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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."
Don't talk about passing a lie detector test.
Tip from the master, George Costanza.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
"Don't ask me no questions and I won't tell you no lies."
I am afraid to the government of United Police State of America this is no longer enough.
What is going on in the supposedly Western Democracy nowadays is that it is marching towards fascism. From the United States to France to England to many more lapdog countries, fascist tendency of the various governmental entities have arisen.
Used to be that one is innocent until found guilty, but no longer.
These days, we are all guilty, no matter if we have done everything. We are so guilty that they can charge us with _anything_ they like.
In other words, the difference between Russia/China and the Western Democracy is shrinking, and shrinking fast.
But at the very least, China and Russia never pretend to be "democratic".
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If your own government does this to its own people, we can expect way fucking worst things to happen to us foreigners.
I hope I never have to go to the USA again. Nice people on the east and west coasts, but the ones who control everything are crazy motherfuckers.
Critics of this federal investigation have claimed that it has the potential to trample free speech, create an atmosphere of fear, and could lead to the wrongful imprisonment of those that the government deems troublemakers.
However, unnamed sources within the government have taken a more positive outlook, stating that this investigation has the potential to trample free speech, create an atmosphere of fear, and could lead to the wrongful imprisonment of those that they deem troublemakers.
He wasn't just teaching people how to pass a lie detector. He was instructing people (undercover agents) who he knew would be committing all kinds of illegal acts including statutory rape and drug smuggling. That's where you cross a fuzzy line between crime and blissful ignorance. In the same way, if I walk into a pawn shop and buy a cheap TV, it's not a crime. But, if the owner tells me it's cheap because his cousin stole it, then I'm engaging in an illegal transaction..
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
it only takes about 30 seconds to think up ways to circumvent it, which is why they aren't permissible in court.
One of Bin Laden's goals was to turn the US into an oppressive country like the ones in the Arab World,
Even after stating the goal, here we are going that way. It's amazing how easily people can be manipulated.
-- Lavrentiy Beria, Stalinâ(TM)s head of the secret police
Have gnu, will travel.
As in it will happen presently.
Grrr.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Lesson learned: *NEVER* point out that the Emperor is actually stark raving naked.
Or you'll get you head chopped off.
To pass a lie detector test, you must 'believe' the lie is true. This uses the same form of imagination that actors use to give a performance. For the Human mind, both reality and memories of reality are but an illusion. We have no direct contact to the 'real world'. Our 'senses' are physical mechanisms of our body that are minds cannot directly perceive. An internal 'reality' is created using different types of memory, heavily processed versions of the data provided by our sense systems, and 'thought'.
So, creating false realities through practice is child's play for most people. 'False' or alternate memories are trivially implanted if a person has pre-awareness of the lies they will need to tell. Training the imagination even allows for spontaneous false realities to be created in real-time.
And then you have bio-feedback training, which means learning to consciously adjust breathing rates, heart rate, and sweat response. I recall this kind of thing was popular in the 60s, 70s and early 80s as a method for improving meditation and relaxation. It is not unexpected that when bio-feedback was a technique commonly known by the average sheeple, lie-detectors fell into disrepute, but now the term is probably unknown to most of you, the pseudo-science of lie detection has made a comeback.The 'usefulness' of lie-detectors is EXACTLY the same as the usefulness of those phony bomb detectors (made from novelty golf-ball detectors) that were in the news recently.
Lie detectors are NOT used because they are accurate, but as tools of oppression when security theatre is used as an excuse to target 'enemies' of the State. Team Obama and Team Blair push such disgusting nonsense, so the incredibly evil abusive regimes that the UK and USA support can deploy the same pseudo-scientific equipment in their constant war against democracy activists, and use 'positive' results as an excuse for torture, imprisonment and execution. How many people do you think suffered the most horrifying ill-treatment because of the 'positive' results given by the fake bomb-detectors that MI6 distributed in Tony Blair's various war-zones?
There's a reason they're not admissible in court.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The article is from August. It's old and crusty and from a "Washington's insider website" --- translation = sensationalize the role of government including exaggerate and glamorify the role of government agencies to larger than life proportions to preach to the demographic choir = sell up the significance of all the departments including the law enforcement and homeland security ones.
So, uh, what is the significance and recentness of this? Or this is a tinfoil hat link or what?
It's a beltway, freebie, gets stuffed in your Congressional mailbox flyer to pump up the Washington-centrism in Washington DC.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
"Those who get their panties in a twist at that Franklin quote need to put on their pajamas and get a refill on their hot chocolate."
No, you're missing the point.
