Slashdot Mirror
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."
When will they realize that their entire polygraph system is flawed in principle? It's mumbo jumbo! Might as well be reading tea leaves. It only works if the person being "tested" believes that it works.
That is pretty shady that they seize his materials, use it to their advantage, but then don't charge him with any crime. That's basically tyranny.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Since the job obviously involves repeatedly lying to the American public.
Thanks for the advertisement! Once that hits the 'tubes in ebook form, thousands or even millions of us will get a copy. They can't put all of us on the watch list, right? Right?
What about the 4th Amendment? This is a matter of national importance, damnit! We don't have time to let your petty rights get in the way.
. . . .that now you can be a suspect for owning a book or DVD. Good thing I never bought a copy of the Constitution . . .
"How to Sting The Polygraph" is not on The Pirate Bay yet, but there are several other titles along the same lines. And of course some porn with polygraph in the title, which I'm going to check out "for professional reasons only".
Sheldon
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!
Youtube search penn and teller bullshit lie detectors. It's all explained there. You don't need a book or a DVD to learn it.
I should have mentioned in the original post that investigative reporter Marisa Taylor of the McClatchy newspaper group has a PGP public key (7DCA14DC) that can be used to securely contact her. I've signed it with my own key (316A947C).
George W. Maschke
AntiPolygraph.org
It's bullshit since it measures that you are under stress. Some people don't get visibly stressed while lying. In fact some people get *calmer* while lying and this is well known. Other people get stressed not because they committed the action but for other reasons (they find it repulsive, are afraid of being wrongly sentenced, whatever).
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.
I made that point once to a KY State Police polygraph operator (who I met because my father was a KSP officer) . . . the polygraph operator responded . . . "That's why we give/read a list of questions in advance . . . we want your reaction to the "lie" . . . not to the magnitude of the question."
But . . . that was 20 years ago . . . things may have changed.
No, I don't remember your name. But the memory mapped screen on a TRS80 from 1977 is from 15360 to 16383 if that helps.
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.
Even if the courts uphold a right to privacy -- and generally they don't, preferring weasel words such as "balance of public and private interests" and "expectation of privacy" -- it's up to the executive branch to uphold that right, and they're the ones violating it. The fox guards the henhouse.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I dunno, something smells fishy about that guy.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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.
Yes, part of the process in a poly is to "lead up" to the real questions. There's the "baseline" established by answering questions truthfully part ("what is your name", "what is your occupation", etc.) and some lie questions. The myth that it is more effective if someone believes in it is also played on: "think of a number between one and ten. Don't tell me the number just think about... 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10..." and the operator will tell you the number you had picked. I tried to denote the long pauses between numbers. Basically, there is typically a gradual tension build up as the selected number is approached and relief/release when it has been passed. The long delays help to ensure a clear reading of this and the idea is that by demonstrating mind reading the subject will believe in the poly making it more reliable.
Too bad it just isn't so. That is, there is no clear, causative relationship between lying and what the polygraph measures. Belief in the poly (and I've met folks who are absolutely convinced in their reliability) provides no help in passing one when being truthful, or failing one when lying. It is immaterial.
Something people who haven't been around polys don't seem to be aware of and isn't something they think of is that subjects often fall asleep during a poly. They are slow and tedious. They take a long time. There's lots of waiting. You are required to lay there absolutely still. And if you fall asleep it negates the entire poly and it has to be redone.
Another thing is the pretense that the polygraph tells whether or not someone is lying. It does no such thing. Instead, it is a set of graphs that are correlated with questions. In a serious polygraph this data is provided to two examiners who work independently. The goal is to yield a pass/fail, not a "subject was lying on points A, B and C, but lying on D, E and F". If the two examiners reach opposing conclusions then the data is provided to a third examiner and his determination is the ultimate finding. So with a polygraph there cannot be an uncertain answer: it is either pass or fail, nothing in between. It is graded by humans who the system expects will frequently have opposing findings and instead of that resulting in equivocacy it is simply referred to a single examiner to provide that authoritative result.
It is hard to not see this as being the subjective, flawed system that it is, but for those that have a deep psychological and/or political need for it to be objective and accurate it appears to suffice.
I have to disagree. As a lawyer myself, I have to chuckle about the popular conception of the "sleazy defense attorney" vs. that of the "crusading DA."
