The New Salem Witch Trials

Here is the full post that appeared in the Guardian over Easter

The new Salem witch trials
New Labour is planning to use lie detectors on benefit claimants. But if lie detectors are so great, why not use them on politicians?

Ian Williams
New Labour's proposal to use voice activated lie detection on benefit claimants suggests a whole new approach to the impending elections. After the ID cards debacle, it should be no surprise that New Labour's latest gimmick is to spend a fortune on pseudo-science: lie detectors for benefit claimants. The new system depends on "Voice Recognition Analysis", or "Voice Stress Analysis", as it is also known. John Hutton, the UK work and pensions secretary claims, "This technology-based process aims to tackle these fraudsters...Our investigators are successfully using sophisticated 21st century techniques to stop criminals. The introduction of this cutting-edge technology will be another weapon in the battle against benefit fraud." Allegedly, "The technology analyses changes in a caller's voice and enables trained operators to identify suspect cases at the start of a claim." There are so many layers of absurdity to this onion of a policy that it almost reduces one to tears. Firstly, the government's own statistics report that the suspected fraud is £310m a year, whereas official incompetence amounts to £400m overpayments a year - which suggests that some device to identify innumerate bureaucrats could be more productive, albeit equally unscientific. Secondly, the move smacks of corporate welfare - since this is New Labour and, of course, the money goes to a private contractor. Thirdly, "lie detection" is a science on a par with phrenology or the ducking stool to test for witches. The old polygraph, generally only used in the US, tested the victim's respiration, perspiration and similar physiological signs for nervousness. It was so effective that several Soviet double agents in the CIA passed it with flying colours. A down-to-earth Australian judge succinctly dismissed lie detection: "Devoid of any proved or accepted scientific basis, the evidence of Mr Glare (the lie detector operator) is simply hearsay which is inadmissible and of no probative value." Civil rights campaigners in the USA have waged partially successful struggles against its use, but - as with the X-files, creationism, psychoanalysis and Saddam's support for al-Qaida - no amount of evidence will dislodge some popular beliefs. The new voice technology is based on the "microtremors of Lippold", which has become the modern equivalent of a phrenologist's bump. As a study for the US Department of Justice reported, "Some of the claims made by these manufacturers have no basis, or are so extreme that they go against basic speech science". In particular the report debunks claims that machines can distinguish between the results "due to emotion and those due to deception". So benefit claimants struggling to make ends meet, knowing that the government has declared open season on their kind, talking to a prying bureaucrat who can reduce them to destitution, may understandably be stressed. In fact, the more they need the money, the more the moron behind the machine may see signs of mendacity. But the crucial reason for scepticism about the effectiveness of lie-detection technology works is that democratic governments would not allow it. Imagine the election debates. If there were a mendacity monitor in the corner of the TV screen assessing whoever is speaking, there would be a serious shortage of candidates. Much more effective would be a motion detector trained on their lips - they're moving, so the candidates must be lying. Indeed, it's possible that even an effective lie detector would not solve our real problems. In this age of unreason, the biggest threat to humanity is not the lie but the firmly believed untruth. Politicians who truly, sincerely and deeply believe in Armageddon, their own infallibility, that the war in Iraq was against terrorism instead of promoting it and that water-boarding is not really torture. Or that the small number of false benefit claimants represents a major problem and that bringing back the modern micro-chipped equivalent of the ducking stool is the way to do it. It's sad to see unreason straddling the Atlantic. Maybe next we will see the rendition of witches to Salem through British airports.