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Douglas Williams Pleads Guilty To Training Customers To Beat Polygraph
For quite a while, we've been following the case of Douglas Gene Williams, accused of and indicted for teaching people to pass polygraph tests that they might otherwise have been unable to, and for the claims he made in advertising this training -- and specifically for showing his techniques to some undercover Federal agents. Now, reports Ars Technica, Williams has pleaded guilty to five charges of obstruction of justice and mail fraud. From the article: Williams isn't the first person prosecuted for these type of allegations. An Indiana man was accused of offering similar services and was sentenced in 2013 to eight months in prison. The judge presiding over the case said the case blended a "gray area" of First Amendment speech and the unlawful act of instructing people to lie on polygraph tests issued by the federal government.
Williams' site, Polygraph.com, is now defunct.
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Is apparently to clench your anus while you lie.
now read me my rights pig!
The indictment says Williams told an undercover agent that "I haven't lived this long and fucked the government this long, and done such a controversial thing that I do for this long, and got away with it without any trouble whatsoever, by being a dumb ass." The authorities said he told another undercover agent that "I've taught a lot of those guys. In fact, there's a lot of government agents—FBI, Secret Service, NSA, all of those alphabet agencies—that have already retired, that I taught, years ago. And I know what I'm doing, and you will pass with no problem."
That's called "puffery" in the law or marketing to the rest of us.
Polygraph machines were invented in 1921 and their results are usually not admissible as evidence in court.
And why was law enforement - the Fucked up Bureau of Idiocy - FBI wasting millions of taxpayer dollars going after this guy?! Hmmm?!
The government wore this guy down, buried him in legal fees, stress, harassment, and just plain assholishness over a man that has shown polygraphs to be pseudo scientific bullshit.
Douglas Williams is actually innocent but just made a plea to get the grunts with the badges and guns off his back.
I'm saying this before I RTFA so I'll revisit this statement if it makes me rethink but...why the fuck is it unlawful to teach people to "defeat" a method that doesn't even hold water within the very same legal system he is forced to plead guilt?
Couldn't he just pledged innocent and prove it with a polygraph test?
Let's not prosecute people who lie under oath.
Or review our policy of using a technology that can be fooled.
No, no. Let's prosecute the guy sharing information. Yeah, that'll make us safe.
I feel like teaching anyone anything should never be illegal. Wanting to learn is the most natural human trait in the world.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The man has to plead guilty for telling the truth. Lie test is just a scam to begin with, and the guy is just instructing people how to beat the scam.
I can't believe people take these seriously. A polygraph is supposed to be a lie detector test, but all it does is tests vital signs. There is absolutely no way to prove if it's correct or not, so what is the point? If a polygraph was worth anything whatsoever, they wouldn't be worried about somebody being trained to beat it.
Such a shame. He should've used his talents to train customers to beat something useful, like cancer.
See, most people watch TV that shows lie detector tests to be accurate. You know, on TV the criminal fails and then spills his guts even when his TV attorney says "don't say anything."
Now, if you want to scare a suspect, you put him on that machine. Shit, I know it's a fraud, but I'd be real intimidated being hooked up and having the grunts with their badges and guns looking on - to be honest. I would NOT be a cool as a cucumber guy. As a matter of fact, I am such a neurotic that if you asked me about my breakfast, my vitals would go ballistic! I was born feeling guilty!
Anyway, my point being is that the FBI wants this little piece of pseudoscience to keep their arrest stats up and intimidate people.
By trying to silence the guy who tells you how to beat the polygraph (a useless test by all accounts, as far as the 'science' involved), they have basically told every torrent site to start seeding the way to do it online.
Thanks Government!
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I'm the first to stand up for first amendment rights even when the defendant isn't very sympathetic. But this isn't a case of undesirable political speech. It's a business whose only product is helping people produce altered polygraph results and polygraphs are only used by government agencies. There aren't any substantial other uses for these classes. I don't think that the use of polygraphs in government employment is good policy. I don't think that prosecuting this guy is good policy. I'd like to see the whole ridiculous polygraph go away. If it is going to stay, I'd like to see candidates have to disclose whether or not they had researched how to beat the test. Prosecute anybody who takes his class and lies about it. Don't hire anybody who takes the class and admit it. If somebody posted the information for free online and got prosecuted I would be concerned. But it would be ridiculous to use these tests and then just have all of the candidates take the class ahead of time. Just defeats the purpose while adding inefficiency to the process.
