Slashdot Mirror
Anti-Polygraph Instructor Who Was Targeted By Feds Goes Public
George Maschke writes "Last year, the McClatchy newspaper group reported on a federal criminal investigation into individuals offering instruction on how to pass polygraph tests. The ongoing investigation, dubbed 'Operation Lie Busters,' has serious free speech implications, and one of the two men known to have been targeted is presently serving an 8-month prison term. The other, Doug Williams, himself a former police polygrapher, has this week for the first time gone public with the story of federal agents' February 2013 raid on his office and home (video). Williams, who has not been charged with a crime but remains in legal jeopardy, is selling his story in an e-book. Public interest website AntiPolygraph.org (which I co-founded) has published a synopsis."
They are improving while other places are going the other way, which is making it difficult to say "as bad as China" even though the crossover point has not yet been reached.
Easy methods to defeat lie detectors do not even require body/mind training so that you can present a "truthful" facade to the machine. One trick is to make all your responses correspond to extreme and erratic indicators of "lying," completely throwing off the baseline "normal." You clench internal muscles even when you're answering the "easy" initial calibration questions. This way, you don't even have to worry about maintaining perfect calm mind/body control when they spring an unexpected twist on you; go ahead and freak out, but the machine's readings will already be all over the place.
They were all Saudis and Egyptians. Ironically, from perhaps the best "allies" the US had in the Arab world at the time. Egypt is of course different now.