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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.
When there is overwhelming evidence that polygraphs don't work?
There’s a possibly anecdotal story that floats around about some cops who put a suspect’s hand on a photocopier as a “lie detector,” claiming to him that the copies of his handprint proved he was lying, thus inducing him to confess. Pretty sure that bit has made it into at least one TV show, but the story has been around for a while.
you work for a fascist enterprise that's focused on prosecuting political crimes, don't cry when that enterprise turns on you.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Tech support workers often fancy themselves as knowledgeable, but I say ask the IT staff supporting them!
And they're idiots too, just ask the infrastructure development team.
And I have inside word from a product engineer that the infrastructure team doesn't even know what the product is, or why they company they work at exists.
And even the marketing team knows that the product engineers never build the product that was actually promised and sold.
We had some moron who claimed that polygraphs don't detect lies, but luckily there was an experienced operator to explain, "no, it doesn't detect general lies, but sometimes it detects people trying to cheat on the test, which is a category of lie." So they don't work in the way they were originally intended, or in the way the public believes, but they do indeed detect a certain type of dishonesty. It works better than a photocopier, because it is a real machine that does real stuff, so even an educated schemer can fall into the trap of trying to "trick" it.
Polygraph is a load of shit, as a technology. No question. But that fact gives me no sympathy at all for people who lie to try to get around it. Obviously, the polygraph operators don't deserve very much "benefit of the doubt," but if there is solid evidence of cheating, then it doesn't matter if the test can't detect any other type of lie. Cheating is cheating, and if they want credit for not playing the lame game, they don't have to agree to it in the first place. There are lots of legal jobs, recognized as upstanding by the community, which I would never accept because they violate my principles. If you agree to the test, take it straight; if you change your mind, change your job. The high road is always the easier path in the end, because it is self-consistent.