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Feds Seek Prison For Man Who Taught How To Beat a Polygraph
George Maschke writes "In a case with serious First Amendment implications, McClatchy reports that federal prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence for Chad Dixon of Indiana, who committed the crime of teaching people how to pass or beat a lie detector test. Some of his students passed polygraphs and went on to be hired by federal agencies. A pleading filed by prosecutors all but admits that polygraph tests can be beaten. The feds have also raided and seized business records from Doug Williams, who has taught many more people how to pass or beat a polygraph over the past 30 years. Williams has not been criminally charged. I'm a co-founder of AntiPolygraph.org (we suggest using Tor to access the site) a non-profit, public interest website dedicated to exposing and ending waste, fraud, and abuse associated with the use of lie detectors. We offer a free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF) that explains how to pass a polygraph (whether or not one is telling the truth). We make this information available not to help liars beat the system, but to provide truthful people with a means of protecting themselves against the high risk of a false positive outcome. As McClatchy reported last week, I received suspicious e-mails earlier this year that seemed like an attempted entrapment. Rather than trying to criminalize teaching people how to pass a polygraph, isn't it time our government re-evaluated its reliance on the pseudoscience of polygraphy?"
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/polygraphs_and_the_national_labs_dangerous_ruse_undermines_national_securit/
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Polygraphs are one reason I left classified work for greener pastures. I believe they are nearly worthless, used just as much to harass as anything else.
In my last classified job, my employer hired a new security officer. After several months on the job she was sent for her polygraph. She returned the same day, the test unadministered because she had a heart problem. The problem was manageable, but it made it impossible for an "accurate" test. Despite this she remained in her job. With access to far more material than myself and others--sensitive material covering many programs--she was excused. Obviously the intelligence community doesn't believe in polygraphs either. I'm glad to be out of that world.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
I appears he gave a few specific people methods on how to avoid the feds on specific (federal) crimes they had committed, that in itself could be (and was) considered aiding.
The prosecution is using it as a religious platform for their pseudoscience saying that any negative speak of their golden cow (polygraph tests) is an affront to god and country.
Essentially the government is trying to frame the issue that anyone that does anti-poly is a child molesting terrorist so they can control the discussion and then control debate on they laws surrounding it.
having 'flunked' a lie detector test many years ago for a stupid shit job at radio shack, where i was 100% truthful, i know from my personal experience they are shit...
on top of that, a couple of guys who I KNOW were lying, scamming, stealing, doping, snorting, salesdroid types, PASSED their lie detector tests from the same operator, in the same timeframe, for the same shit radio shack job...
they went on to become managers...
They're generally inadmissable as evidence or at least require both sides agree to them as evidence here as well, however they still see use for job screenings and parole.
He already plead guilty. Ironically the summary lies, he fell for entrapment, providing a lie for an undercover investigator to purportedly get a federal job dishonestly. Wire fraud is in there too. Sorry, I read the article.
There's nothing first amendment related, you can tell people to befriend the examiner, control their breathing, put antiperspirant on their fingers, and be anxious for early control questions so you seem less anxious for later questions.
If he'd simply responded, "I can't provide answers you should give" instead of, "tell them X", he'd have been fine.
I do feel for the poor guy, he's literally poor, had a failing business and was trying to generate side income to support his family/kids by charging people for what is in the wikipedia article on polygraphs, and obvious to anyone who had parents they lied to.
Actually, it sounds more like they should have hired the guy to help them out.
No psychologist worth their salt puts any stock in polygraphs, it's law enforcement that loves them. Psych 101: a good test should be reliable and valid. Polygraphs do not meet the criteria.