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Veteran FBI Employee Accused of Trying To Beat Polygraph, Suspended Without Pay

George Maschke writes: A mid-career veteran of the FBI has been suspended without pay and faces revocation of his/her security clearance (which would inevitably lead to termination) because the Bureau's polygraph operators allege he/she tried to beat the polygraph. The case is currently the subject of an unpublicized Congressional inquiry. Retired FBI scientist, supervisory special agent, and polygraph critic Dr. Drew Richardson has publicly shared a memorandum he wrote in support of the accused in this case, which has heretofore been shrouded in secrecy. It should be borne in mind that polygraphy is vulnerable to simple countermeasures (PDF, see Ch. 4) that polygraph operators cannot detect. This case is yet another example of how the pseudoscience of polygraphy endangers virtually everyone with a high-level security clearance.

3 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. It is nothing but a stage prop in an interrogation by rwyoder · · Score: 5, Informative

    Penn & Teller "Bullshit!"
    http://www.220.ro/emisiuni-tv/...

    "60 Minutes"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    I had a personal friend who has a PhD in Engineering who worked for an US govt agency with a 3-letter abbreviation. He got so fed up with the idiocy of periodically put put on a polygraph, that he quit. It seems every time it happened, they would come up with yet another bogus accusation, and try their damnedest to get a confession.

  2. Re:Why does the FBI continue to engage in witchcra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ask if they're Scientologists.

    Not kidding: Look up "E-meter", and see how long-term Scientiologiests train for thousands of hours on entering a hypnotic state in which they learn to control their responses to a polygraph state, and to convince themselves under polygraph testing that they are reliving past lives.

  3. Re:Why does the FBI continue to engage in witchcra by paiute · · Score: 3, Informative

    Homicide: Life on the Street - the book from which the series was made.

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