Feds Target Instructors of Polygraph-Beating Methods 282
schwit1 writes "Federal agents have launched a criminal investigation of instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie detector tests as part of the Obama administration's unprecedented crackdown on security violators and leakers. The criminal inquiry, which hasn't been acknowledged publicly, is aimed at discouraging criminals and spies from infiltrating the U.S. government by using the polygraph-beating techniques, which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting and mental arithmetic. So far, authorities have targeted at least two instructors, one of whom has pleaded guilty to federal charges, several people familiar with the investigation told McClatchy. Investigators confiscated business records from the two men, which included the names of as many as 5,000 people who'd sought polygraph-beating advice. U.S. agencies have determined that at least 20 of them applied for government and federal contracting jobs, and at least half of that group was hired, including by the National Security Agency. By attempting to prosecute the instructors, federal officials are adopting a controversial legal stance that sharing such information should be treated as a crime and isn't protected under the First Amendment in some circumstances."
Only if they have a phrenology test (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean if we are going to go with the crackpot solutions we wouldnt want phrenology to feel left out, i believe it has some valuable insight and wait till i tell you about alchemy and auras.
Re: (Score:3)
What, no jobs for ESPers? What kinda prejudiced quackery is that?
Re:Only if they have a phrenology test (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
There were plenty of DoD specifically for ESPers at one point:
[wikipedia.org]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project [wikipedia.org]
As long as you didn't mind staring at goats
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Phrenology is a bad example for crackpot science: in a time when all psychology was still stated in religious terms such as "soul" it was one of the first attempts to come up with something rational & measurable.
Phrenology turned out to be wrong, because it was falsifiable. Mainstream psychology at that time wasn't even wrong.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Only if they have a phrenology test (Score:5, Insightful)
Penn and Teller did an program about lie detectors. Firstly, why are they not being prosecuted, since they explained how to beat them?
They explained that what happens is that the lie detector is a BS machine, but after the test is "over", the interviewer tells them that the lie detector showed that they were lying and that they should come clean. Many people then tell the interviewer the truth.
According to Penn and Teller, fooling the lie detector is simple: spoof the results by contracting and releasing a large muscle (they suggested the sphincter muscles) during the interview. This will destroy the value of any baseline measures.
Re:Only if they have a phrenology test (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to forget, lie detector test have zero impact on psychopaths, so basically the worst of the worst will pass, kind of making the lie detector scam pointless, or more accurately the question reaction flim flam show pointless. This being the reason they are banned in most countries. This really stinks of the FBI intending to use fake like detector tests to incriminate any one they want too and these plans are threatened by the exposure.
Re:Only if they have a phrenology test (Score:5, Insightful)
I still don't understand why people assume monitoring breathing, heart rate, and skin conductivity is a 'crackpot' solution.
OT3 here. Allow me to clean this misconception up. FYI: e-meters work the same way.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's not that polygraph machines are sometimes unreliable, it's that they are utterly unreliable. For all the reliance law enforcement has had on them over the years, they are essentially voodoo. The simply fact is that they don't work, and what little they do do is placebic, in that the ignorant may fear being hooked up to a machine about as useful as L Ron Hubbard's e-meter and thus be spooked into confessing.
Re: (Score:2)
As AntiPolygraph.org has pointed out, one use of the polygraphs is simply to conduct interviews with subjects without a lawyer present, so that the examiners can use interviewing techniques with unrestricted questions that an informed, rational person would never submit to.
If interviewers started asking questions about your sex life, a lot of applicants would walk out there, and it would usually be illegal. But in a polygraph exam, they might permit it.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a scientific basis behind homoeopathy but it is still sugar pills with no meaningful medicinal purpose except as placebo. The main difference between alternative medicine and medicine is that when an alternative or herbal remedy is proven to work it becomes medicine.
Re: (Score:2)
Homeopathy is a practice with a plausible scientific mechanism behind it. That's the first requirement of medical science.
The second requirement of medical science is that somebody tests it in a randomized, controlled trial to see if it works. At that point, homeopathy failed.
(Or I think it did. I can't cite off the top of my head a randomized trial in which homeopathy was ineffective. I assume there is one.)
Re: (Score:2)
"I still don't understand why people assume monitoring breathing, heart rate, and skin conductivity is a 'crackpot' solution. There is a scientific basis behind it, unlike most actual 'crackpot' areas. It doesn't ALWAYS work, and it's (clearly) beatable, but it's still a science."
