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Polygraph E-Book at Issue in Federal Civil Suit
George Maschke writes "The question of whether a patient in the state of Iowa's Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders (CCUSO) may read AntiPolygraph.org's free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, was at issue in a recently-decided federal civil suit (Willis v. Smith, et al.). The CCUSO relies heavily on polygraphs in its treatment program. The e-book in question provides relevant information that the directors of the CCUSO don't want patients to know. See, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector at Issue in Federal Civil Suit."
Biased, perhaps, but only in the sense that a textbook that presents the facts is "biased" towards the truth. "Lie detectors" as about as reliable as phrenology or handwriting analysis--e.g. not at all.
--MarkusQ
The man is not a prisoner. He was convicted and served his term and then was released.
Iowa persued him again when he got out saying he was messed up in the head and now has him treated involuntarily for a mental disorder.
The issue raised here would apply to your teenage daughter if she overdosed on pills and the doctors involuntarily commited her as a danger to herself.
If the person is incarcerated, I don't see it as a violation of their rights. The real issue here is the "therapy".
The use of a lie detector to verify the veracity of a subject's responses has been proven, time and again, to produce false positives and false negatives in abundance. Also, there are simple tricks that can be used to "game" a lie detector. The administrator of the test can "game" the lie detector as well.
Let's put this in a different perspective. I were an Iowan (Iowite?), I'd be worried about a supposedly "cured" sex offender coming to live in my neighborhood. It's one thing to have the sex offender believe in the Tooth Fairy (Lie Detector), but it's insane for a sex offender's treatment/release to be based on what that Tooth Fairy says about the sex offender.
Here come da fudge!
"I see that, but it doesn't change anything - he still has, as a felon and involuntary resident, fewer rights than the rest of us."
Last I checked once you serve your time for a crime you no longer have less rights than the rest of us (unless you were released early under the condition you agree to have less).
As an involuntary resident he has the same rights you would have if you were elderly and your children felt you were senile and had you committed. People are involuntarily committed when they are believed to be a danger to themselves OR others; being convicted of a crime is not a requirement.
If the treatment center has the right to use something akin to palm reading in their treatment AND to stop their paitients from finding out why it is akin to palm reading, that applies to EVERYONE committed there; not just ex-cons.
No, the problem is that eating chilli can cause the same symptoms, as can the posibility of sex or failure of an air conditioner. Just because fire trucks have the "recordable behaviour" of showing up at fires, we can not conclude that the fire station is perpetually in flames.
--MarkusQ
Or, at least the people who are in charge of holding him use the lie-detector to assert so.
The book he was being sent refuted the validity of the lie-detector test.
The facility administrators basically said: it is more important for patients to believe the polygraph is valid then [sic] for the test actually to be valid.
Basically, they can't prove that the reasons they hold him, but they don't want him to be able to know that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Some people are dangers to themselves or others, and I'm all for them being put somewhere they can be watched. Hopefully they come in by themselves, sometimes we need to pull them off the street ourselves. This man is apparently one of those people. (Whether or not he actually is is another debate, but we have no basis to challenge it.)
But those people are not criminals. They have whatever rights they would normally have, with the sole exception of not being allowed to wander around freely. (And, sometimes, they're not allowed things that could be used to harm themselves or others, but he doesn't appear to be violent or suicidal, and an ebook hardly qualifies.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?