer test for fMRI-based lie detection. All other things being equal, it is harder to establish any given level of statistical significance with a smaller number of subjects than with a larger number (we owe this insight to Nancy Kanwisher). As all other things are not always equal, larger sample sizes are still preferable.
126. Brain imaging researchers often prefer to use right-handed subjects. Some brain functions are found to be located in different places in right-handed and non-right-handed people. Although there may be no reason to suspect that any particular function (not related to movement) will correlate with different regions in people with different handedness, limiting test subjects to those with one handedness removes that possible confounding factor. The vast majority of people are strongly right-handed, so it is simpler to use them as subjects. Although there is no evidence and no particular reason to think that non-right-handed people would show different areas of activation while lying, there is almost no evidence that they would not.
127. Langleben's own experiments showed significant activations in different regions. Langleben, supra note 94.
128. Illes, supra note 3.
129. Only one of the studies addressed countermeasures. In the third Kozel experiment, the subjects were asked whether they had tried any countermeasures. Several had and their efforts seemed to make no difference. These, however, were countermeasures thought up on the spot by the subjects and not necessarily measures the researchers, or others knowledgeable about the test methods, would have thought plausible. Kozel et al., supra note 99. This may be a decent proxy for interrogation of a naive person using this method, but it is surely plausible that the liars of most interested will also be best prepared with countermeasures.
130. NRC, supra note 30, at 151.
131. Ganis, supra note 105.
132. See, e.g., George W. Maschke & Gino J. Scalabrini, THE LIE BEHIND THE LIE DETECTOR, ch. 4 (4th digital ed.), available at http://antipolygraph.org/pubs. shtml.
133. See, e.g., Polygraph.com, http://www.polygraph.com/ (last visited July 6, 2007).
134. Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act §201(h)-(g)(1), 21 U.S.C. § 333 (2006).
135. Food and Drug Administration, Institutional Review Board Information Sheets, http://www.fda.gov/oc/ohrt/irbs/offlabel.html (last visited July 6, 2007).
136. Federal Employee Policy Protection Act of 1988, 29 U.S.C. §§ 2001-2009 (2006).
137. 29 U.S.C. § 2002(1)-(2) (2006). The section also prohibits employers from taking action against employees because of their refusal to take a test, because of the results of such a test, or for asserting their rights under the Act. 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3)-(4) (2006).
138. 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3) (2006).
139. 29 U.S.C. § 2005 (2006).
140. 29 U.S.C. § 2006 (2006).
141. 29 U.S.C. § 2006(d) (2006).
142. 29 U.S.C. § 2007 (2006).
143. 29 U.S.C. § 2007(b)(1) (2006).
144. 29 U.S.C. § 2008 (2006).
145. 29 U.S.C. § 2009 (2006).
146. 29 C.F.R. § 801 (2006).
147. Ryan K. Brown, Specific Incident Polygraph Testing Under the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, 64 WASH. L. REV. 661 (1989);
148. Ching Wah Chin, Protecting Employees and Neglecting Technology Assessment: The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, 55 BROOK. L. REV. 1315 (1990);
149. Charles P. Cullen, The Specific Incident Exemption of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, 65 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 262 (1990);
150. Brad V. Driscoll, The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988: A Balance of Interests, 75 IOWA L. REV. 539 (1990);
151. Earl J. Engle, Counseling the Client in the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, 35 PRAC LAW 65 (1989);
152. Peter C. Johnson, Banning the Truth-Finder in Employment: The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, 54 MO. L. REV. 155 (1989);
153. Andrew J. Natale, The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 - Should the Federal Government Regulate the Use of Polygraphs in the Private Sector, 58 U. CIN. L. REV. 559 (1989);
154. Kathleen F. Reilly, The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988: Proper Penalties When Guilty Employees Are Improperly Caught, 7 HOFSTRA LAB. & EMP. L.J. 369 (1990);