Imposing the polygraph protocol on the polygraph subject forces the polygraph subject into a highly disadvantaged mode of engagement. If the horseshitness of the polygraph test were to become the subject of public outrage, the powers-that-be would lose a valuable interrogation tactic.
It runs deep. The cloud of uncertainty over being convicted by a fallible machine with no viable recourse or defense adds to the psychological stress of the subject. This effect would be greatly lessened if the damn thing actually worked. Basically the polygraph examiner gets to sit there and decide your fate in an elaborate ritual of faux objectivity.
How could you say that this doesn't work? Faux objectivity practically bats clean-up in the fine-grinding mill of democratic disempowerment.
Do you consent to a polygraph test?
Absolutely, so long as I'm not forced to hang my head and grunt monosyllables.
Are you refusing to take the polygraph test?
No. I'm refusing the invasive, fucked up protocol that you've willingly elaborated around the idiotic, frightening wires. Wire me up, then engage me in normal conversation, eye to eye. Not my fault if your machine has no technical merit once stripped of the demeaning ritual. If that bugs you, work harder. Innovate. Get the captains of industry on the blower. To hear them tell it, they innovate twice a day and thrice on Saturdays. Surely simple eye contact does not exceed your far-reaching dystopian prowess?
Hardly anyone would consent to answering questions within these bizarre strictures without the quasi-religious deference to the cult of the coloured wires. It's such a Milgramesque whitecoat scam, which nevertheless works a treat if your subject complies.
IF YOU DO and the more you do it, the more likely iit gets It's going to be your ASS that's going to get arrested and get disappeared into a FEDERAL DETENTION CENTER.
There is a reason why they call it haveass corpus, you know. ~
That he wasn't working for the 'family business' all along, and that Bush's family hadn't been colluding with bin Laden's in order to bring exactly this about.
With the WTC knocked down 3/5 of the tallest skyscrapers in the world are now Muslim, at least 1 of them was build by bin Laden construction firms, and between 'preferential access to oil' and Halliburton's recent relocation to Dubai, the whole situation begins seeming overly suspect. Nevermind the fact that 9/11 happened just in time to keep Bush from getting impeached (does anybody remember what his approval rating were looking like pre-9/11? Clinton had a high approval rating AFTER lying to congress about getting his dick sucked and spooging all over an intern's dress.)
Combined with the fact that the majority of the terrorists were Saudis and none of them were Iraqi (were any Afghan?), it begs the question of why exactly our targets were chosen as such if not due to conspiracy.
They're only worse in that there is no shame in what they do, but otherwise we are the worse ones. By building an illusion of "land of the free". But then again at least we have shame in that.
Tell you a secret ...
We, the people, at least _some_ of us, are feeling shameful of the situation our country is marching towards.
However, those who rule us, the ones in the Washington D.C. and _their_,/i> masters, not only do not feel any shame whatsoever, they actually are feeling so damn proud of their so-called accomplishment !
Amongst the hundreds of Senators and Congressmen/women, how many of them actually feel that they have wronged the country, by voting in all these draconian laws, and by allowing the White House (no matter who's the POTUS), the NSA (and all the spooks) to violate the Constitution the way they have ?
When I wrote to my representatives (state and federal) exclaiming my exasperation of what is happening in America and to the Americans, do you know what they told me ?
The same old "We are doing that to fight terrorist" bullshit !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Do you know who financed the invasion of Iraq ?
The Saudis.
Yes, our boys and girls who serve in the Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force of the United States of America, went to fight a war in Iraq, because the Saudis are paying for it.
In other words, our military became a mercenary force, at least in the Desert Shied / Desert Storm era.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
one of the two men known to have been targeted is presently serving an 8-month prison term.
I'm having some trouble ascertaining exactly what this guy went to prison for. Several news stories repeat the above while failing to specify that the charges were , as best as I can tell, "obstruction and wire fraud." Was the obstruction charge specifically to do with the polygraph training? Other news sites say things like "Lie Detector Fraud" which suggests it's the fraud that got him jailed, rather than the lie detector part.
So, was the obstruction charge actually because he obstructed justice by teaching others to beat the system (not that polygraphs are admissable in court) or was it something else entirely?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
In stead, let's compare with the US of, say, three decades ago -- when there were still two superpowers and the US had to at least pretend to be the good guys, to maintain support of its allies and at least some good will on the part of the non-aligned bloc.
I arrived at USA some thirty-odd years ago. At that time, for me at least, USA was a country where liberty of the citizens were respected.
If what you said is true... that is, USA did all that to gain support from its allies and to portray to the world that USA is the "Good Guy", then what about now ?
Does it mean that USA no longer has to pretend to be that "Good Guy" anymore ? That it can start wantonly violating the liberty of anybody it wants ?
