AntiPolygraph.org News – Page 3 – News about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors."

Accused WikiLeaks CIA Vault 7 Source Joshua Adam Schulte Knew the Lie Behind the Lie Detector

An exhibit (PDF) submitted by prosecutors in the Espionage Act trial of Joshua Adam Schulte for allegedly providing a collection of CIA hacking tools dubbed “Vault 7” to WikiLeaks shows that Schulte understood that polygraph “testing” is bogus. AntiPolygraph.org has previously reported that Schulte passed multiple CIA polygraphs despite having allegedly downloaded child pornography before seeking CIA employment.

The exhibit, which appears to be an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) transcript, begins with “John” sending “Josh” (Schulte) a link to AntiPolygraph.org’s free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, noting that he was reading it and that it “seems kind of interesting.”

John asks Schulte for his opinion on polygraphs, and he responds that “they’re a means of social engineering” and provides a (no-longer available) link to video of the Penn & Teller Bullshit! documentary series episode on lie detectors.

The chat, which took place over the course of about 11 minutes on January 15th of an unspecified year, concludes with Schulte pasting the following selection from The Lie Behind the Lie Detector and remarking “rofl”:

On Monday, 21 February 1994—just seven days before the Joint Security Commission issued its report—the FBI arrested CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Hazen Ames and charged him with spying for the former Soviet Union and later, Russia. Since beginning his betrayal in 1985, Ames had passed two CIA polygraph “tests” during which he falsely denied having committed espionage, first on 2 May 1986 and again on 12 and 16 April 1991.

(In the chat log, the numerals do not appear as a result of the formatting of earlier editions of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.)

It is not clear what legal argument the chat log is intended to support, but it does help to document the growing understanding of those who are subject to polygraph screening that it is, as Penn and Teller put it, bullshit.

AntiPolygraph.org has transcribed the exhibit (PDF), which was first made available by reporter Matthew Russell Lee (@MatthewLeeICP):