155. Durwood Ruegger, When Polygraph Testing Is Allowed: Limited Exceptions Under the EPPA, 108 BANKING L.J. 555 (1991);
156. Yvonne K. Sening, Heads or Tails: The Employee Polygraph Protection Act, 39 CATH. U. L. REV. 235 (1989);
157. Paul D. Seyferth, An Overview of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, 57 J. MO. B. 226 (2001).
158. The United State Code Services annotations show only fifteen cases reported in either the Federal Reporter or the Federal Supplement that discuss this Act. Watson v. Drummond Co., 436 F.3d 1310 (11th Cir. 2006); Polkey v. Transtecs Corp., 404 F.3d 1264 (11th Cir. 2005); Calbillo v. Cavender Oldsmobile, Inc., 288 F.3d 721 (5th Cir. 2002); Veazey v. Communications & Cable, Inc., 194 F.3d 850 (7th Cir. 1999); Saari v. Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., 968 F.2d 877 (9th Cir. 1992); Lyles v. Flagship Resort Development Corp., 371 F.Supp. 2d 597 (D. N.J. 2005); Deetjan v. V.I.P., Inc., 287 F.Supp.2d 80 (D. Me. 2003); Long v. Mango's Tropical Cafe, 972 F.Supp. 655 (S.D. Fla. 1997); Mennen v. Easter Stores, 951 F.Supp. 838 (N.D. Ia. 1997); James v. Professionals' Detective Agency, 876 F.Supp. 1013 (N.D. Ill. 1995); Lyle v. Mercy Hosp. Anderson, 876 F.Supp. 157 (S.D. Oh., 1995); Del Canto v. ITT-Sheraton Corp., 865 F.Supp. 927 (D.D.C. 1994); Blackwell v. 53rd-Ellis Currency Exch., 852 F.Supp. 646 (N.D. Ill. 1994); Rubin v. Tourneau, Inc., 797 F.Supp. 247 (S.D.N.Y. 1992).
159. See No Lie MRI, Customers - Corporations, http://www.noliemri.com/ customers/GroupOrCorporate.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
160. 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3) (2006).
161. "U.S. law prohibits truth verification/lie detection testing for employees that is based on measuring the autonomic nervous system (e.g. polygraph testing). No Lie MRI measures the central nervous system directly and such is not subject to restriction by these laws. No Lie MRI is unaware of any law that would prohibit its use for employment screening." No Lie MRI, Customers - Corporations, http://www.noliemri.com/customers/GroupOrCorporate.htm (last visited July 6, 2007).
162. 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3) (2006).
163. No Lie MRI might also try to argue that fMRI is fundamentally a magnetic device and hence neither mechanical nor electrical, which, given the many mechanical and electrical aspects of an MRI examination and its analysis, is an even weaker argument - even before considering the Nineteenth Century's successful unification of electricity and magnetism.
164. 10 U.S.C. § 1564(a) (2006).
165. 50 U.S.C. §§ 2654-2655 (2006). Section 2654 was passed in the aftermath of the Wen Ho Lee scandal and requires the Department of Energy to adopt a new polygraph policy. Thirty days after that new policy is adopted, Section 2655 will be repealed. Interestingly, the new statute expressly requires the Secretary of Energy to "take into account the results of the Polygraph Review." NRC, supra note 30; 50 U.S.C. § 2654(b)(2) (2006).
166. 50 U.S.C. § 435(b) (2006) (covering security clearances).
167. 42 U.S.C. § 3796hh(c)(5) (2006).
168. State laws concerning lie detection or polygraphs are set out in the appendix to this article.
169. See appendix.
170. See, e.g., ALASKA STAT. § 23.10.037 (2006); CONN. GEN. STAT. § 31-51g (2006).
171. See, e.g., CAL. GOV'T CODE § 3307 (2006); MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 149, § 19B (2006).
172. See TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. §§ 411.007, 411.0074, 614.063 (2006) (allowing polygraph for new police hires but prohibiting polygraphs for existing officers applying for a new job and banning any adverse actions against police officers for refusing to take a polygraph).
173. See, e.g., TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 493.022 (2006).
174. See, e.g., CAL. GOV'T CODE § 3307 (2006).
175. See the appendix for details on these state laws.
176. Id.
177. Id.
178. Id.
179. Id.
180. ME. REV. STAT. ANN. tit. 32, § 7152 (1964). See identical or substantial similar language from Nebraska, NEB. REV. STAT. § 81-1902 (1999) (providing that the statute be "liberally construed to regulate all persons" using lie detectors, stress evaluators, deceptographs and voice analyzers); Oklahoma, OKLA. STAT. ANN. tit. 59, § 1452 (West 2000) (providing the statute "regulate[s] all persons who purport to be able to detect deception . . . without regard to the nomenclature applied thereto); and South Carolina, S.C. CODE ANN. § 40-53-20 (1999) (same).
181. KY. REV. STAT. ANN. § 329.010(6) (LexisNexis 2001).
182. See CAL. EVID. CODE § 351.1(a) (1995) (providing that "the results of a polygraph examination . . . shall not be admitted into evidence in any criminal proceeding . . . .").
183. See generally Thomas R. Malia, Annotation, Admissibility of Voice Stress Evaluation Test Results or of Statements Made During Test, 47 A.L.R. 4th 1202 (1986, 2001 supplement) (collecting and analyzing state and federal law to conclude that tests are generally inadmissible). See also Whittington v. State, 809 A.2d 721, 740 (Md. App. 2002) (holding that results of a voice stress test are not admissible at trial); State v. Gaudet, 638 So.2d 1216, 1222 (La. App. 1994) (holding the same); State v. Higginbotham, 554 So.2d 1308, 1310 (La. App. 1989) (holding the same); State v. Arnold, 533 So.2d 1311, 1314 (La. App. 1988) (holding the same); Smith v. State, 355 A.2d 527, 536 (Md. App. 1976) (holding the same).
