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The polygraph supposedly identifies false answers by measuring involuntary changes in blood pressure, breathing and galvanic skin response, a process that involves sweating. The changes purportedly occur under the emotional stress of lying. But however sensitive it is, the machine is not infallible. Results of lie-detector tests normally are not admitted as evidence in court cases because they are not considered reliable enough. A coolly determined person can sometimes hoodwink the machine, as TIME Reporter-Researcher Eileen Shields did in a polygraph test at Dale System headquarters. By trying to remain calm and control her physical responses, she successfully convinced her questioner that she was 26 years old instead of her correct age, 29. "I tried to think of no as a meaningless word, just as easy to say as yes," she recalls. The operator eventually determined that she was lying, but only after he began to monitor her blood pressure in addition to her breathing and perspiration.
Guilty. Reliability aside, polygraph opponents argue that forcing employees to take lie-detector tests is unfair and degrading. Next month, the American Civil Liberties Union will publish a report contending that employee testing by polygraphy violates the constitutional principle that a citizen is presumed innocent until proven guilty and constitutes "an illegal search and seizure of the subject's thoughts, attitudes and beliefs." Says John Shattuck, a co-author of the report: "It is logically impossible to determine whether polygraph testing at a particular company is voluntary or a condition of employment, so all pre-employment use should be banned." Democratic Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina has introduced a bill to do exactly that.
Unions representing employees of some retail chains, including locals at E.J. Korvette and Grand Union, have won contract provisions severely limiting lie-detector tests. A few stores, like New York's Bonwit Teller, have abandoned tests on sales personnel because of worker opposition. And many executives, whether out of consideration for good employee relations or philosophical conviction, will have nothing to do with the machine.
Polygraphers argue that businessmen simply must protect themselves against dishonest employees. "There comes a time when your privacy and mine has to be weighed against the company's being stolen blind and put out of business," says J. Kirk Barefoot, former president of the 900-member American Polygraph Association. So many businessmen obviously agree that, for a while at least, many employees will have to regard a polygraphic game of truth or consequences as a normal part of their working lives.