In my experience, criminal prosecutors tend to easily be the sleaziest of the bunch and often are deeply complicit in malfeasance by the police who provide them with their evidence. This is unsurprising given that the structure of the system encourages prosecutors, especially in small scale criminal cases, to view defendants merely as potential notches on their belts and to always be looking for the big score, no matter what the cost. Defense attorneys, on the other hand work intimately with their clients, who despite whatever heinous crimes they may have committed, are ultimately people, and tend to develop a better sense of what is a reasonably balance between justice and humanity, both in their tactics and in the ultimate outcome a case demands.
Except we have this quaint notion that the system should be stacked in favor of the accused. There is supposed to be a bias for the defendant. The system is actually designed and intended with that in mind.
It's just that decades of subtle propaganda in the media, including entertainment, has eroded this idea.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I have proved the polygraph is worthless as a "lie detector" - truthful people are often called liars and I can teach anyone how to control every tracing on the chart in a matter of minutes! Go to my website polygraph.com for more information about that. But, since all the scientific evidence shows there is no such thing as a "lie detector", wouldn't responsible policy makers in the government stop the use of the polygraph if they were aware of these problems? One would think they would, but the sad fact is they already know all these things - they have known since at least 1985 when I testified in Congress and got the EMPLOYEE POLYGRAPH PROTECTION ACT passed into law, (the EPPA outlawed the use of the polygraph in private industry). I testified in the U.S. Congress in support of the EPPA. Click here to read a transcript of my testimony: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011381806;view=1up;seq=281 (My testimony begins on pg 275) Here is an interesting piece of historical trivia: When I testified in Congress, I put my manual, HOW TO STING THE POLYGRAPH into the Congressional Record, and the Senators and Representatives distributed more copies of my manual between 1984 and 1988 than anyone has ever distributed - including me! They sent them out by the tens of thousands in response to requests from constituents. (I wonder if they are going to get that "list" too?) But, there were exclusions written into the law that allowed the government - local state and federal - to continue to use the polygraph. They attempt to justify these exclusions on the grounds that the government needs this tool to protect national security and the law enforcement officials need it to protect the integrity of the criminal justice system. I have proved the polygraph is not a "lie detector" - the Congress, the Justice Department, the OTA, and all those with any scientific credibility agree with me - so there is no justification for the government to continue to use it on the pretext that it protects our national security or the integrity of the criminal justice system. But, knowing the polygraph is worthless as a "lie detector", knowing that people were wrongly accused of lying, and knowing that many were abused by polygraph operators asking illegal questions was still not enough to convince government agencies to stop using the polygraph. In fact, these agencies demanded that they be excluded from this law in order to "protect national security" and to "assure the integrity of law enforcement and the criminal justice system". The lawmakers caved and allowed the exclusions to be written into the law because that was the only way to be assured that even the watered down version prohibiting the polygraph in the private sector would pass. Why do government agencies still staunchly defend the use of the polygraph and even harass, intimidate and try to punish me for proving the polygraph is not a "lie detector" by demonstrating that I can teach anyone to easily control the results of the "test"? Why do they do everything in their power to prevent any information that discredits the "lie detector" from being exposed? Why do they intimidate applicants and others who are required to submit to polygraph "testing" by monitoring their internet activity and punishing them for educating themselves about the polygraph? Why does the government love to use this "Frankenstein's Monster", (a description given to the polygraph by its inventor Dr. Larson)? And why do they insist on continuing to use it? It is FOOLISH and DANGEROUS to use the polygraph as "lie detector" - the theory of "lie detection" is nothing but junk science. It is based on a faulty scientific premise. The polygraph operators have the audacity to say that there is such a thing as a "reaction indicative of deception", when I can prove that "lying reaction" is simply a nervous reaction commonly referred to as the fight or flight syndrome. In fact, the polygraph is nothing but a psychological billy c
http://www.polygraph.com/index.php?i-don-t-teach-countermeasures
It has been free to the public since I testified in the U.S. Congress in support of the EPPA. Click here to read a transcript of my testimony: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011381806;view=1up;seq=281 (My testimony begins on pg 275) Here is an interesting piece of historical trivia: When I testified in Congress, I put my manual, HOW TO STING THE POLYGRAPH into the Congressional Record, and the Senators and Representatives distributed more copies of my manual between 1984 and 1988 than anyone has ever distributed - including me! They sent them out by the tens of thousands in response to requests from constituents. I wonder if the Feds will get all that "list" from Congress? You can also get it by simply Googling HOW TO STING THE POLYGRAPH. I am constantly updating it and I must charge a small amount to maintain my website and keep updating the manual, so I charge for the updated version.