184. See Harrington v. Iowa, 659 N.W.2d 509, 525 (Iowa 2003).
185. See United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 310-11 (1998).
186. See N.M. R. EVID. 11-707(c) (allowing the opinion of the polygraph examiner to be admitted into evidence at the discretion of the trial judge). See Lee v. Martinez, 96 P.3d 291 (N.M. 2004) (discussing when to allow polygraph evidence in court).
187. NRC, supra note 30, at 293-94. See also Adler, supra note 29.
188. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 516 U.S. 869 (1993).
189. Frye, 293 F. 1013; Daubert, 516 U.S. 869.
190. 523 U.S. 303 (1998).
191. Id. at 305.
192. Id. at 305-6
193. Id. at 306.
194. Id. at 306-07.
195. Id. at 307-08.
196. Id. at 305.
197. Id. at 308-315.
198. Id. at 318-320.
199. Id. at 320-38.
200. See 1-8 MATTHEW BENDER & CO., INC., SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 8-4(C) (2005).
201. United States v. Piccinonna, 885 F.2d 1529 (11th Cir. 1989) (en banc). See also United States v. Henderson, 409 F.3d. 1293 (11th Cir. 2005) (explaining the relationship between Piccinonna and Daubert).
202. Rupe v. Wood, 93 F.3d 1434 (9th Cir. 1996). See also Height v. State, 604 S.E.2d 796 (Ga. 2004) (holding that Georgia's general ban on admitting polygraph evidence except on the parties' stipulation did not apply to the sentencing phase of a capital case).
203. See, e.g., United States v. Cordoba, 104 F.3d 225 (9th Cir. 1997); United States v. Posado, 57 F.3d 428 (5th Cir. 1995). But see United States v. Prince-Oyibo, 320 F.3d 424 (4th Cir. 2003) (maintaining the Fourth Circuit's per se rule against the admissibility of polygraph evidence in spite of Daubert).
204. Some of the ideas in this section have appeared previously in Henry T. Greely, Pre-market Approval Regulation for Lie Detection: An Idea Whose Time May Be Coming, 5 AM. J. BIOETHIC 50, 50-52 (2005).
205. Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act §§ 301-308, 21 U.S.C. § 333 (2006). See PETER B. HUTT, RICHARD A. MERRILL & LEWIS A. GROSSMAN, HUTT, MERRILL, AND GROSSMAN'S FOOD AND DRUG LAW 1196-1370 (3d ed. 2007).
206. Illes, supra note 3.
207. Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) § 505(i). See generally HUTT, MERRILL & GROSSMAN, supra note 178, at 624-626.
208. Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act § 505(i), 21 U.S.C. §333 (2006). See HUTT, MERRILL & GROSSMAN, supra note 178, at 624-26.
209. One might argue whether information should be provided about countermeasures. The information might give test subjects the information they need to nullify the tests; on the other hand, they may help test operators and others detect, combat, or evaluate the risk that a subject is using countermeasures.
210. See generally Judy Illes & Margaret L. Eaton, Commercializing Cognitive Neurotechnology - The Ethical Terrain, 25 NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY 393 (2007) (asserting that a "lack of recognition of the ethical, social and policy issues associated with the commercialization of neurotechnology could compromise new ventures in the area.").
211. This figure is a very rough estimate. It assumes that a trial would use 2,000 subjects and that the MRI time alone for each individual would cost about $1,000, for a total of $2 million. It then assumes that recruitment and management of the subjects, on the one hand, and analysis of the results, on the other, would each involve costs roughly comparable to the MRI costs, bringing the estimated total to about $6 million. The actual figure, even for a 2,000 person trial, could easily be two or three times as much; it seems very unlikely that it could be half or a third of that amount.
212. See DAN STOBER AND IAN HOFFMAN, A CONVENIENT SPY: WEN HO LEE AND THE POLITICS OF NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE (2002) (discussing, in some detail, conflicting conclusions investigators drew from Lee's several polygraph tests). See also Transcript of Court Opinion, United States v. Wen Ho Lee, http://cicentre.com/Documents/ DOC_Judge_Parker_on_Lee_Case.htm (extraordinary apology United States District Judge James Parker, the judge assigned to Lee's criminal case, made to Lee for the method of his detention by the federal government).
213. See Jane Mayer, Outsourcing Torture, NEW YORKER, Feb. 14, 2005.
214. Id.
215. Id.
216. Id.
217. Dahlia Lithwick, Welcome Back to the Rule of Law, SLATE, Jan. 30, 2007, http://www.slate.com/id/2157667/.