Jan 15 13:18:05 <John> i'm reading this: https://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf
Jan 15 13:18:09 <John> seems kind of interesting
Jan 15 13:18:29 <John> what's your opinion on polygraphs
Jan 15 13:19:03 <Josh> they're a means of social engineering
Jan 15 13:19:16 <Josh> Penn and Teller did a good episode of Bullshit! about polygraphs
Jan 15 13:19:39 <John> yeah
Jan 15 13:20:03 <Josh> https://cryptm.org/data/shows/Bullshit!/Season%207/S07E05%20-%20Lie%20Detectors.avi
Jan 15 13:20:06 <Josh> :)
Jan 15 13:20:09 <Josh> you?
Jan 15 13:20:23 <John> yeah that's basically my opinion too
Jan 15 13:20:26 <Josh> the dude was right, it's the polygraphers who are complete douchebags
Jan 15 13:20:41 <John> i just wonder how hard it is for say a spy to get through an nsa polygraph
Jan 15 13:21:00 <John> like i'd imagine the background checks do a lot more to keep out spies than the polygraph
Jan 15 13:21:21 <Josh> the problem is once someone is in, then the background checks do very little
Jan 15 13:21:32 <Josh> Like, as long as you believe in your lie then you can pass it pretty easily
Jan 15 13:21:44 <Josh> Also, I hear that a lot of people go "inconclusive" in polygraphs
Jan 15 13:21:58 <Josh> meaning there is no clear indicator to the polygraphers
Jan 15 13:22:07 <John> but "inconclusive" means you don't get the clearance
Jan 15 13:22:18 <Josh> nope
Jan 15 13:22:21 <Josh> you can still get it
Jan 15 13:22:24 <John> wtf
Jan 15 13:22:24 <Josh> and you can maintain it
Jan 15 13:22:27 <John> here you don't
Jan 15 13:22:32 <Josh> even if you fail it, you get many more chances to re-take it...
Jan 15 13:22:36 <Josh> says who
Jan 15 13:22:52 <John> i forget
Jan 15 13:22:58 <Josh> I bet it's the same because I know NSA trains your polygraphers
Jan 15 13:23:07 <John> hmmm
Jan 15 13:23:33 <Josh> I mean, it's about the polygraphers and what kind of shit they can get out of you
Jan 15 13:23:38 <Josh> not really about the test itself
Jan 15 13:24:31 <Josh> you can still fail it though, I've heard of some people who dont get a clearance because they outright fail the polygraph
Jan 15 13:24:54 <Josh> and that can be for a number of reasons from nervousness to simple physiology
Jan 15 13:25:21 <John> i heard that a lot of co-ops failed to get their clearance because they lied about not having done weed
Jan 15 13:25:33 <Josh> heh
Jan 15 13:25:46 <Josh> that's actually the question I had the most trouble with
Jan 15 13:25:52 <Josh> and apparently I kept failing it
Jan 15 13:25:58 <Josh> even though I've never done drugs...
Jan 15 13:26:02 <John> lol
Jan 15 13:26:20 <Josh> I think the guy was just phishing because he didn't think a college kid had never even tried drugs before :P
Jan 15 13:26:26 <John> haha
Jan 15 13:26:32 <Josh> so fuck that guy
Jan 15 13:26:46 <Josh> he was such a fucking dick
Jan 15 13:27:06 <Josh> he told me, well, you'll probably be on your way back to texas wish you hadnt lied here
Jan 15 13:27:14 <Josh> I was like wtf
Jan 15 13:27:31 <Josh> I even decided if I had to retake it that I'd just tell them to forget it
Jan 15 13:28:16 <Josh> dude there were some people in my access class that failed it like 4-5 times...
Jan 15 13:28:23 <Josh> and others who took 6 years to get cleared
Jan 15 13:28:26 <Josh> I was like, jesus
Jan 15 13:32:16 <Josh> "On Monday, February —just seven days before the Joint Se-
Jan 15 13:32:16 <Josh> curity Commission issued its report—the FBI arrested CIA counter-
Jan 15 13:32:16 <Josh> intelligence officer Aldrich Hazen Ames and charged him with spying
Jan 15 13:32:16 <Josh> for the former Soviet Union and later, Russia. Since beginning his
Jan 15 13:32:16 <Josh> betrayal in , Ames had passed two CIA polygraph "tests" during
Jan 15 13:32:17 <Josh> which he falsely denied having committed espionage, first on
Jan 15 13:32:19 <Josh> May and again on and April .
Jan 15 13:32:21 <Josh> "
Jan 15 13:32:47 <Josh> he went inconclusive
Jan 15 13:39:20 <Josh> hmmm
Jan 15 13:39:25 <Josh> rofl:

Polygraph “Test” Drives Innocent Steve Wilkos Show Guest to Attempted Suicide

On Tuesday, 10 December 2019, Anca Pennington, 30, of Omaha, Nebraska purchased three bottles of Tylenol, each containing 24 pills, after passing through security at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey. She then proceeded to a restroom stall, swallowed all of the pills, and laid down to die.

Earlier that day Pennington, a single mother of four, had appeared on the set of the Comcast-owned, NBCUniversal Television Distribution-produced Steve Wilkos Show in Stamford, Connecticut, where host Steve Wilkos had announced that she had miserably failed a polygraph test regarding whether she had burned her infant daughter with cigarettes. The show’s in-house polygraph operator, Daniel D. Ribacoff, had come on stage to support his polygraph results.

Ribacoff, a member of the American Polygraph Association, has previously claimed on the show, “We have tests that are 99.4% accurate, which is way more accurate than most medical tests, and way more accurate than any jury trial.”

And in a 2016 Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread, in response to a question Steve Wilkos averred, “The lie detector tests are like 99% accurate.”

In fact, however, polygraph “testing” has not been shown through peer-reviewed research to reliably work at better-than-chance levels of accuracy under field conditions. Alan P. Zelicoff and Steven E. Rigdon have conducted a peer-reviewed statistical analysis of the best available field studies of polygraphy. Based on that analysis, Dr. Zelicoff opines that “if a subject fails a polygraph, the probability that she is, in fact, being deceptive is little more than chance alone; that is, one could flip a coin and get virtually the same result for a positive test based on the published data.”

As Pennington recalls, Wilkos told her on stage that she was disgusting, that she was never going to see her kids again, and that she was going to go to jail. The audience booed her.