If that turns out to be true, then USA no longer has the authority to criticize _anybody_else_ regarding human rights, regarding liberty, regarding democracy, regarding so many things that USA used to stand for.
Can you comprehend what kind of world we are living in now ?
I ran away from China precisely because they did not (and still do not) respect the liberty of the citizen. If ever USA becomes a place just like China, I do not know where else people can aspire to be, if they were to run away from tyranny !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"Those who would quote Ben Franklin, to seem insightful, need to find some new fucking quotes."
Or at least put in an attribution to show that you know who said it...
No sig today...
When faced with an inconvenient truth, the corrupt will try to hide that truth, and destroy those who would speak it. This is hardly a new phenomena for humankind. Thsoe who are not corrupt will, naturally, be joyously corrected and be happy to have improved their understanding of the world. Thus those who would try to suppress the truth about polygraphs can hardly be seen to be in the latter category, so why are they tolerated in government and police?
John_Chalisque
No mod points, please assist
No, it's about marketing high priced consumables to people scared to death of chemical names and with absolutely no sense of how much of what is a problem, or not.
Again, no we don't. What we need is either more ag production, or (lots) better distribution, or (lots) less population. Going back to pre-industrial farming methods is (a), a pipe dream, (b), not called for in any way, shape or form, or (c) even on the trend line, which is steadily going precisely the other way.
Let me just point something out. In countries with highly industrialized ag, life spans are significantly longer than in the past. This is not just a consequence of more food, it is also a consequence of the quality of the food. It is also a consequence of our learning how to use preservatives, pesticides, and manipulate genetics. These are all good things, and the proof is in the burgeoning, aging populations that consume ag products that arise from these technologies.
"Organic food" is mostly marketing scam, with the remaining value just... food. You want something to be concerned about? There's plenty to go around. From our deteriorating political situation to the various wars of aggression and the witch hunts -- drugs, sexuality, etc. -- I'm sure you can find something of actual merit where applying your shoulder to the wheel doesn't simply prop up a useless industry.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The Saudis financed the war against Saddam Hussein with cash (actually, cash they got when they sold their oil to us).
And do you know what we paid with ?
We paid with the LIVES of our American boys and girls.
We paid with THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of ruined lives (those who were killed in the war, and those who came back with bodily and/or psychologically injuries)
And most importantly, we paid with the REPUTATION of the United States of America by telling ***BOLD FACE LIE*** to the world that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear bomb.
The people in Syria today suffered unnecessarily because of that fucking lie which has made the world suspicious of America.
Nobody would believe the US anymore !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This guy is against junk "science" more than anything else.
Do you know who financed the invasion of Iraq ?
The Saudis.
Really? So all that massive debt we built up during that war is being paid by them? Sweet. the GOP can quit their attempts to gut the social programs.
The guy was charged with fraud. It happens that the fraud he was committing involved claims about how he could teach people to beat or use polygraphs. If he was busted for claiming he could teach people how to win the lottery this would not be in the news. Now he's making up claims about a government conspiracy as his defense.
My gut reaction to this was that the government is going to a new level in criminalizing information. Very scary!
Then I read this: "The agents then posed as people connected to a drug trafficker and as a correctional officer who'd smuggled drugs into a jail and had received sexual favors from an underaged girl."
That's pretty dumb. If they told him this was why they wanted to fool a polygraph and he still went through with teaching them then I can totally see how they can prosecute. He was attempting to help people get away with crime.
If I were teaching something like this I would at least try to cover my own ass. He should have started the class with some sort of disclaimer explaining that the effectiveness of polygraph tests is debated as are the efectiveness of techiques for beating them. This class is offered only for entertainment purposes or some BS like that. Maybe he could even make them sign something saying that they will not attempt to use this knowlege for criminal activity. Even if he KNEW criminal activity was the main reason people would pay him and he didn't care he could still make them sign that. What does someone trying to get away with something care about signing a promise not to? What is going to happen, extra prison time for breaking their promise to the teacher? hardly!
Finally, he should have had an unwritten, unspoken "don't ask, don't tell" policy for how people wanted to use their new polygraph defeating ability. The moment someone opens their big fat mouth about comitting a crime... refund their money and show them the door. It isn't worth prison time, go find another student.
Dumb Ass!
The worst part is that the real people you want to keep out of sensitive positions don't even need training to pass the polygraph; a true sociopath will lie with no more concern than normal people have ordering a cup of coffee, and even the old soldiers' trick of "brassing it out," i.e. you have to have brass balls to stick with that story, seems to work.
