Feds Target Instructors of Polygraph-Beating Methods

schwit1 writes "Federal agents have launched a criminal investigation of instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie detector tests as part of the Obama administration's unprecedented crackdown on security violators and leakers. The criminal inquiry, which hasn't been acknowledged publicly, is aimed at discouraging criminals and spies from infiltrating the U.S. government by using the polygraph-beating techniques, which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting and mental arithmetic. So far, authorities have targeted at least two instructors, one of whom has pleaded guilty to federal charges, several people familiar with the investigation told McClatchy. Investigators confiscated business records from the two men, which included the names of as many as 5,000 people who'd sought polygraph-beating advice. U.S. agencies have determined that at least 20 of them applied for government and federal contracting jobs, and at least half of that group was hired, including by the National Security Agency. By attempting to prosecute the instructors, federal officials are adopting a controversial legal stance that sharing such information should be treated as a crime and isn't protected under the First Amendment in some circumstances."

Comments

Re:Only if they have a phrenology test

[rtb61]

Not to forget, lie detector test have zero impact on psychopaths, so basically the worst of the worst will pass, kind of making the lie detector scam pointless, or more accurately the question reaction flim flam show pointless. This being the reason they are banned in most countries. This really stinks of the FBI intending to use fake like detector tests to incriminate any one they want too and these plans are threatened by the exposure.