Pennington recounts that she had looked up to Steve Wilkos as a father figure and had never questioned polygraphs. Afraid that no one would believe her and that she would lose her children, Pennington made the decision to end her life during the ride to the airport for her flight home, writing a suicide note on the sheet of paper with her flight information that was given to her by the show’s producers.

Lying on the airport restroom stall floor after consuming the Tylenol, whose active ingredient, acetaminophen, can cause fatal liver damage in sufficiently large doses, Pennington began to feel warm, and her heart started racing. She became scared, thought of her children, and called 911. An ambulance came. After nearly a week of hospitalization, she was released and returned home to Omaha, having escaped any permanent liver damage.

Photograph of Anca Pennington’s infant daughter’s lesions provided to The Steve Wilkos Show

While in hospital, Pennington showed nurses pictures of lesions on her infant daughter’s leg: lesions that she had suspected were pinch marks or cigarette burns inflicted by the daughter’s father, who had left them, or by the father’s new girlfriend, both of whom also appeared as guests on The Steve Wilkos Show and passed polygraphs. As Pennington recalls, the nurses immediately recognized the lesions as ringworm, a common fungal infection that is easily treated.

Later in December 2019, lesions reappeared on the infant’s leg, and a medical examination confirmed a ringworm infection, for which clotrimazole, an antifungal medication, was prescribed.

Before contacting The Steve Wilkos Show, Pennington had also contacted the Nebraska Division of Family Services regarding her suspicion that her daughter had been abused. In a letter dated 3 December 2019, a full week before her appearance on the show, but which Pennington states she received only after her return to Omaha, Children and Family Services specialist Nicole Powers reported, “Based on the information obtained during this investigation, it has been determined that the allegation will be listed as ‘Unfounded.'”

Pennington reports that on Wednesday, 22 January 2020, The Steve Wilkos Show contacted her and told her that the episode in which she appeared will air in February. Pennington stated that she was “devastated and traumatized.”

AntiPolygraph.org has written to Steve Wilkos Show producer Jillian Calandra, who coordinated Pennington’s appearance on the show, and polygraph operator Daniel Ribacoff seeking comment. At the time of writing, no replies have been received.

In May 2019, the long-running British tabloid television program The Jeremy Kyle Show, which bears similarities to The Steve Wilkos Show, was abruptly canceled after Steve Dymond, who “failed” a polygraph “test” conducted for the show, committed suicide.

In December 2019, Pennington shared her story in a series of video clips that AntiPolygraph.org has assembled as a YouTube playlist:

Update (28 January 2020): On 26 January 2020, The Steve Wilkos Show released a 30-second video clip titled “THE COLD HARD TRUTH…ALL NEW…ALL FEBRUARY LONG!” with snippets of episodes to be aired in February 2020:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW79P7WKPcU

At 22 seconds into the video, a few seconds of the as-yet-unaired episode in which Anca Pennington appeared are shown. Steve Wilkos is seen gesticulating at her and shouting, “You’re the one burning your children!”

Pennington replies, “I did not do that!”

The Steve Wilkos Show‘s apparent decision to air this episode, despite compelling evidence that no one burned her child, may be explained by the fact that February 2020 is a Nielsen “sweeps” period during which audience measurements are taken.

AntiPolygraph.org’s inquiries to Steve Wilkos Show producer Jillian Calandra and polygraph operator Daniel D. Ribacoff remain unanswered.

Federal Judge Awards CVSA Marketer NITV $849,347.92 in Lawsuit Against Rival Dektor Corporation

On 27 July 2018, the so-named National Institute of Truth Verification (NITV) of West Palm Beach, Florida, which markets a scientifically baseless “lie detector” called the Computer Voice Stress Analysis (CVSA) filed a federal lawsuit against the marketer of a rival pseudoscientific voice based lie detector, Dektor Corporation, and its sole proprietor, Arthur Herring III of Coopersburg, Pennsylvania.

NITV alleged “false advertisement, unfair competition, and product disparagement under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)” and “deceptive and unfair trade practices under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act” and originally sought a total of $4,080,000 in claimed damages. NITV later increased its total claim to $17,871,977.36.

