{"id":1109,"date":"2013-11-03T13:34:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T18:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/?p=1109"},"modified":"2013-11-04T11:50:13","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T16:50:13","slug":"an-attempted-entrapment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antipolygraph.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/03\/an-attempted-entrapment\/","title":{"rendered":"An Attempted Entrapment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"bear-trap\"<\/a>In May 2013, I was the target of an attempted entrapment. ((McClatchy newspaper group investigative reporter Marisa Taylor first reported on this matter on 16 August 2013 in “Seeing threats, feds target instructors of polygraph-beating methods.”<\/a> The present article explains this incident in fuller detail.)) Whether it was a federal agent attempting to entrap me on a contrived material support for terrorism charge or simply an individual’s attempt to embarrass me and discredit AntiPolygraph.org remains unclear. In this post, I will provide a full public accounting of the attempt, including the raw source of communications received and the IP addresses involved.<\/p>\n

As background, it should be borne in mind that a federal criminal investigation into providers of information on polygraph countermeasures, dubbed “Operation Lie Busters,”<\/a> has been underway since at least November 2011, when an undercover U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, posing as a job applicant, contacted Chad Dixon of Marion, Indiana for help on passing the polygraph. In December, 2012, Dixon pleaded guilty<\/a> to federal charges of wire fraud and obstruction of an agency proceeding, for which he has been sentenced to 8 months<\/a> in federal prison.<\/p>\n

Doug Williams of Norman, Oklahoma, a former police polygrapher who has been teaching people how to pass polygraph examinations for some three decades and operates the website Polygraph.com<\/a>, was also the target of a sting operation and in February 2013, U.S. Customs and Border Protection executed search warrants on his home and office, seizing business records. He has been threatened with prosecution but to date has not been charged with any crime.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, I received a most curious unsolicited communication on Saturday, 18 May 2013 from <mohammadali201333@yahoo.com>. The message was sent to my AntiPolygraph.org e-mail address <maschke@antipolygraph.org> and was titled “help help help please”<\/a> (155 kb EML file.) The message body was blank, but there was a PDF attachment with a short message written in Persian, the language of Iran:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I know Persian, a fact of which the writer was evidently cognizant. Here is a translation:<\/p>\n

Greetings and respect to you, Mr. George Maschke,<\/p>\n

I am Mohammad Aghazadeh and have been living in Iraq for five years. I am a member of an Islamic group that seeks to restore freedom to Iraq. Because the federal police are suspicious of me, they want to do a lie detector test on me. I ask that you send me a copy of your book about the lie behind the lie so that I can use it, or that you help me in any other way. I am very grateful to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The book to which the message refers is The Lie Behind the Lie Detector<\/em><\/a> (1 mb PDF), AntiPolygraph.org’s free e-book that, among other things, explains how to pass (or beat) a polygraph “test.” Factors that made me highly suspicious about this message include:<\/p>\n