No, it isn't. This is why:
The THEORY behind polygraphs is rational. But theories (by definition) are testable!
The REALITY behind polygraphs is that they have been tested. And tested. And tested again. And again. And again. And not one responsibly performed "blind" study has EVER shown polygraphs to work worth a damn.
So: the idea behind polygraphs IS "science" in a sense. But only in the sense that the actual science shows they don't work.
Okay? Understand the difference?
Re:Only if they have a phrenology test (Score:4, Insightful)
I still don't understand why people assume monitoring breathing, heart rate, and skin conductivity is a 'crackpot' solution. There is a scientific basis behind it, unlike most actual 'crackpot' areas. It doesn't ALWAYS work, and it's (clearly) beatable, but it's still a science.
That's a fair question. Suppose you have a technique that was developed by scientific exploration, it's tested, and it turns out not to work. Is it science (but discredited science), or is it just not science at all?
It's not like they're praying to the aliens in orbit to read the person's mind and tell them if they're lying or not.
I'd like to see a controlled trial in which one team reads peoples' minds by praying to aliens, and the other team uses a lie detector. Which team will be better at detecting lies?
First the came for the poly dudes (Score:3, Interesting)
Then they came for the yoga instructors, since relaxation is where it's at, and I was kinda: 'Urf?'
Then they came for my surf board.
Be interesting if the course were a book (Score:3)
Be interesting if the course were a book and they sold it on Amazon instead of teaching a class. Make the 1st Amendment kick in a little harder.
Re:Be interesting if the course were a book (Score:5, Informative)
A quick search on Amazon turned up:
How to Beat a Lie Detector Test (Secrets Series) by Steve Gillman (Jul 20, 2010)
Beat the box: The insider's guide to outwitting the lie detector by Vlad Kalashnikov (1983)
Deception Detection: Winning The Polygraph Game by Charles Clifton (May 1991)
Re: (Score:3)
And you can probably forget about your security clearance if you order any of these books.
Re: (Score:2)
What if you read them at the library? Oh! Or what if you borrow them from a friend who checked them out?
Quick! Someone calculate the 6 degrees of separation between anyone who may have come in contact with this information! We might be able to solve this NSA thing after all!
Re:Be interesting if the course were a book (Score:4, Informative)
"Applied Cryptography" used exactly this method when crypto algorithms were subject to export controls.
You couldn't export say the source code for DES, but you could include the source code in a book on crypto, as first amendment protections applied.
The first amendment even protected use of an OCR friendly font for the source code.
Wasn't that Bernstein, not Schneier? (Score:2)
At least djb is the one who had a lawsuit about it.
Re: (Score:2)
How about (Score:3, Insightful)
Just admitting that Polygraphs are not reliable indicators of truthfulness?
Re: (Score:3)
According to an NAS study, they're something like 85% reliable. The problem with an 85% reliable test is that it will produce a lot of false positives and false negatives. People you should have hired will be screened out and people you shouldn't have hired will be accepted. Older-fashioned methods work better. Interview the person, the family members, long time acquaintences and co-workers. Ask open-ended questions about the person's relationships, how they work with others, how they view authority, w
Re:How about (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about (Score:5, Insightful)
And lets look at this 85% reliability more carefully.
Supposing you have 1,000,000 non-terrorists and 100 terrorists. You ask them if the are a terrorist, and use the lie detector to determine whether or not they are telling the truth. Everyone says they are not a terrorist. The lie detector will identify 150,085 people as terrorists, of which only 85 are actually terrorists. In otherwords, if the lie detector says you are a terrorist, there is a 0.057% probability that you are actually a terrorist.
How do these figures work?
Of the 1,000,000 non-terrorists, it will correctly identify 850,000 of them as being non-terrorists, and incorrectly identify 150,000 as being terrorists. Of the 100 terrorists, it will correctly identify 85 of them as being terrorists, and incorrectly identify 15 of them as not being terrorists. A total of 150,085 people identified as terrorists, only 85 actually are.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, unless you actually act on the tool and treat those 150085 people as terrorists, in which case 10% of them will actually become terrorists and each will drag at least one other person into it through loyalty and/or family ties. In which case you now have more than 30k terrorists of which only half is believed to possibly be a terrorist.