Dektor and Herring, who ultimately proceeded pro se, failed to timely file responses to pleadings in the lawsuit, and the court, which also found that Herring committed “substantial discovery violations,” ultimately entered default judgments against both Dektor and Herring personally.

On Monday, 16 December 2019, the court issued its final judgment, ordering Dektor and Herring to pay NITV $424,673.96 in base damages, which was doubled to $849,347.92 “in light of Defendants’ willful violation of the Lanham Act, misuse of the internet to convey materially disparaging information about Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s product, and discovery misconduct leading to an additional unknown amount of actual damages.”

The final order includes a permanent injunction essentially prohibiting Dektor and Herring from communicating any information critical of NITV, its CVSA product, or its founder, Charles Humble, to anyone.

As previously reported on AntiPolygraph.org, an earlier default judgment in the case ordered, among other things, that Herring remove from the internet a website with content critical of NITV that Herring had created. Much of the content of that website was nonetheless substantially true, and a mirror of the banned website remains available online via Archive.org’s Wayback Machine.

In the course of NITV’s litigation against Dektor, NITV also threatened a federal lawsuit against Dektor’s computer consultant and, without legal basis, attempted to compel AntiPolygraph.org to remove all content mentioning NITV and CVSA.

NCCA Test for Espionage and Sabotage Administration Guide

The “Test for Espionage and Sabotage” is the primary counterintelligence-scope polygraph screening format employed by the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy. The procedure is described in detail in a 2016 National Center for Credibility Assessment administration guide (1.2 MB PDF) obtained by AntiPolygraph.org.

The guide, marked “For Official Use Only,” sets forth the relevant, “control”/comparison, and irrelevant questions asked. Appendix A (“Scoping Guide for Relevant Questions”) provides detailed information about the topics covered by the relevant questions.

Topics that are off-limits (“unless these issues are revealed by the examinee as having relevance to responses or admissions made in connection with counterintelligence questions posed during the examination”) include:

Religious beliefs or affiliations
Beliefs and opinions regarding racial matters
Political beliefs and affiliations
Opinions regarding the constitutionality of legislative policy
Use of drugs or alcohol (except for purposes of assessing suitability)
Affiliation with labor unions
Sexual matters
Finance

In other words, if the examinee doesn’t bring up these topics, the polygraph operator is not supposed to do so. AntiPolygraph.org has nonetheless heard reports of some polygraph operators ignoring these restrictions, and we invite any readers with knowledge of such practices to privately contact us.

Appendix F (“TES Outline”) will be of special interest, as it provides the basic script for conduct of the Test for Espionage and Sabotage. It is essentially a synopsis of the entire monkey drill.

It should be noted that in a secret experiment conducted at the National Center for Credibility Assessment (then called the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute), 80 percent of subjects succeeded in beating the Test for Espionage and Sabotage after an hour-long training session.

There is no documented instance of the Test for Espionage and Sabotage ever catching a spy or saboteur.

The polygraph community is quite concerned about polygraphy’s vulnerability to simple, effective countermeasures that they cannot detect, and the TES therefore includes a “Countermeasures statement,” which the guide explains thus:

10.2. Countermeasures statement: It is important to provide some form of countermeasures statement to make the examinee aware that non-cooperation or deliberate efforts to influence testing will adversely affect the examination process. There are a number of approaches to this issue. The following is one such approach:
10.2.1. “It is not uncommon for people who have to take a polygraph examination to research information on the topic. Often, they come across sites or read articles that suggest they have to perform some activity to help them through their polygraph examination. Such sites and articles often provide bogus information. In fact, when people attempt to influence the outcome of their polygraph examination in various ways, such activity reveals that they have abdicated their responsibility to tell the truth and are being non-cooperative. Can I count on you not to involve yourself in such activity?”

It is ironic (and hypocritical) for polygraph operators, whose techniques require that they lie to and attempt to deceive those whom they “test,” to speak of any “responsibility to tell the truth.” For discussion of the trickery behind the Test for Espionage and Sabotage, see AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke’s article, “The Lying Game: National Security and the Test for Espionage and Sabotage.”