Prosecutors were not amused when Douglas volunteered to take a polygraph test to prove that he wasn't teaching people how to beat polygraph tests.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
I took a look at the actual indictment. Well, at least the first few pages. Remember how people still insist to this day that Bill Clinton wasn't impeached (he was - impeaching does not mean convicting) or that he was impeached for "cheating on his wife"? Years later, the lies spun by his spin doctors still hold fast in many minds. Clinton was impeached for committing perjury in a civil trial. Now the event he committed perjury about was cheating on Hilary, but he was impeached for lying about it while under oath, not for the actual act of cheating on her. Similarly, this indictment isn't really and truly about beating lie detector tests. The government's contention is that Williams had a business whose purpose was to enable people ineligible for certain government jobs to get those jobs through lying and deception. This is defrauding the US government because salaries would be paid to those ineligible people. The government also contends that he enriched himself (through fees he charged) by encouraging people to lie to and deceive the federal government into hiring ineligible people for jobs. The first 6 or so pages I looked at don't actually mention anything about lie detector tests.
Both an older, 3-channel, analog type. As well as, a more advanced computerized one tracking many metrics of the human body. No one defeated the poly.
This guy marketed his services at specifically beating tests given by the federal government. He was helping people lie to the Fed. That's his crime.
So you can tell people how to make bombs but can't tell them how to pass a polygraph test?
that would just be classic ;)
This is plain stupid. Period.
beating a lie detector should be taught in elementary school...
Shouldn't it be EITHER fraud OR obstruction of justice?
No one should be coerced to plead guilty against the threat of huge sanctions.
Prosecutions are stacked against the defendant, particularly federal prosecutions. They are alone with their own resources against buildings full of government lawyers drawing a salary, with no incentive to seek justice, just convictions to pad their stats.
By forcing him to plead guilty to a lesser charge (to avoid something silly like 18 consecutive death sentences, or whatever they came up with), the rest of us are duped into believing that he actually did something wrong. Pleas should only be allowed on all charges, or none. Anything in between is institutional coercion, a corruption of justice.
Further, there should be a very, very high bar against charging someone for going about their ordinary business. If his business isn't illegal in general, it shouldn't be illegal when government agents lie to him.
If you pre-pay at a gas station and tell the cashier that you are filling up because you like your getaway car to be in top condition before you rob a bank, is that guy now a felon for not refusing your business? By the logic of this case, if you are an undercover cop he is.
We should be pissed about this. But we aren't. Why not?
See that "Preview" button?
It is legal to teach people how to cheat at cards - they are called 'magic' lessons.
But illegal to teach people how to defeat a machine that is not allowable in a court of law?
Does anyone know of any other skill that it is illegal to teach? Anything?
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Say a lie detector is correct 90% of the time. That would certainly be useful in a variety of situations as long as the results were supplemented by other information.
But would you want to use that in court? Juries would be so biased to follow whatever the lie detector said, no matter what the other evidence showed.
There is a reason we still use them, just not in court proceeding.
1. Insinuate that someone is guilty if they are not willing to take a polygraph test, and note how enthusiastic they are to take the test. 2. If they take the test, tell them they failed the polygraph test, and see if they are willing to confess to something, even if it is not the thing yu thought they may have done.
I lied on a polygraph test a ton. By the end of the test the cop was practically my best friend. He is ether the best actor in the world for being so nice to me while I lied through my teeth or he had no idea I was lying to him.
He probably couldn't have passed the test, since the test is so subjective, the examiner knows he can cheat the test, they would just say that the detected him cheating, therefore he has something to hide, therefore he must be lying.
Part of his technique (if you are going to lie) is to not tell the examiner that you know how to bet the test
we indict those who train others to bilk the financial system and the peons out of their investment money?
ROTFL
I can see that it would be illegal if the teaching was aimed at a person under investigation for a specific crime and that the instructor knew that he was teaching that suspect. But if the guy wanted to reach the whole world how to beat a polygraph without knowing who or why people wanted such training i don't think it should or could be illegal.
We're told polygraphs aren't accurate
But it's illegal to train somebody how to beat one.
Hmm....
Need Mercedes parts ?
If this sort of First Amendment exercise is regarded by the government as a weapon, this sort of conduct, by reason of its being labeled as a weapon falls under the Second Amendment. It gets protection from both amendments.
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66 I feel like teaching anyone anything should never be illegal. Wanting to learn is the most natural human trait in the world.
Great. I'll open up a terrorism school where I teach people how to fly planes into buildings, assassinate government leaders, sabotage trains, make poison gases, bombs, and other weapons of mass destruction. I'm just teaching so it shouldn't be illegal.
So you are in favor of someone banning knowledge of chemistry, physics, guns, and tactics? 99
This idea that forbidden knowledge is a weapon in and of itself is mens rea and the propagation thereof is actus reus has all the trappings of a state fearful of those under its boot.
This is what I call the Miri-Piri approach to self-defense education. It involves the merging of the First Amendment which tells the government that a person need not justify their condition before it, and the Second Amendment which as understood by the Founders and Framers (and Statists in our day) as a doomsday clause for violating the First. The Second protects the First and the First makes the Second worthwhile.
