US Gov't Circulates Watch List of Buyers of Polygraph Training Materials

George Maschke writes "Investigative reporter Marisa Taylor of the McClatchy newspaper group reports that a list of 4,904 individuals who purchased a book, DVD, or personal training on how to pass a polygraph test has been circulated to nearly 30 federal agencies including the CIA, NSA, DIA, DOE, TSA, IRS, and FDA. Most of the individuals on the list purchased former police polygraphist Doug Williams' book, How to Sting the Polygraph, which explains how to pass or beat a polygraph test. Williams also sells a DVD on the subject and offers in-person training. In February 2013, federal law enforcement officials seized Williams' business records, from which the watch list was primarily compiled. Williams has not been charged with a crime."

Makes me wonder

[onyxruby]

I have blatantly admonished the polygraph as being junk science online for close to 20 years now. I've pointed out how traitors from Ames to Snowden all passed the Polygraph with flying colors. I've also pointed out how there isn't a courtroom in this country that will accept the use of one. I've talked about how the scientific community considers them absolutely rubbish and no better than snake oil. I really can't think of a better way of how to illustrate that security theater is an active danger to this country than by citing the polygraph as example number 1.

It makes me wonder if I'm on this list of theirs too...

Re:Not even then

[lxs]

Let's see if we can catch a dead salmon in a lie! [wired.com]

Re:Not even then

[currently_awake]

Given that a polygraph is not a reliable way to catch lies, and buying a book on beating it isn't illegal, and given that they just divulged confidential corporate information: I expect that a certain business man just got handed free money.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Kazoo the Clown]

The polygraph is actually good for one thing. Making criminals who don't know any better nervous thinking that maybe it does work. Some will come clean thinking the jig is up anyhow and confess or otherwise offer up useful information.. Of course it won't be useful for that anymore once criminals realize the technology is just snake oil. But it's inevitable, that ship has sailed.

Re:Not even then

[cffrost]

If our legal system was primarily driven by law then yes, but there is way too much politics involved here. Judges, the humans who get to decide such things, have a significant conflict of interests but will not recuse themselves, and it is unlikely they will rule against their own community's systematic behavior.

I think judges should elected from pools of defense attorneys — no former prosecutors. Defense attorneys are used to defending people's Constitutional rights, while prosecutors are used to suppressing evidence and skirting Constitutional limits in order to put away "bad guys" even when the defendant is actually a "good guy." Defense attorneys give the people the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to the (police) state.

Re:When will they realize

[thoromyr]

It isn't a matter of realizing that the polygraph is flawed. The NSA uses the counterintelligence scope poly for all employees, the CIA uses the more invasive "lifestyle" poly, and so on. All of this despite the fact that the inventor of the polygraph was a charlatan, it has been thoroughly debunked by scientific investigation, and all though intelligence people who have sold out their country (such as Aldritch Ames) passed the poly.

The importance isn't in its efficacy, but in having something "tangible" to hold on to. The powers that be are like Linus -- they need a security blanket to hold on to and they have seized on the polygraph. When you are in charge of a department that is going to have access to the deepest and darkest secrets, the most politically damaging truths, you want -- as a person in charge -- you *need* for these things to remain secret. You do background checks, have agents investigate backgrounds, interview the person and people they know.

But a clever person can conceal past malfeasance so that it does not come to light during the investigation. All you have from the personal interview is a *subjective* assessment of the person's honesty, truthfulness, and so on. What is needed is something more, something objective, something with a *score* that passes or fails the person being considered for this very sensitive position.

That is where the polygraph comes in. Thanks to the salesmanship of the original charlatan, people who *need* it are willing to overlook the rather glaring flaws and falacies in its foundation. And once it gets embedded in the government you have bureaucratic inertia keeping it in place. So the security blanket is here to stay. Now more than ever those in power feel a need to have additional assurance that their employees won't turn on them. The demonstrated lack of efficacy in this regard just makes them all the more frantic.

One point: your statement leaves the reader with the impression that the polygraph can work, and does if the person believes in it. This is tempting and perhaps plays a role in the self-deceit on the part of those who purvey and utilize polygraphs. But it simply isn't true. It *never* works to detect a lie. By coincidence a person may fail the polygraph while lying, but it is just a coincidence. Polygraphs have been studied and debunked.

Polygraphs are less effective than voodoo where if someone brought up in a culture that believes in the efficacy of voodoo has a curse put on them they will become ill (of course, they have to *know* about the curse, but that is part and parcel of how voodoo works). In other words, strong indoctrination can invoke a placebo effect to cause harm. This same effect has not been successfully demonstrated with polygraphs and is implausible given there is no unique, causative mechanism between lying and the physiological effects being measured. And that's assuming there's *any* causative mechanism.

Re:Not even then

[s.petry]

The preliminary questions that they claimed would be the "base line" really don't work because the system is flawed. It's kind of like claiming that meditation before the tea leaf reading makes reading tea leaves work.