Those who wish to learn more about polygraphy’s scientific shortcomings—and what can be done to mitigate the risk of a false positive outcome—will want to download a copy of AntiPolygraph.org’s free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

NCCA Law Enforcement Pre-Employment Test (LEPET)

AntiPolygraph.org has obtained a copy of the National Center for Credibility Assessment’s documentation of the polygraph screening technique “used by federal law enforcement agencies during the pre-employment process.”

The 23-page document, dated 3 March 2016, provides instructions for administration of the so-called “Law Enforcement Pre-Employment Test” (LEPET), to which applicants for employment with such agencies as the FBI, DEA, ATF, and U.S. Secret Service are subjected.

In 2004, AntiPolygraph.org published an earlier version of this document, dated January 2002, which remains available. The LEPET manual has changed little since this earlier version.

When we first published this document, then recently retired FBI supervisory special agent, scientist, and polygraph expert Drew Campbell Richardson observed regarding it:

This is more or less THE SCRIPT for what you will see and what you will hear. You will see the order, even the very language and characterizations of the foolishness that we have come to know as polygraph screening. This document is sufficiently important that it requires your careful attention and then your careful attention again.

The LEPET manual will remain of great interest to anyone seeking employment with a federal law enforcement agency with a polygraph screening requirement.

Pseudoscientist “Dr.” Charles Humble Attempts to Censor AntiPolygraph.org

Charles Wayne Humble in “Heartbeat of America” promotional video

AntiPolygraph.org has received a rather unpleasant letter from James D’Loughy, a lawyer representing NITV Federal Services, LLC (NITV), which markets a scientifically baseless voice-based lie detector called the “Computer Voice Stress Analyzer,” and its president, self-described “Renaissance Man” “Dr.” Charles Humble (who has not received a doctoral degree from any accredited institute of higher education).

In his letter, D’Loughy, of the law firm Advisorlaw, which specializes in helping clients protect their assets from creditors, demands that AntiPolygraph.org remove twelve URLs that comprise a substantial portion of the website.

NITV’s offices at 11400 Fortune Circle, West Palm Beach, Florida (Google Street View)

AntiPolygraph.org is a non-profit, public interest website dedicated to exposing and ending waste, fraud, and abuse associated with polygraphs and other pseudoscientific “lie detectors,” including voice stress analyzers.

D’Loughy avers that a default judgment in a lawsuit NITV filed against its competitor, Dektor PSE, and which, among other things, compelled Dektor to remove a website with content critical of NITV, also compels AntiPolygraph.org—which was not a party to this litigation and which has no privity with Dektor—to remove the twelve links.

NITV’s contention that its judgment against Dektor binds AntiPolygraph.org is absurd. Through our counsel, noted attorney (and former Westchester County, New York police commissioner) George N. Longworth of the law firm Grant & Longworth, we have declined NITV’s demand to remove the twelve links.

While NITV’s demand is without merit, it does serve to highlight the content on AntiPolygraph.org that most upsets NITV and “Dr.” Charles Humble, so it’s worth examining these links here:

A recent blog post titled Federal Judge Orders Immediate Removal of Website Critical of Computer Voice Stress Analysis;
A blog post from 2018 titled NITV Hires Disgraced Ex-Cop Jerry W. Crotty II as Director of Law Enforcement Operations;
A message board thread titled Jury Returns $575,000 Award Against NITV for Defamation;
Every post on the AntiPolygraph.org News blog tagged “CVSA”;
The entire AntiPolygraph.org News blog (yes, really);
A blog post about a presentation on polygraph pre-test interviews (we are uncertain why this is of concern to NITV and Humble, who are not mentioned in the post);
All blog posts in the category “voice stress” (the demand at #5 that we delete the entire blog should have covered this);
A message board thread dating to 2011 titled Canadian police and press believe in CVSA;
A blog post from 2009 titled Baker DVSA Loses a Customer;
The RSS feed for our message board forum on “CVSA and other Voice Stress Analysis Applications;”
Search results for “cvsa” on our blog;
A recent blog post titled NITV Threatens Competitor’s IT Consultant with Federal Lawsuit

For background on NITV and Charles Humble, see ABC Primetime’s 2006 investigative report on the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer:

SDPD Polygraph Screening Documents Disclosed

AntiPolygraph.org has published a set of documents concerning the San Diego Police Department’s polygraph practices. These documents, which date to 2017, focus primarily on pre-employment polygraph screening.