As Mr. Williams says, it's honest people who get nervous that get branded as liars, mostly, and maybe that's the trick. Everyone running the government since they started relying on polygraphs is evil, and they all know that they can keep good people out by continuing to use it.
There is always that risk, but I would ask you to consider two points:
1. There is safety in numbers, not to mention lack of influence. When they start offing opposing Senators, then I'll worry. Er, I hope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
2. "It may be that my role in life is only to serve as a warning to others" is something you need to accept. We value life perhaps too much, these days. It has made us selfish, as well as complacent about evil, as your pathetic comment shows.
But more importantly, one of the problem with Lie detectors is that certain methodologies are more effective (not perfect) than others.
In particular, "confirmation tests" (Confirmation example: the victim was shot in the face, so you ask did you shoot them in the arm, did you shoot them in the belly, did you shoot them in the face.) are far better than "fishing expeditions." (Fishing example: Have you ever committed a felony? Have you ever made a deal with a foreign power.)
But those tests are not always possible. You can't do a confirmation test unless you are investigating a specific crime that you know happened.
So one of the things the Lie Detector people do is use studies done on "Confirmation" tests to show how accurate a "Lie Detector" is and then use it for a Fishing Expedition.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
-- Peacekeeper Commissioner Pravin Lal
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
there is only one good knowledge and one evil ignorance
That's absurd, even if the Saudis funded the entire invasion it was hardly only their interests at stake. You may be surprised to know that virtually the entire world supported stopping Saddam/Iraq from taking over Kuwait and reducing the military power of the psychopathic ruler.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Describing my training as teaching "countermeasures" so liars can pass the polygraph "test" is the same thing as describing the polygraph as a "lie detector"! Both descriptions are PURE, UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT! The word "countermeasures" can only be used to describe polygraph chart manipulation by the subject of a polygraph "test" when two conditions are met: 1) The polygraph "test" must be proven to be 100% accurate and reliable as a "lie detector", and 2) the person is attempting to deliberately lie. There is never a case where BOTH of these conditions are met. In other words, you could only claim "countermeasures" are being used to thwart the polygraph operator's ability to detect deception IF the polygraph is able to detect deception accurately 100% of the time and that that deception would be detected were it not for the use of "countermeasures" by a person intent on being deceptive. But, since many people know that just telling the truth only works half the time - i.e. the US Supreme Court, and the NAS report, among others, saying it is no more accurate than the toss of a coin - then a prudent person would try to mitigate the very strong probability of being falsely branded as a liar by learning how to produce a "truthful" chart. That would not be using "countermeasures" - that would be using common sense! Why do polygraph operators tell people not to research the polygraph before they take their test? It is very simple - the only way they can intimidate people with the polygraph is to keep them ignorant about how it works. When polygraph operators say I teach people "countermeasures" in order for them to "beat the test". I simply say, that's bullshit, because polygraph operators routinely call truthful people liars - and my technique is the only way for honest, truthful people to protect themselves from being falsely accused of lying. Go to the MEDIA page of my website www.polygraph.com and watch the CBS 60 MINUTES investigative report I helped to produce and see the proof yourself - three out of three polygraph operators called three different truthful people liars on a crime that never even happened! You may also enjoy watching me prove THE LIE DETECTOR IS BULLSHIT on Showtime's PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT! So, let me emphasize this - I DON'T TEACH SO-CALLED "COUNTERMEASURES" - I simply teach people how to ALWAYS PASS by knowing how to show a perfect "truthful" polygraph chart! The word "countermeasures" is a word that has been misappropriated by polygraph examiners - it is used to describe what they say is a means to thwart their ability to detect deception. But polygraph operators have always maintained that they can tell when a person is using these so-called "countermeasures". If that is true, how can anyone use them "beat" the test? But, for the sake of argument, let me ask a few more pertinent questions: If people can indeed be taught to use "countermeasures" to "beat the test", wouldn't that prove the polygraph is not a "lie detector"? Does the validity and reliability of the polygraph test demand that the subjects of the test must be ignorant about how it works? If anyone could be taught how to produce and/or prevent a reaction on the polygraph at will, wouldn't that make the whole idea of a "lie detector" a fraud? And wouldn't polygraph operators have to admit their little machine is actually just a sick joke - and that the polygraph instrument is simply a prop used by an interrogator to frighten people into making admissions and confessions? And would it not be prudent for the government to quit wasting money on something that is nothing but a fraud and a con job? The fact is the answer to all these questions is a resounding YES! Polygraph operators do not want to debate the validity of the polygraph as a "lie detector" because they will lose! In a previous chapter of this book you saw the pathetic attempt by a polygraph "expert" to make a case for the use of the polygraph as a "lie detector". And these con men certainly don't want to answer any of the questions I have pos