Not a solution, no, but part of the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. It a shame more practicing doctors don't understand the math better, or explain . Perhaps it would improve things if all lab results came with a probability breakdown instead of just "positive/negative"
Instead of "You tested positive for slashdotitis" it would read "Test positive: independent probability of slashdotitis is 57.3%, follow-up test recommended", or "Test negative: independent probability of slashdotitis 1.4%". Of course then you'd also have to teach doctors how to combine independent
Re: (Score:2)
Was it this one? http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes [yudkowsky.net]
Cancer testing is a fairly easy example of something with a fairly low incidence in the general population, and where we would really like to avoid false results (so we don't miss a tumour or put people through unnecessary chemo).
Always important to remember that if your error rate is higher than the background rate of how many people have cancer, then you're going to end up flagging more people without cancer than with. Takes a very precise test to r
Re: How about (Score:4, Funny)
"Just admitting that Polygraphs are not reliable indicators of truthfulness?"
If they do that, they have to stop using the non-functioning bomb- detectors as well, we can't have that!
Protecting a lie (Score:3, Insightful)
IALA
The real crime here is that law enforcement agencies are using such a notoriously unreliable [apa.org]technology for investigatory and evidentiary purposes. Polygraphs have absolutely no place in the modern justice system.
Re:Protecting a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
The real crime here is that law enforcement agencies are...
THE REAL crime here is that there is NO WAY this Fed action passes the first amendment smell test. ANYONE has an ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to say whatever they want about lie detectors, yet no one seems to give a wiff.
Re:Protecting a lie (Score:4, Interesting)
The issue isn't any of the First Amendment rights. The issue is that the undercover agents tricked the instructors into believing that they were helping people commit a crime.
Several people familiar with the investigation said Dixon and Williams had agreed to meet with undercover agents and teach them how to pass polygraph tests for a fee. The agents then posed as people connected to a drug trafficker and as a correctional officer who’d smuggled drugs into a jail and had received a sexual favor from an underage girl.
I think it's entrapment, but the Supreme Court doesn't agree.
Re: (Score:3)
Any public defender worth making his salary should be able to show a message being taken by an innocent bystander, I've seen such scenarios play out in courts. Inncent bystanders usually don't get rail roaded, at least as a matter of prosecutorial policy.
Not usually, but it does happen. Some prosecutors think that their job is to prosecute as many people as they can and get the longest sentences they can. When defense lawyers start collecting cases of unjust sentences, there are a lot of cases of drug dealers' girlfriends who were peripherally involved but got longer sentences than the actual dealers, because the girlfriends had nothing to offer in a deal.
The quality (and salary) of public defenders varies greatly.
Even the real crooked prosecutors get warned by judges to lay off innocent people from time to time, if its plain to see they are in fact innocent.
Maybe it's just the outrageous cases that w
Re: (Score:2)
There are no (as in NONE) states that require you take one.
The issue is when a polygraph is a defacto requirement for getting certain jobs even if you have a right to refuse.
Re: (Score:2)
There are no (as in NONE) states that require you take one.
The issue is when a polygraph is a defacto requirement for getting certain jobs even if you have a right to refuse.
That's not the only issue. Plenty of LEOs assume failing the polygraph indicates guilt so they'll double down on proving guilt on the part of their suspect instead of widening their search to find the real perpetrator.
So it's come to this (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally, we have a case for information being outlawed.
Re: (Score:2)
I've had a website devoted to alternative cancer treatments almost since the start of the Internet. I wonder if they will knock, or just kick the door in?
Re: (Score:2)
I've had a website devoted to alternative cancer treatments almost since the start of the Internet. I wonder if they will knock, or just kick the door in?
You have it exactly backwards. Polygraphs *and* "alternative [anything]" are the fakes. It's more like, if I published a book on why so-called alternative treatments were complete bunkum (which they are) and the Feds wanted to shut me down.
As Iain whatsisname said, "If it worked, we'd call it a treatment. It's called 'alternative treatment' because it DOESN'T."
Re: (Score:3)
They will most likely send a SWAT team (without a search warrant):
Texas SWAT raid destroys organic farm:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/texas-swat-team-conducts-_n_3764951.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Well, kicking the door in is just an advanced form of knocking.
Jusk ask Chuck Norris.
QL'EB? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like attacking tarot readers for claiming they can work out when palmists are making shit up.
