Slashdot Mirror
Scientist Organizes Resistance To Polygraphs
George Maschke writes "Brad Holian, a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is using a blog to organize resistance to plans for random polygraph and drug testing of Lab scientists. Holian writes: 'Polygraphy is an insulting affront to scientists, since a committee of the National Academy of Sciences has declared that, beyond being inadmissible in court, there is no scientific basis for polygraphs. In my opinion, by agreeing to be polygraphed, one thereby seriously jeopardizes his or her claim to being a scientist, which is presumably the principal reason for employment for many scientists at Los Alamos.'"
The idea is to convince people to *believe* that the polygraph machine is scientific and will detect their lies so that they're more likely to not lie, or are nervous while questioning, or even don't take the test at all and just spill it beforehand. It's psychological intimidation, kind of like forcing confessions of bad thoughts in a cult environment. That's one reason you see those "you shall not be subjected to polygraphs at work" posters at your job... a nasty employer could really intimidate people (e.g. union organizers) with it.
-b.
Cheers,
-b.
So they attached this to one of those emergency defense appropriation bills:
Your Congress at work.
The FSB, the spun off domestic branch of the KGB like to promote the use of the polygraph amongst companies in russia to ensure employee lotyalty (Yes, I was at one of their presentations a few years back). The joke is that itt was revealed by Vasily Mitrokhin (the KGB Archivist and defector)that faking your way through a polygraph test was simply a matter of training. In other words, the polygraph may catch the person stealing paperclips but it probably won't find the trained spy.
See my journal, I write things there
Bad logic? Not quite. I understood this as "by agreeing to be polygraphed, one [endorses pseudoscience and] thereby seriously jeopardizes his or her claim to being a scientist" (insertion mine).
Oh, for gahd's sake, just because you break a few minor laws does *not* mean that you'd be more likely sell out your country to the enemy-of-the-day. By your "slippery slope" logic, anyone who gets caught for speeding should be pre-emptively shot. After all, who's to say when they'll move from speeding to treason?
-b.
Name a spy caught after failing a polygraph test.
Neither can I. It never happened.
TFA is completely correct on polygraphs.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Long story short: the polygraph is a pile of pseudo-scientific bullshit, that can be easily beaten by anyone that knows how it works. At its core, its basically just a non-standardized investigation protocol for extracting harmful confessions by deceiving the person being investigated.
After educating myself, I passed a polygraph easily the first time, without any preparation or practice, while directly lying to my investigator. For the record, what they were asking was none of my employer's business (in my opinion). I was previously warned that the average session takes an hour, and can sometimes run into 3-4 hours when there are "complications". However, by manipulating my physiological responses to a few critical control questions, and pretending to be appropriately intimidated and impressed by the investigator and his machine, I was out of there in 15 minutes, which I was later told was something of a record.
From http://antipolygraph.org/:
The dirty little secret behind the polygraph is that the "test" depends on trickery, not science. The person being "tested" is not supposed to know that while the polygraph operator declares that all questions must be answered truthfully, warning that the slightest hint of deception will be detected, he secretly assumes that denials in response to certain questions -- called "control" questions -- will be less than truthful. An example of a commonly used control question is, "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" The polygrapher steers the examinee into a denial by warning, for example, that anyone who would do so is the same kind of person who would commit the kind of behavior that is under investigation and then lie about it. But secretly, it is assumed that everyone has lied to get out of trouble.
The polygraph pens don't do a special dance when a person lies. The polygrapher scores the test by comparing physiological responses (breathing, blood pressure, heart, and perspiration rates) to these probable-lie control questions with reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you ever commit an act of espionage against the United States?" (commonly asked in security screening). If the former reactions are greater, the examinee passes; if the latter are greater, he fails. If responses to both "control" and relevant questions are about the same, the result is deemed inconclusive.
The test also includes irrelevant questions such as, "Are the lights on in this room?" The polygrapher falsely explains that such questions provide a "baseline for truth," because the true answer is obvious. But in reality, they are not scored at all! They merely serve as buffers between pairs of relevant and "control" questions.
The simplistic methodology used in polygraph testing has no grounding in the scientific method: it is no more scientific than astrology or tarot cards. Government agencies value it because people who don't realize it's a fraud sometimes make damaging admissions. But as a result of reliance on this voodoo science, the truthful are often falsely branded as liars while the deceptive pass through.
