Polypro Pauline wrote on May 31^st, 2010 at 5:48pm:


Pauline...do you have reason to believe this?  I believe George took the FBI pre-employment polygraph before he knew about countermeasures.  Please explain the meaning of the term "messing around with one's breathing during a polygraph test."

Regards, Evan S

Drugs and alcohol would seem to be the most common topics. It certainly is what they hit me on. 

The CI questions were fairly laughable, and I cannot believe in today's day and age, that terrorists or foreign services are sending moles to apply with the feds (heck the odds of getting through the online application are SMALL). Accordingly, I feel like the lifestyle questions are more important, and in my opinion, are being used to "weed" out candidates, despite the COEs already being on the table, who potentially have costly backgrounds or backgrounds that aren't as chaste as the candidates of old.

This, at least, is the experience myself and some other recent graduates are having. I'd be interested to know what others think, especially the polygraphers themselves. That is, I believe the polygraph is being used to flush out people with past drug and alcohol use, despite the policies that have ostensibly been relaxed on these issues.

person wrote on May 27^th, 2010 at 12:39am:


You know, I may agree with some of what you said, but if you are polygrapher you're making polygraphers look bad. George feels that he was screwed by the polygraph. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. I happen to think he messed around with his breathing on a test in which he knew in advance about relevant questions and "control" questions, engaging in spontaneous countermeasures that didn't work. But you have no business using profanity like this in a post while complaining that George is replying to any post that he thinks is interestering or response-worthy. This is his forum. Sometimes he and others on this forum stoop pretty low, but as a polygrapher (if in fact you are one), you make all of us look bad by stooping low yourself. Keep it civil. We have good arguments and plenty to back up those arguments, just as George and others against the polygraph have some good arguments. I feel that this web site does more harm than good, and it's a misguided pursuit by someone who feels he is doing a service to others, but personal attacks with profanity are uncalled for. My two cents.

Excellent point about possibly employing artificially planted posts to make operators look bad.  When someone registers one or two post as a guest, the anonymity creates a difficult test of validity.

The post could be a person who did not "pass" the polygraph "test" whom is trying to give the appearance that such behavior is normal.

This argument is balanced by the large amount of registered posters who in general are not viral towards the process but describe it in great detail.  Common factors start to emerge from the large amount of testimonials.

I always advise all readers to research and be skeptical of the sources of information that are taken as "the absolute truth" or "undeniable."

Maybe this conversation should be moved to another thread for further discussion.

My only continuing irritation with polygraph research is that most of it has been produced by "researchers" who have a horse in the race.  Very little independent research had been submitted in pro-polygraph forums to give "scientific" verification of the practice.  The sources trace back to organizations or institutes that exist to support polygraph usage or training.

If polygraph usage was scientific, it should withstand vigorous cross examination and not hide in the shadows of rooms without videos and recordings.

To operators who provide video recordings of the complete process to their "test" subjects when requested, my hat is off to you.

For all of the other operators, why do you hide in the dark shadows if your test is infallible and scientifically repeatable?   

person wrote on May 27^th, 2010 at 12:39am:


Actually, if you subtract George's 4,875 posts from the current total of 34,535, 29,660 posts remain--making this by far the most active polygraphy-related public forum on the Web.

The second most active public forum, Polygraph Place, logs in with a mere 5,505 posts as of this date. This amounts to slightly more than 20% of the traffic on this site. 

Quote:


If you don't like hearing what George has to say, the full-featured bulletin board software in use here has an ignore function that easily allows you to hide his posts. Just check in your control panel.

Alternatively, as you can see from the statistics I noted above, there are other polygraph-related forums on the Web that could use some traffic. 

With regard to the personal attack against George, you are hardly the first to try this in the nearly ten years that this forum has been online.

All it does is provide our readers with an example of the behavior that one is likely to encounter in a polygraph examination. 

My only concern with it when it gets really over the top is the possibility that we might be accused of employing shills in order to make polygraph operators look bad.

George Maschke (however the hell you pronounce that last name),

You are the ONLY forum administrator in the whole damn world who feels they need to respond to every crappity smackin thread in the forum!  Are you that desperate for posts?  Are you trying to make your forum seem more active than it really is by adding posts?  Why not just suck up the fact that you crappity smacked up on your polygraph, take your head out of your ass, and let the internet community posts and reply to their own shit without you butting in each time.  Dumbass. 

The topics you raise correspond generally to the relevant questions asked in employment-related polygraph screening. Those conducting such polygraph screening must be aware that more people will be lying about say, illegal drug use than espionage, if only because there are many more users of illegal drugs than there are spies.

So there seems to be a common theme amongst those who claim to have been falsely accused on their polygraph, the passers and failers.  It seems the accusations are always on the topics of:
- drug/alcohol use
- being a spy or having foreign contacts that pose a threat (especially for those with extensive overseas living or travel)
- committing a serious crime
- sexual history

That's it.  I've never heard of anyone being harrassed on the polygraph about anything else. Are these the most serious topics?  Are polygraphers trained to hone in on which ever of these topics the applicant is mostly likely to have skeletons in their closet about?