When all other measures are exhausted, use of the sword is justified. - Guru Gobind Singh
Soap box, ballot box, jury box, cartridge box, use in that order. - Unnamed American
The closer people get to the truth, the more alike are their ideas become
That's why the polygraph data isn't actually used in determining truth from lies, it's just a convenient cover for the true workings of the test. Anyone can learn to control their vital signs given enough practice, but what Williams was doing was spreading the truth that the polygraph is merely a show and the real test is being done in an adjoining room by a trained master of the occult. For those who can pierce the veil and speak to the spirit world directly, they know all truths, and are far more reliable than that polygraph could ever be. Heck, even a 10 year old and a Ouija board is more reliable as an indicator of truth than the polygraph.
Now that enters a *VERY* interesting point.
He could be accused of helping people *lie* to a potential federal employer.
But that would require that people could *LIE* to a Polygraph. I.e.: that a polygraph has anything remote to do with truth, and thus can be lied to.
If you consider that polygraph is just a novelty gadget, an elaborate gadget that is nothing more than a glorified "love tester", working on a slightly different principle but just as reliable, i.e.: not at all, he is not helping people lie.
He is not helping people hide truth from a contraption design to detect truth, he's helping people how not to get their application rejected by a more or less random process (i.e.: it would be like teaching people how not to get ripped of by a casino, were the main strategy would be "avoid betting any money in the casion").
To the prosecution, he commiting federal fellony, by is assisting people lie and hide critical information to a device/procedure designed to get the truth.
"Sure, you're a child predator, I trust you with this information. A polygraph is totally able to tell teh government that you are a child predator. Let me show you how to lie to the government and lie to the machine."
To the defense, he's just giving general techniques not to get randomly rejected.
"Sure, blablabla, whatever you say. Actually it doesn't matter. You know, A polygraph isn't a truth machine. It's just a vague detector of some autonomous response which might be weak signs of stress/emotions. The federal agency might be persuaded that you were lying about not shoplifting when you were a kid, when in fact you're just midly arroused because the young redhead assistant taking note just reminded you now you of an old crush of yours".
In one case it's a fellony, because he is actively helping someone lie to the government: i.e.: hide information.
In the other it's not, he's not helping someone lie, because the machine isn't truth based and doesn't give a damn about the information. There's no lie because there's no actual machine from which to hide a truth. That would be like trying to "lie" to your favourite dice. The dice doesn't give a damn about lies, it's just d20. An inanimate object without any concept of lies or truth. A person using dices to determine truth isn't actually any information in the first place that could be lied/falsified.
Given a good defense lawyers team and enough budget, he could actually plead not guilty.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
How many people come to him telling "I am an actual criminal. And I want to lie about this information. And I want the polygraph not to know this ?"
I doubt that he has tons of clients talking about actual committed crimes to him.
Had the undercover agents not come to him with this story, he probably would never been in the situation where he knowingly helped criminals.
And given the scientifically provable reliableness of a polygraph (i.e: nothing more than an oversize and overexpensive "love tester"-kind of novelty gadget), chance are the majority of his clients are usually thinking along these lines:
"I know a polygraph is a piece of shit. But I want my job badly, because I badly need a salary to survive. And I don't want to lose my job and my pay, just because my employer is persuaded I told a lie on a question about stealing stuff as a teen, where in fact I just happened to be arroused because the red-head assistant taking notes reminded me of a crush of mine. Help me."
The agent had caused him to do something that wouldn't have otherwise done.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
As an actual sociopath, let me say... no.
Even if we lack emotionnal response (we don't fear to be judged by society, we don't feel guilt when doing whatever is disproved by society, etc.) that doesn't prevent us from being rational beings.
And we can rationally decide to be nice. The fact that I won't necessarily feel bad for doing evil doesn't FORCE me to do evil.
I can rationally understand why some action should not be done (e.g.: other people will feel harmed) and I can rationally decide no to harm them.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
But more subtly, a LEO can't, for example, repeatedly ask you for drugs, and then when you finally find some to sell, convict you of distribution because you had exactly and only those drugs. However, if you're a drug dealer, if you've got more evidence of illegal activity than just what existed to satisfy the LEO's request, then entrapment may not be a defense.
That's exactly the point I'm considering.
- The accusation is arguing that Williams is in the specific business of "helping criminal go unnoticed by the polygraph".
As in the typical situation is :
"Ciminal comes with the demand "Hello, I'm a Pirate Pedo-Terrorist! Help me, you're my only hope!", Williams answers: 'Don't worry, here's how you can tell lies to the mind-reading machine!' "
- The defense could argue that this in not actually the case, the indictment is over-interpreting simple speaches by Williams.
The actual most typical situation:
"Random person comes: "I'm stressed that I can fail the polygraph because it's such a random shitty technology", Williams answers: "Come I'll show you how to pass the test" ".
I.e.: lying and colluding with criminals isn't Williams' main business.
It's the undercovers who brought him into that. Before the LEOs, it's was just "boasting" rather than a real world big number of actual criminal that Williams knowingly helped (i.e.: in fact, you could nail him for false advertisement when he said how many time he helped lying).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]