Polygraphs (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the hell are polygraphs still being used in the 21st century? They aren't admissible in a court of law for a damned good reason. They are junk science and no better than a voodoo board. The only thing they do is tell whether or not your nervous. They are a perfect example of something that provides a false sense of security as Ames and your other famous spies all /passed/ their lie detector tests. These things need placed in the museum of junk science post haste.
Re: (Score:2)
Why the hell are polygraphs still being used in the 21st century? They aren't admissible in a court of law for a damned good reason. They are junk science and no better than a voodoo board.
Voodoo is a rather apt analogy. The reason they are used is that they help amplify the belief of the individual that they will get caught in a lie. Thus the reason the FBI are angry is that this teaching will negate the belief that you'll get caught and defeats the psychological manipulation.
Ie if the vooodoo man casts a hex on you, and you believe in voodoo - then you might engage in behavior that makes the hex self fulfilling; but if another voodoo man sells you a talisman to ward off the hex - your bel
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing they do is tell whether or not your nervous.
Not even nervous. I took a polygraph (well, voice stress analysis) as part of the hiring process for a fairly large metropolitan police force (with a Masters degree I would have started out at roughly $45k per year base, as opposed to the roughly 25k I am making at my current job. Yay shitty economy). One question was so absurd (have I ever hired a prostitute) that I laughed as I replied in the negative. Of course the readout then showed "stress" in my voice. However the baseline tests (which were the e
Re: (Score:2)
Why is that question absurd? Many people have hired prostitutes?
And in many places it's perfectly legal to do so... Furthermore, if you asked me that question at an interview, I'm sure my union would smell blood a sue the hell out of you... :)
Though to be fair, my union would probably sue you over the mere suggestion that I submit to a polygraph test
In many countries it is very limited what details about a candidates personal life you are allowed to inquire about, as any such inquiry opens you to law suits for discrimination, should you choose not the hire the candid
Re: (Score:2)
There's a reason people sell alternative medicine as herbal supplements. This way you sidestep the FDA and get to avoid any type of medical scrutiny. It's a legal way of selling snake oil. They need to change the law so that herbal supplements, homeopathic and the like all require FDA approval before making claims.
The funny thing is a lot of our medicine did trace back to these old practices. However with medical science they were able to find the parts that actually worked, study them and those get submitt
Re: (Score:3)
That is the case in Europe. They still sell all the stuff, but there is nothing at the point of sale to say what it is supposed to do.
Re: (Score:2)
That is the case in Europe. They still sell all the stuff, but there is nothing at the point of sale to say what it is supposed to do.
The thing is that at one time our FDA operated in the same fashion. Their only goal was to ensure the safety of the product, not its efficacy.
But then the large pharmaceutical companies lobbied to corrupt the system, pushing for the requirement that efficacy also be proven. The reason for this is as both an expensive barrier to entry as well as a delay tactic.
If there's evidence of efficency (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You know what alternative medicine that works is called?
Medicine.
If it is alternative, then it isn't medicine.
Our President (Score:4, Insightful)
Is now more immoral and corrupt than his predecessor. That is quite a feat for anyone.
Bad summary is bad. (Score:5, Informative)
They aren't arresting people for just teaching the methods. The instructor they arrested had trained two undercover agents posing as criminals that wanted to lie on the exam. One was a drug trafficker and the other a correctional officer that smuggled drugs into prison and received sexual favors from an underage girl. The instructor taught them how to cover up those crimes. Seems pretty simple to me. If you say you want to rob a bank, and I give you a gun to do it I'm criminally liable for it. Why isn't fraud the same? It would be one thing if the instructor didn't know they were criminals, but he did. The summary makes it sound as if they're wantonly arresting people.
Re: (Score:2)
Except they don't use polygraphs in criminal investigations, so what's the problem?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Bad summary is bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it sounds like they're going after them for conspiracy rather than simply teaching these techniques, which is the sort of legal technicality beloved of prosecutors, but you're missing the bigger point. This is not analogous to someone selling a gun to a person who says they want to rob a bank; it's analogous to letting someone take your chemistry class even though they say they want to make a bomb to blow open a bank safe. This is stopping the dissemination of information because it could be used for nefarious purposes.
Additionally, the undercover agents said that they already did commit these crimes, not that they were planning on using these techniques to commit crimes in the future. If potentially helping somebody to beat the charges is a crime, then why are defense attorneys legal?
