The federal trial of Doug Williams for teaching people how to pass a polygraph, which had been scheduled to begin on Tuesday, 14 April 2015, has been moved to Tuesday, 12 May 2015. Williams’ attorney, Stephen H. Buzin, requested the continuance, citing among other things the receipt of 425 pages of new discovery materials from the U.S. government and the expectation that additional discovery materials would be delivered in coming weeks. In an order dated 25 March 2015, Chief United States District Judge Vicki Miles LaGrange issued an order granting the request, which was unopposed by the U.S. government.
Williams is featured prominently in two recent news columns. In “Insidious Orwellian Machines,” VICE Magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes, who met with Williams last August, writes about his interactions with Williams, his success in beating the polygraph for a television pilot, and his concern about the civil liberties aspect of the upcoming trial.
And in “How to Beat a Polygraph Test,” published in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Malia Wollan succinctly explains how to do precisely that, based on Doug Williams’ instructions.
We have come to a very pathetic point when free speech is suppressed by such a nonsense legal case. Anyone should be free to teach anything about technology publicly as the implications of denying that right are dire. For example suppose I am trying to develop a better polygraph system that is harder to beat. In order to do that I would need to know quite a bit about how people beat existing polygraph machines. With that knowledge being illegal to share the progress in polygraph machines would stop dead in its tracks. Secrecy in itself is a weapon of war and secrecy can strike down innocents caught in the line of fire. I think the entire world needs to be far more open to public view.