40 years ago, we knew it was flawed (we knew long before your statement of 20 years). Certain agencies of Government (including Military) trained agents/soldiers to beat the Polygraph. It's a bit more than simply not believing in the machine's ability to catch a lie, mostly adding in relaxation and breathing techniques. Leaks of that training could have something to do with public knowledge about how to beat the polygraph, the techniques are the same. This is why certain government agencies (did|do) not use just a polygraph, they used a narcotics selection to reduce your rational thinking ability, induce emotion, and increase your heart rate. (you may have heard of LSD, Sodium pentothol, etc..)

Even with the narcotics selections, the Polygraph was beatable however. To most agencies, the polygraph became a fear technique long ago and was not seen as a real scientific tool like it was thought to be in the 50s and 60s. If they can scare you into thinking you will be caught in a lie, you may confess. They don't want the public to know that it's mumbo-jumbo though, because it's cheap and easy to use this old garbage to collect a confession.

Now what I don't get is why they are trying to bust people that are making the voodoo public knowledge. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and them busting people does not make the polygraph magically valid science. That part is what the scientific community should be outraged over, and petitioning the Government to end it's use and persecution of people exposing the fraud.

Re:Not even then

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, in my experience as an attorney, anyone who gets involved in criminal law begins to see one side as the only ones interested in justice and the other side as a cesspool of scum and villainy. Additionally, once they get a certain amount of experience in criminal law, they either lose the ability to see the other side as doing anything remotely good or don't want anything to do with it anymore because it is so fucked up. Plus, once you pick a side, it is almost impossible to get a job on the other side because the people at the top tend to be the ones who lose the ability to see the other side as doing any good (otherwise they would have quit long ago because they hate their own job) and therefore, people who try to switch sides are bringing nothing but the evil taint that can contaminate their office. I've even seen public remarks in my state by the high up officials saying not to hire former public defenders because they will "spy" on your office and feed their friends inside information. And don't think I'm just hating on prosecutors; as I mentioned I've seen defenders do similar things.

TL;DR There are not enough people with experience on both sides to fill judge positions.

Enough of this police state!

[Doug Williams]

I have proved the polygraph is worthless as a "lie detector" - truthful people are often called liars and I can teach anyone how to control every tracing on the chart in a matter of minutes! Go to my website polygraph.com for more information about that. But, since all the scientific evidence shows there is no such thing as a "lie detector", wouldn't responsible policy makers in the government stop the use of the polygraph if they were aware of these problems? One would think they would, but the sad fact is they already know all these things - they have known since at least 1985 when I testified in Congress and got the EMPLOYEE POLYGRAPH PROTECTION ACT passed into law, (the EPPA outlawed the use of the polygraph in private industry). I testified in the U.S. Congress in support of the EPPA. Click here to read a transcript of my testimony: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011381806;view=1up;seq=281 [hathitrust.org] (My testimony begins on pg 275) Here is an interesting piece of historical trivia: When I testified in Congress, I put my manual, HOW TO STING THE POLYGRAPH into the Congressional Record, and the Senators and Representatives distributed more copies of my manual between 1984 and 1988 than anyone has ever distributed - including me! They sent them out by the tens of thousands in response to requests from constituents. (I wonder if they are going to get that "list" too?) But, there were exclusions written into the law that allowed the government - local state and federal - to continue to use the polygraph. They attempt to justify these exclusions on the grounds that the government needs this tool to protect national security and the law enforcement officials need it to protect the integrity of the criminal justice system. I have proved the polygraph is not a "lie detector" - the Congress, the Justice Department, the OTA, and all those with any scientific credibility agree with me - so there is no justification for the government to continue to use it on the pretext that it protects our national security or the integrity of the criminal justice system. But, knowing the polygraph is worthless as a "lie detector", knowing that people were wrongly accused of lying, and knowing that many were abused by polygraph operators asking illegal questions was still not enough to convince government agencies to stop using the polygraph. In fact, these agencies demanded that they be excluded from this law in order to "protect national security" and to "assure the integrity of law enforcement and the criminal justice system". The lawmakers caved and allowed the exclusions to be written into the law because that was the only way to be assured that even the watered down version prohibiting the polygraph in the private sector would pass. Why do government agencies still staunchly defend the use of the polygraph and even harass, intimidate and try to punish me for proving the polygraph is not a "lie detector" by demonstrating that I can teach anyone to easily control the results of the "test"? Why do they do everything in their power to prevent any information that discredits the "lie detector" from being exposed? Why do they intimidate applicants and others who are required to submit to polygraph "testing" by monitoring their internet activity and punishing them for educating themselves about the polygraph? Why does the government love to use this "Frankenstein's Monster", (a description given to the polygraph by its inventor Dr. Larson)? And why do they insist on continuing to use it? It is FOOLISH and DANGEROUS to use the polygraph as "lie detector" - the theory of "lie detection" is nothing but junk science. It is based on a faulty scientific premise. The polygraph operators have the audacity to say that there is such a thing as a "reaction indicative of deception", when I can prove that "lying reaction" is simply a nervous reaction commonly referred to as the fight or flight syndrome. In fact, the polygraph is nothing but a psychological billy c

I teach people how to pass, not how to lie!!!

[Doug Williams]

http://www.polygraph.com/index.php?i-don-t-teach-countermeasures [polygraph.com]