The most notable document, titled “SDPD DLST Preemployment Script” instructs the polygraph operator how to conduct the “pre-test” procedure.

“DLST” stands for “directed-lie screening test.” Directed-lie “control” questions are ones in response to which the examinee is told to “lie,” unlike probable-lie “control” questions, in which the operator attempts to manipulate the examinee into lying. For more on directed-lie “control” questions, see Chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (beginning at p. 107 of the 5th edition).

The pre-employment script shows that the “test” consists of a “Subtest A” and a “Subtest B.” The relevant questions on Subtest A are:

R1 As an adult, have you received any (other) formal discipline at work?
R2 As an adult / In the last 10 years, have you had any (other) personal involvement with illegal drugs?

There is also an unscored “sacrifice relevant” question:

SR Do you intend to answer the formal discipline and drug involvement questions truthfully?

The directed-lie “control” questions are:

C1 Did you ever lose your temper?
C2 Did you ever violate a minor traffic law?

There are also two irrelevant, or in SDPD’s parlance, “neutral” questions. These are not scored:

N1 Are you now in San Diego?
N2 Are the lights on?

Subtest B includes the following relevant questions:

R3 Have you ever committed any (other) serious crime?
R4 Have you ever committed any (other) sex crime?

The sacrifice relevant question for Subtest B is:

SR Do you intend to answer the “serious crime” and “sex crime” questions truthfully?

The directed-lie “control” questions for Subtest B are:

C3 Did you ever say anything about someone that wasn’t true?
C4 Did you ever violate a rule or regulation?

And finally, the irrelevant questions for Subtest B are:

N3 Are you now sitting down?
N4 Is today _____?

For more details, see the SDPD DLST Preemployment Script.

The document collection also includes a “polygraph questionnaire” with many more questions than the four relevant ones that are asked while the subject is hooked up to the polygraph instrument, a set of “mind maps” that describe the scope of the relevant questions from Subtests A and B, as well as a script used for polygraphic interrogation of criminal suspects.

It should be borne in mind that polygraphy has no scientific basis, and it is common for truthful people to wrongly be branded as liars. If you are facing a polygraph “test,” be it with the San Diego Police Department or any other agency, be sure to download a copy of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector for more on polygraphy’s scientific shortcomings, the simplistic methodology on which it relies, and pointers on what you can do to mitigate the risk of wrongly failing when you’re telling the truth.

NITV Threatens Competitor’s IT Consultant With Federal Lawsuit

NITV’s logo, a seeming misuse of the Great Seal of the United States

In July 2018, the so-named National Institute for Truth Verification (NITV) of West Palm Beach, Florida, which markets a scientifically baseless lie detector called the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA), filed in Florida a federal lawsuit against competitor Dektor Corporation and its sole proprietor, Arthur Herring III, of Coopersburg, Pennsylvania. Dektor markets a similarly scientifically baseless voice-based lie detector called the Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE).

Among other things, NITV alleged “false advertisement, unfair competition, and product disparagement under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)” and “deceptive and unfair trade practices under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”

On 17 May 2019, a magistrate judge granted a default judgment to NITV after Dektor failed to timely reply to a motion. Among other things, the judge ordered that Dektor and Herring “immediately remove from public view/unpublish the www.NITVCVSAexposed.com website in its entirety.” The aforesaid website, which contained a great deal of unflattering but apparently true documentation about NITV and its founder, Charles Humble, has been taken down in compliance with the court order, although a mirror of the banned website as it appeared on 18 May 2019 remains available.

Evidently not satisfied with its success in removing criticism of itself from the internet, on Saturday, 1 June 2019, NITV, through its lawyer, threatened Dektor Corporation’s IT consultant, Matt Vanderhoff of Center Valley, Pennsylvania, with a federal lawsuit that would be filed in Florida if he did not within four days agree to “the transfer of any ownership or use rights [he] may have in the PSE software/intellectual property/source codes etc. to NITV” and to enter “into a permanent injunction that prohibits [him] from further assisting Mr. Herring with his anti-NITV activities.”