Re: (Score:3)
In the US, this is known as a consiracy, so yes, you are correct. If a person makes clear that they are seeking information from you that will help them commit a crime, and you give them that information, then you are indeed complicit in that crime under US law. For example, if someone asks you where a person will be at a certain time and makes it clear that they want to k
Re: (Score:2)
Really? Because the right to counsel is specified in the 6th Amendment, and even that protection only applied in federal courts until Gideon v. Wainwright in the 60s. In other words, because people fought long and hard for the right, much like many of the other rights that we, quite literally, take for granted these days. That's why.
Re: (Score:3)
Dixon, 34, also declined to provide specifics on his guilty plea but he said he’d become an instructor because he couldn’t find work as an electrical contractor. During the investigation, his house went into foreclosure. “My wife and I are terrified,” he said. “I stumbled into this. I’m a Little League coach in Indiana. I don’t have any law enforcement background.”
In other words, the guy was committing fraud by charging for this "instruction". He was convicted of fraud. The Big Brother angle is all hype and speculation.
Re: (Score:3)
They aren't arresting people for just teaching the methods. The instructor they arrested had trained two undercover agents posing as criminals that wanted to lie on the exam. One was a drug trafficker and the other a correctional officer that smuggled drugs into prison and received sexual favors from an underage girl. The instructor taught them how to cover up those crimes. Seems pretty simple to me. If you say you want to rob a bank, and I give you a gun to do it I'm criminally liable for it. Why isn't fraud the same? It would be one thing if the instructor didn't know they were criminals, but he did. The summary makes it sound as if they're wantonly arresting people.
Thing is... robbing a bank is a crime. Lying on a job interview isn't.
Job interview (Score:2)
It depends on the job interview. If the person interviewing you is a federal agent, it's a crime.
Re: (Score:2)
By your reasoning defense attorneys are also guilty of "knowingly [teaching] them to hide that information".
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that the US Government does not generally sent undercover agents to pretend to be defendants and entrap defense attorneys. Although, given what they are doing here, I would expect to see that soon enough.
Re: (Score:2)
That makes no sense. Defendants cannot commit perjury, they have the right to lie. Therefore a defence attorney cannot be guilty of subornation of perjury by telling the defendant to lie.
Re: (Score:2)
Defendants cannot commit perjury, they have the right to lie.
I believe you're mistaken. There's plenty of things like interfering with an investigation or the course of justice that they can charge you with for lying. You (generally) have the right to remain silent (in the USA). Use it.
Liars to fedgov ARE criminal (Score:3)
But they were not criminals, the lied to the instructor, so the instuctor was training liars not criminals.
Lies to fedgov are not protected by the first amendment, and fedgov makes job applicants waive their rights anyway. It is a crime to lie on a security clearance application, and a crime to lie to a federal agent. Helping someone lie to a federal agent is therefore also a crime.
Re:Liars to fedgov ARE criminal (Score:5, Informative)
Note, however, that is it not a crime for a federal agent to lie to you. Symmetry does not apply.
Re: (Score:2)
But isn't the real point.... (Score:3, Insightful)
...Polygraphs can be beaten and as such are not reliable!
Deniability is man most powerful tool. So really its all about abstraction. What definition do you apply to the questions or do you simply deny the questioner over your own internal thoughts?
The ability of beat a polygraph might actually be a quality the government is looking for....... considering all the lies they have told and certainly spying would find the ability to beat a polygraph an asset.
So you see, its really all null and void this polygraph issue.
Now what more does anyone need to consider in their mental state to beat a polygraph?
20th Century Witchcraft (Score:5, Informative)
Over the years I've seen 3 investigative reports on TV, and read many articles on the topic. It all comes down to the same thing: The polygraph is just a stage prop in an interrogation, for the purpose of scaring the ignorant into confessing. Here is Penn & Tellers report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NLf7XwLpyQ [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
and BS was strictly an entertainment show, without any shred of information applicable to reality...that way they can't be sued for libel at least. i guess since they're entertainers that is really all they're ever allowed to do, entertain always, never inform.
Would have had to charge many of my co-workers (Score:2)
I worked in electronics sales in the early 80s. In San Antonio, TX at the time you had to take a polygraph to work almost anywhere (for example, Radio Shack was one). As soon as I was hired in most places, my new co-workers started telling me how to beat the polygraph. (I had no reason to worry, but they told me anyway). In the end I found out that many of these folks were robbing the employer blind. And all had passed a polygraph.
