Former Police Officer Indicted For Teaching How To Pass a Polygraph Test

George Maschke (699175) writes On Friday afternoon, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment (2.6 mb PDF) of Douglas Gene Williams, a 69-year-old former Oklahoma City police polygraphist turned anti-polygraph activist for teaching two undercover agents posing as federal law enforcement applicants how to pass (or beat) a polygraph test. Williams offers instruction on how to pass polygraph tests through his website, Polygraph.com, which remains online. Marisa Taylor of McClatchy, who has been covering polygraph policy issues for several years, has written an informative report. This appears to be a case where an individual was targeted for criminal prosecution to suppress speech that the U.S. government dislikes. AntiPolygraph.org, which may also have been the target of an attempted entrapment, has a commentary.

Comments

Re: First Post

[EphemeralEclipse]

undercover agents don't have to answer that truthfully... it's just a misconception reinforced by hollywood

Not as simple as teaching how to ...

[perpenso]

He is in trouble not because he taught how to defeat a polygraph machine, but rather he taught people how to do it with the explicit intent to defeat government background and security checks. He explicitly said so. By saying so he enters into a conspiracy. He explicitly advised people to lie during a government investigation and agreed to help them conceal those lies. He admitted past clients have used his techniques to successfully lie to investigators for decades. And yes I know a polygraph detects stress not lies. Yet the fact remained he promoted his services as a method to conceal lies.

If he had claimed the training was for some other purpose and always told people to never employ these techniques during a real government polygraph and to always tell government investigators the truth he would not be in trouble.

In short the method he used to promote his services got him in trouble, not the services themselves.

Re:Not as simple as teaching how to ...

[jd659]

If he had claimed the training was for some other purpose and always told people to never employ these techniques during a real government polygraph and to always tell government investigators the truth he would not be in trouble.

It always amuses me how simplistic the arguments can become. If you just tell how to beat an abstract polygraph without mentioning the government you'd be fine! Nonsense. If the government doesn't like what you do, there will be a way to lock you in for a long time. Even if you do everything legal.

Here's a good example. A guy in California was installing hidden compartments in cars (traps). Those were very slick and he was careful -- it was impossible to detect that something was altered. There were no switches, opening such traps would require following some elaborate sequence, like opening specific doors, rolling down the window five times, starting the car seven times, whatever. Nothing illegal here. One may think that some uses for traps would be to store drugs but there could be many legitimate reasons (like storing cash or whatever personal items). So the installer asked if the traps are going to be used for anything illegal and refused to do the job if the answer was positive. Nothing illegal. Well, some lied and stored drugs and the DEA's job became more complicated and they staged the whole kangaroo court where the trap installer guy was convicted for 22 years! 22 years for not doing anything illegal, but the thinking was that he could have imagined that some traps could be used by drug dealers and therefore he facilitated drug dealings.

More details on the story: http://www.wired.com/2013/03/a...