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US Gov't Circulates Watch List of Buyers of Polygraph Training Materials
George Maschke writes "Investigative reporter Marisa Taylor of the McClatchy newspaper group reports that a list of 4,904 individuals who purchased a book, DVD, or personal training on how to pass a polygraph test has been circulated to nearly 30 federal agencies including the CIA, NSA, DIA, DOE, TSA, IRS, and FDA. Most of the individuals on the list purchased former police polygraphist Doug Williams' book, How to Sting the Polygraph, which explains how to pass or beat a polygraph test. Williams also sells a DVD on the subject and offers in-person training. In February 2013, federal law enforcement officials seized Williams' business records, from which the watch list was primarily compiled. Williams has not been charged with a crime."
I have blatantly admonished the polygraph as being junk science online for close to 20 years now. I've pointed out how traitors from Ames to Snowden all passed the Polygraph with flying colors. I've also pointed out how there isn't a courtroom in this country that will accept the use of one. I've talked about how the scientific community considers them absolutely rubbish and no better than snake oil. I really can't think of a better way of how to illustrate that security theater is an active danger to this country than by citing the polygraph as example number 1.
It makes me wonder if I'm on this list of theirs too...
Let's see if we can catch a dead salmon in a lie!
Given that a polygraph is not a reliable way to catch lies, and buying a book on beating it isn't illegal, and given that they just divulged confidential corporate information: I expect that a certain business man just got handed free money.
If our legal system was primarily driven by law then yes, but there is way too much politics involved here. Judges, the humans who get to decide such things, have a significant conflict of interests but will not recuse themselves, and it is unlikely they will rule against their own community's systematic behavior.
I think judges should elected from pools of defense attorneys — no former prosecutors. Defense attorneys are used to defending people's Constitutional rights, while prosecutors are used to suppressing evidence and skirting Constitutional limits in order to put away "bad guys" even when the defendant is actually a "good guy." Defense attorneys give the people the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to the (police) state.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
The preliminary questions that they claimed would be the "base line" really don't work because the system is flawed. It's kind of like claiming that meditation before the tea leaf reading makes reading tea leaves work.
40 years ago, we knew it was flawed (we knew long before your statement of 20 years). Certain agencies of Government (including Military) trained agents/soldiers to beat the Polygraph. It's a bit more than simply not believing in the machine's ability to catch a lie, mostly adding in relaxation and breathing techniques. Leaks of that training could have something to do with public knowledge about how to beat the polygraph, the techniques are the same. This is why certain government agencies (did|do) not use just a polygraph, they used a narcotics selection to reduce your rational thinking ability, induce emotion, and increase your heart rate. (you may have heard of LSD, Sodium pentothol, etc..)
Even with the narcotics selections, the Polygraph was beatable however. To most agencies, the polygraph became a fear technique long ago and was not seen as a real scientific tool like it was thought to be in the 50s and 60s. If they can scare you into thinking you will be caught in a lie, you may confess. They don't want the public to know that it's mumbo-jumbo though, because it's cheap and easy to use this old garbage to collect a confession.
Now what I don't get is why they are trying to bust people that are making the voodoo public knowledge. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and them busting people does not make the polygraph magically valid science. That part is what the scientific community should be outraged over, and petitioning the Government to end it's use and persecution of people exposing the fraud.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.