The threat evidently worked, as in reply to a request for comment, Mr. Vanderhoff stated, “Thank you for contacting me. Unfortunately, due to being forced to an agreement my lawyer and NITV’s lawyer’s [sic] have jointly worked up I am unable to disclose any details. It is very troubling to say the least but I am not in the position to fight an enemy that has deeper pockets.”

Dektor proprietor Arthur Herring III told AntiPolygraph.org that while Mr. Vanderhoff has been his IT consultant for some ten years and had programmed his software and designed and hosted his (Herring’s) websites, he (Vanderhoff) had no ownership interest in Dektor Corporation or its software. Herring expressed concern that the source code he had paid Vanderhoff to program for him would be lost to him and handed over to his competitor, NITV.

NITV’s legal threat to a rival’s IT consultant seems extortionate. AntiPolygraph.org has obtained a copy of the e-mail that NITV’s lawyer, Daniel DeSouza of Fort Lauderdale, Florida sent to Matt Vanderhoff on 1 June 2019, and believing it to be newsworthy, we reproduce it here in full:

From: Daniel DeSouza ddesouza@desouzalaw.com
Date: 6/1/19 2:35 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Matt Vanderhoff mvanderhoff@vanderson.net
Cc: “James D’Loughy – Advisor Law PLLC (JDLOUGHY@advisorlaw.com)” JDLOUGHY@advisorlaw.com
Subject: NITV – FOR SETTLEMENT PURPOSES ONLY
Mr. Vanderhoff,
This e-mail is sent pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 408 and is for settlement purposes only.
I recognize and respect your prior e-mails asking that we not contact you further regarding this matter, but unfortunately this e-mail needs to be sent and it is my hope that you review it carefully (preferably with your own legal counsel). Through our review of the documents produced during the forensic investigation, conclusions reached regarding the ‘damaged’ hard drive, and positions taken by Mr. Herring concerning ownership of the PSE intellectual property, it is our intention to file a Complaint against both you and Vanderson Corporation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida for aiding and abetting Mr. Herring in his tortious activities and for conspiring with him to engage in such activity. Please note I am not sending this e-mail to convince you that we are right or to argue the point with you back and forth – the bottom line is that our client has pushed for a lawsuit to be filed against you and your company for some time now and we agree with our client’s position.
That said, I am not looking for my client to spend more money on this matter than necessary. My expectation is that the lawsuit with Mr. Herring will soon be over, with a monetary judgment against both Dektor and Herring and a permanent injunction entered. We are awaiting dismissal of Mr. Herring and Dektor’s bankruptcy cases before we proceed in that manner. Given the above, we have 2 choices on how to proceed here. The first option is you ignore this e-mail (your right to do so) and we proceed with suing you in Florida as we did with Mr. Herring. The second option (which I sincerely hope you give serious thought) is that we enter into a settlement agreement wherein NITV will exchange mutual releases with you and Vanderson (with no money to be paid by you or judgment entered against you) in exchange for: (a) the transfer of any ownership or use rights you may have in the PSE software/intellectual property/source codes etc. to NITV and (b) the agreed entry into a permanent injunction that prohibits you from further assisting Mr. Herring with his anti-NITV activities (with a liquidated damages provision in the event of a violation). We would need to agree on the language and other material terms, but that is the gist of what my client will accept in lieu of filing a lawsuit against you and seeking a money judgment therein. The above would also be contingent on the Court allowing entry of an injunction against you as a non-party – if not, we would probably need to file a lawsuit with agreement to immediately dismiss it upon entry of an injunction.
Again, I encourage you to review this with counsel, but understand that we are poised to move forward with the lawsuit if you are not willing to settle along the above terms. If you are interested, please let me know by Wednesday, June 5 at the latest. If I do not hear back from you by then, we will proceed with the lawsuit.
Daniel DeSouza
DeSouza Law, P.A.
3111 N. University Drive | Suite 301 | Coral Springs, FL 33065 (Mailing Address)
101 NE Third Avenue | Suite 1500 | Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
954.603.1340 (office) | 954.551.5320 (mobile)
ddesouza@desouzalaw.com | www.desouzalaw.com

Polygraph Critic Doug Williams to Testify in New Mexico Criminal Case

Longtime polygraph critic Doug Williams, himself a former police polygraph operator, is scheduled to testify as an expert witness against the admissibility of polygraph evidence in a New Mexico court hearing scheduled for 30 May 2019.