Of course, your ability to beat the polygraph probably has a lot to do
Streisand Effect, anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA: "Charles Honts, a psychology professor at Boise State University, said laboratory studies he’d conducted showed that countermeasures could be taught in one-on-one sessions to about 25 percent of the people who were tested. Polygraphers have no reliable way to detect someone who’s using the techniques, he said. In fact, he concluded that a significant number of people are wrongfully accused."
Mirror these sites and anything else you feel relevant
http://www.wikihow.com/Cheat-a-Polygraph-Test-(Lie-Detector) [wikihow.com]
https://antipolygraph.org/articles/article-034.shtml [antipolygraph.org]
So (Score:4, Insightful)
> Investigators confiscated business records from the two men, which included the names of as many as
> 5,000 people who'd sought polygraph-beating advice.
Which was, of course, the real goal. Much like seizing the records of companies that sell hydroponics equipment.
So what has this incident taught these instructors, whether they be good or evil?
1. Cash-only and don't use records.
2. If someone says they want to do evil, give them their money back and kick them from the class. Otherwise, don't ask, don't tell.
Feds Instructors of Polygraph-Beating Methods (Score:2)
Is what I read. As in, teaching how to get the desired polygraph results from a suspect through beating
mike judge (Score:2)
http://vimeo.com/50020343 [vimeo.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Meta-Crime? (Score:2)
The TFS gives away the "criminal" practices - "polygraph-beating techniques, which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting and mental arithmetic. " - so now they will come after /. as well... :-)
And maybe, commenters who quote TFS...
Fortunately when the sit me down for interrogation, now I know all that is needed is byte the tongue for not giving away the ID numbers of my fellow /.ers; So, don't worry!
Hitchhiker's Guide to Becoming a Police State (Score:2)
Step 1: claim to champion freedom of speech, but oppress it when is inconvenient for the establishment.
Are they going to go after that episode of P&T's Bullshit where they say you can beat the box by clenching your ass?
Free Speech (Score:2)
It's quite clear it no longer applies here. Unless your speech is 'state approved', better watch your back.
What crime? (Score:2)
Teaching someone how to beat a polygraph is not a crime.
Next they'll issue a warrant for (Score:3)
George Costanza: "It isn't a lie if you believe it"
Political trials (Score:2)
I don't know what else you can call this. Note that (according to McClatchy) they are not charging that instructing people how to beat a polygraph is a crime (as far as I know it isn't), they are targeting people who instruct this with whatever random crime they can come up with, and probably using entrapment to do it :
really? REALLY? (Score:2)
I will just leave this here to anger my fellow /. (Score:2)
quick lesson (Score:2)
A president who stands for the rule of law and liberties: "Polygraph tests are unreliable and have little scientific data to back them up; I am immediately ending their use by government by executive order and working towards making them illegal as part of job applications."
A totalitarian-leaning president with a disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution: "Let's prosecute people who teach others to get around our unreliable and unproven interrogation tactics."
It's clear what kind of president we ha
Clench your anus (Score:2)
That's how you beat the polygraph. Thank you and good night
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
This comment is offensive to retarded people. They shouldn't be tainted with the same brush as jackbooted thugs.
Also an insult to lump them in with people that believe in polygraph, dowsing and homeopathy.
Re: (Score:3)
This comment is obviously offensive to jackbooted thugs as it clearly implies that they are lower in the social order than retarded people. This is clearly not the case as it takes considerable intellect to work out how to put on a pair of jackboots or even know what they are. You cannot go into your local mall and ask for a pair of jackboots, they never have them in stock. So simply being able to purchase a pair of jack boots shows considerable intellect.
Re: (Score:3)
Wire fraud is a great crime.
Basically it captures any thing in the internet which even might involve money at some point, e.g. fines for copyright infringement, payment for services. And has huge maximum terms. So since almost everything involves money at some point and many things happen over the internet it allows them to add almost arbitrarily long sentances to something that would otherwise get almost nothing.
Basically the perfect legislation as far as they are concerned.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think the "polymorphic overlords" are here yet... unless Obama really is a giant weasel and not just pretending to be one.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that is the point. Do anything that sheds light on the incompetence, illegality or malevolence of the us intelligence industry makes you an enemy of the state.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)