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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.
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?
The other method is to simply be born a psychopath with an absence of conscience. So what point the test when 1% of the human population, 20% of the prison population and 50% of violent crimes are the statistics for psychopaths. So what are they trying to achieve, let 50% of violent crimes go unprosecuted when those psychopaths readily pass the test.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
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No, it is not to clench your anus while you lie.
It is to clench your anus while the machine is being calibrated, prior to the questions.
Then, while you lie (or tell the truth but simply feel uncomfortable) the machine will not register your anxiety because it has been calibrated too high.
This guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inacurate. (from THHGTTG)
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.
Maybe the truth is that the NSA (etc) is looking for psychopaths to recruit.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
I have a slightly more, shall we say, nuanced but generally agreeing position, in that much in the way I associate with people that are referred to as "hackers", are really people that are simply curious and want to learn how to do things, but in general aren't interested in doing anything criminal with that information.
And that's a GOOD THING.
I've had to explain to a few people why knowing about things like Trojans and rootkits, and lockpicking and social engineering is GOOD in the hands of good people who can use it to defend against people who aren't nearly as good.
It's better than sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "lalalalalala bad things won't get me if I just ignore them".
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
The other method is to simply be born a psychopath with an absence of conscience. So what point the test when 1% of the human population, 20% of the prison population and 50% of violent crimes are the statistics for psychopaths.
And, apparently, many (most?) CEOs are psychopaths. Which Professions Have the Most Psychopaths? (there's a list):
CEO is the profession with the most psychopaths.
Also noted here and here and ... oh just Google "ceo" "psychopath"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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.
Suspected psychopaths can be identified through other traits, however if they're sufficiently high-functioning it typically takes a forensic psychologist and a bit of time to resolve. So you have to have both suspicion that someone is a pathological liar and access to a trained person to sort things out. So on the one hand it doesn't make them magically immune to investigation, but it does require different resources than standard police techniques. FBI staff for example do get some training in this area, but you need to have experience interviewing actual psychopaths to prepare you for dealing with them, it's one thing reading about them but quite another experiencing them in person.
(Incidentally, if people think Hannibal Lecter when they hear "psychopath" then think again, although he had some psychopathic traits (grandiose sense of self), he was really just yet another Hollywood-ised mad killer. The character from Wolf of Wall Street is probably the closest Hollywood has come to an accurate portrayal of a psychopath).
Is it actually in law that you can't tell folks how to beat a polygraph....or were they saying they were advertising this advice for sale but it was a fraud?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
No matter how many of these tests I do, I still really dislike that anal probe that measures how stressed my anus is.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I think it's more that he was specifically stating that he would assist his customers in lying to the government on job applications and the like.
In unrelated news, I'm hosting a class on how to beat lie detectors, but it's for entertainment purposes only. And I'll take a lie detector test to prove it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'm trying to figure out exactly what LAW was broken here?
Mail fraud for starters. I read the indictment when this story originally happened. Instructing people to lie to the Federal Government is a crime. Charging them money for your "services" that you receive via the USPS is an even bigger crime.
Question: "I'm nervous, what if they ask me about that time I used drugs?"
Answer #1: "Just remain calm. Do math in your head." <--- not illegal
Answer #2: "Lie to them and stay calm." <--- illegal
Answer #3: "Lie to them and stay calm. Now send me a postal money order for my services." <--- really illegal
If you read the charging documents you'll see that it's not really a first amendment issue. Mr. Williams also let his greed get the better of him. He identified one of the agents as such, even said, "I think you're a Fed. I'm not doing this." but later called the guy back and changed his mind. It was for a lousy five thousand dollars too if I recall correctly. For a lousy five grand he ignored the little voice inside his head and committed a Federal felony. I have zero sympathy.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Um, that wasn't a lie detector.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Psychopaths are able to look at the situation dispassionately, and make better utilitarian decisions, that bring the most benefit to the most people.
Perhaps, but what they actually tend to do is look at the situation dispassionately and make utilitarian decisions that bring the most benefit to themselves.
I think you'll find that that subtle distinction is why most people are wary of psychopaths.
Pffff. . . . Loophole.
All he has to do is change the wording of his website a bit.
From " I will teach you how to lie to the Federal Government " to " I will teach you how to lie LIKE the Federal Government " and all will be golden.
He can even call it a " Politician Boot Camp ".
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?
that's actually what happened. he was contacted for his services by two undercover feds claiming they wanted to apply for federal gov't jobs; one said he'd slept with underage girls and the other said he'd smuggled drugs across the u.s. border. both wanted to beat a polygraph for the fed jobs (and told him as much) and he helped them both.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-...
do not read this line twice.