Perversely, the "test" is inherently biased against the truthful, because the more honestly one answers the "control" questions, and as a consequence feels less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail. Conversely, liars can beat the test by covertly augmenting their physiological reactions to the "control" questions. This can be done, for example, by doing mental arithmetic, thinking exciting thoughts, altering one's breathing pattern, or simply biting the side of the tongue. Truthful persons can also use these techniques to protect themselves against the risk of a false positive outcome. Although polygraphers
Considering the "brainscan" approach to polygraphs that the future may hold. I am kind of interested in
how a 100% accurate polygraph or lie-detector would affect civilization. How it would affect law enforcement
and judiciary. How would it affect business agreements and politics. If a really good lie detector were
readily available, then what would it do to society, government, economies, education, religion...
Its fun to imagine how the world would reshape itself. Would it be good, or a disaster.
Quite simply, LANL employees' biggest problem is that we aren't unionized. We stand idly by and watch management (LANS/NNSA/DOE) hammer us again and again and again with policies that decrease the quality of workplace life (without adding jack to the real safety and security of the institution). The "substantially equivalent" requirement for benefits between the last contractor and the current contractor has been revealed to be a stinking pile of bullshit. With a strong collective bargaining agreement, there'd be some pushback against this unrelenting spiral into hell. There is none, however, because nearly everyone in Los Alamos County believes that unions are dues-sucking liberal plots that exist solely to protect the slackers and lackwits. Efforts to unionize have been and will continue to be fruitless. And so, things will get worse.
To specifically address the current outrage, Director Mike Anastasio's plan to expand random drug testing, one can say that it's true that LANL has had far, far too many security and safety incidents over the past decade. But I can't think of a single one in which the cause was traced back to drug use or alcohol overconsumption. This means we'll be spending money that the contractor doesn't have (they're facing a $150M + shortfall this year) to solve a problem that the lab doesn't have, and raping the Fourth Amendment in the process. (Yes, I know the workplace drug laws have been routinely upheld, but when the courts write that some things are too important for Constitutional protections to apply, what're you to think?) THIS is the kind of visionary thinking that made LANS the winning contractor?
/Pee in cups for LANL
//Take polygraphs for LANL
///Hates self for it
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
There is no scientific basis for polygraphs. Therefore they fail to meet court standards for admission of evidence. And therefore they are not admissable in court. This guy is formulating what is at least partially a legal argument as well as a scientific and political argument and so it is very relevant for him to point out the complete NAS opinion that polygraphs are not admissable in court, in addition to having no scientific basis. The NAS position he cites specifically says "beyond", not "because of". While the author does use established legal standards to support his argument in a rhetorical sense, he is not relying on them as proof of anything scientific.
I don't know where you divined the information that polygraphs fail to meet court standards for admission of evidence for any reason other than their lack of a scientific basis. Specifically, those standards keep polygraphs out of courtrooms because of their high error rate, as one would expect from a technology built on top of a pseudoscience.
As for the rest of your argument, the choice of whether or not to consent to a stupid polygraph is simply not on par with one's freedom of religion.
Sharon Scranage - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Scranage
Jim Nicholson - convicted of spying for Russia
There's two. There's hundreds found... and even many more before they get off the ground- how many people could be compromised had they been given access?
Fair enough. But if it's a matter of national security, then let's be sure the Congress, the cabinet and the Commander-in-Chief are subject to identical questions, investigation and consequences.
The guy's right, by the way. For similar reasons, I've walked off jobs because I refuse to be piss-tested. I don't do drugs, I'm an infrequent drinker, nearest to a chemical vice is drinking too much espresso, but as a matter of principle, it's none of their goddamned business. And I've never gone a day without being employed. The only reason not to stand up to the bastards is cowardice, or the all-American tendency to grovel before any authority, no matter how illegitimate or irrational.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Back in the 80's, I was a restaurant manager. At the time I had a theft problem. At one point, some money showed up on one of my employees. I had her take the test and she failed. I ended up firing her, all the while thinking that it could not be her. Turned out that the problem continued and it was somebody else. I fired an innocent gal based on that shit. There is nothing that would convince that that crap works. It is pure voodoo and is absolutely worthless. IMO, you would be better off casting bones then polygraphs. At least you do not subject the person to total humiliation.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.