Notebook

THE TRUTH MAY SET YOU FREE, BUT IT WILL COST YOU $9,995

Recently, as we were unwinding with DefenseTech.org--well, this is Washington--we read that the Pentagon has been using the latest in lie-detection technology: "voice stress analysis." It's based on the idea that a person, when fibbing, emits a certain frequency perceptible only to the keenest of auditory instruments--like the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer. Its manufacturer, the National Institute for Truth Verification (nitv), boasts that the device is "utilized by the US Department of Defense in the global war on terrorism." And the hardware is simple: "The cvsa uses only a microphone plugged into the computer to analyze the subject's responses." Yet its sensitivity to micro-tremors remains unmatched.

We like the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer. Sure, there's the occasional dissenter, such as Washington University psychologist Mitchell Sommers, who conducted a study on voice-stress analysis and recently told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "It's beyond my imagination why anyone would buy one of these devices." But perhaps Sommers is just jealous because he can't afford one. (The cvsa starts at $9,995.00.)

•	Notebook New Republic, Monday, July 25, 2005