Dr. Alan Vaughn Emamdee of Farmington, New Mexico faces an 11-count indictment for alleged sexual abuse of patients and seeks the introduction of polygraph “test” results as exculpatory evidence.

Williams, who has been subpoenaed to testify by prosecutor Michael P. Sanchez of New Mexico’s 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, can explain how anyone, innocent or guilty, can pass or beat a polygraph “test” using simple, effective techniques that he has been teaching since 1979.

Federal polygraph operators so feared Doug Williams’ teachings that in 2012 they targeted him with an undercover entrapment operation dubbed “Operation Lie Busters,” which culminated in his serving a two-year prison sentence. Williams was released from federal prison in July 2017 but remains under a three-year period of supervised release with a condition that he not engage “in any form of polygraph-related activity.”

The U.S. Department of Justice objected to Williams’ being permitted to testify for the prosecution in the New Mexico case, but United States District Judge Robin J. Cauthron nonetheless ordered the modification of Williams’ conditions of supervised release to permit him to “comply with the subpoena and testify in the New Mexico proceeding.”

The hearing in which Williams is to testify commences on Thursday, 30 May 2019 at 08:30 AM with judge Lyndy D. Bennett presiding. The case is State of New Mexico vs. Alan Emamdee, docket number D-1116-CR-201701042.

Update: On 29 May 2019, the defense rested in State of New Mexico vs. Alan Emamdee without introducing any polygraph evidence. As a result, Doug Williams was not called on to testify. Joshua Kellogg reports on what transpired in the courtroom for the Farmington Daily Times.

Update 2: On 30 May 2019, a jury acquitted Dr. Emamdee on all 11 counts.

Federal Judge Orders Immediate Removal of Website Critical of Computer Voice Stress Analysis

Computer Voice Stress Analysis (CVSA) is a pseudoscientific “lie detector” marketed to government agencies by the so-named National Institute of Truth Verification (NITV) in West Palm Beach, Florida. Although NITV has admitted in court that “CVSA is not capable of lie detection,” in marketing its Emperor’s-new-clothes “technology,” it continues to claim that CVSA is “over 98% accurate.”

Dektor Corporation of Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, a sole proprietorship owned by Arthur Herring III, markets a competing pseudoscientific voice-based “lie detector” called the Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE).

On 27 July 2018, NITV filed a federal lawsuit against Dektor and Herring alleging “false advertisement, unfair competition, and product disparagement under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)” and “deceptive and unfair trade practices under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act” and seeking a total of $4,080,000 in claimed damages.

During the pendency of the lawsuit, Herring established a website titled “NITV CVSA Lies Exposed” (nitvcvsaexposed.com) documenting alleged dishonesty by NITV. For example, Herring convincingly shows that NITV founder “Dr.” Charles Humble’s doctoral degree was issued by an unaccredited diploma mill called “Indiana Christian University.” Humble has used the unearned title of “Dr.” in marketing NITV’s products and services.

Herring also points out that the “Journal of Criminalistics and Court Expertise” that NITV claims published a research study showing that “the accuracy rate of the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer…is greater than 95%” is unknown to the Library of Congress.

Herring’s website has a great deal of additional, apparently true documentation about Charles Humble and NITV that is of considerable public interest.

However, on Friday, 17 May 2019, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dave Lee Brannon granted NITV a default judgment ordering, among other things, that Herring “immediately remove from public view/unpublish the www.NITVCVSAexposed.com website in its entirety.”

A mirror of the banned website as it appeared on 18 May 2019 is available on Archive.org’s Wayback Machine.

It should be recalled that in 2006, ABC Primetime did an in-depth exposé on “Dr.” Charles Humble and the “National Institute for Truth Verification”: