I recently heard from a former Afghan combat interpreter who was fired and blacklisted by the U.S. government after failing a Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (PCASS) "test." The interpreter has agreed to publicly share his story, which may be read here:

https://antipolygraph.org/statements/statement-045.shtml

A report published in the New York Post indicates that in response to killings of US and allied troops in Afghanistan by Afghan forces, a contingent of 60 PCASS operators is being dispatched to Afghanistan to vet Afghan recruits. As I pointed out in the first post of this thread, the PCASS is easily beaten (and has no validity to begin with). As a consequence, US troops may well become more likely to be fragged by their Afghan counterparts to the extent that any reliance is placed on this invalid test:

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Further posts to this thread should substantively address the original topic.

Dave

You have to realize that being snippy is the only way polygraphers will defend the unscrupulous activities of their profession. They have no desire to clean their own house. They apparently are not students of the Bible and have little to no knowledge of Revelations. They should remove the plank from their own eyes then they could see clearly how to remove the speck from the eyes of others.

For the sake of civility, let's knock off the ad hominem attacks, (that is unjustified name calling for those without an education) as they are only for those who do not have the wherewithal to adequately defend their position with facts or logic and so disqualify themselves as one capable of any meaningful communication due to a lack of an education.

Next, as a paralegal, I do have a slight problem with anyone using anything of my speech, bodily functions, biometrics, involuntary blood tests, breath-analyzers, physical agility tests or some such against me in accordance to the Fifth Amendment so as not to testify against myself in a court of law.  So if this device is not legal in a court of law, it is worthless as far as testimony goes.  This is also used against the dictum of unreasonable search and seizure.   

The only way to defeat such is to not comply voluntarily.  Of course, any coerced answers of any means would nullify the veracity of such a test and be against their US Constitutional rights.   

But that no longer means much any more as the executive powers that be, have already bypassed the US Constitution, the original Ten Bill or Rights, the Articles of Confederation, and the Declaration of Independence by means of the foreign treaties; secret, unsigned, and known presidential executive orders; secret, unsigned, and known presidential national directives; secret, unsigned, and known presidential signing statements, which all nullify the first four national documents and their public intent by passing laws outside of the purview of the legally elected legislature and completely nullifying our civil rights, civil liberties, and freedoms given to us by God himself.   

Such illegal and unethical actions by our government have been augmented by the Patriot Act 1, which was not published or read and considered prior to being voted upon.  Senator Ron Paul was one of the very few Senators who did not sign this dictatorial civil right grab, unpublished, unread, and unseen.  Then the Military Commissions Act, which can declare any citizen a "hostile, enemy combatant", without any formal means in a court of law, thereby circumventing all normal legal procedures of a US Citizen.  Next, we have the elimination of the "Writ of Habeus Corpus", which gave us the rights for 1,400 years from the Magna Carta, to face our accusers, be told of the charges we were being charged with, having our day in court before a judge before our rights as a citizen were taken from us without due process of law or equal rights, and the least of which was to post bail until our day in court arrived.   

President Bush has done away with all the above civil rights, civil liberties, and personal freedoms, with no congressional oversight what-so-ever.  These are grounds for impeachement of him and his vice president Dick Cheney.  Do I need a lie detector for these accusations?

Finally, our esteemed military against the "Posse Commitatus" can now be used against it own US Citizens, which is a crock of baloney, as if we do not have enough Police who think they are minor gods of their own right, by beating the crap out of innocent citizens until proven guilty.  So enough of the phony Patriotic stuff by those who have never read nor understood the US Constitution, Bill of Right et cetera, which has no basis or legal jurisdiction in the legal rights of a US Citizen.

Any questions?

Dave

You're right, Sackett.  Pond scum at least has the potential to evolve into higher forms of life; polygraphers are an evolutionary dead end whose brains are vestigial.

Lethe,

for a man with a supposed education, you certainly say some really ignorant things!

"Polygraphers don't give a damn about anyone outside their guild dying? ... "Pond Scum?"  Very intellectual and articulate..."doctor"...


Sackett

Polygraphers don't give a damn about anyone outside their guild dying (except friends and family members, I guess).  They're just like that "Dr." who got his "doctorate" from a "Bible University" in a strip mall who has made a fortune selling police departments the voice stress analyzer.  Except polygraphers are against that since they don't get a piece of the action.

They've programmed themselves like machines to not question that which brings them prestige and the almighty dollar.  Maybe polygraphers should be set loose in Iraq with that new gizmo?  That's help take care of the problem!  Of course, pond scum does replicate very quickly.

Dr. Lethe (Note: my PhD is not from a Bible College located in a strip mall)

My last point was a south park reference, I hope everyone got that. I accept your apology. Despite being canadian, I think I'm intellectually capable of identifying a patriotic American from an unpatriotic one. 

Brett,

I've bene portrayed so evily on this board, I was just trying to soften my appearance on the board, no offense...

sackett wrote on Apr 11^th, 2008 at 3:40am:


1. Yes, I am of the Canuk persuasion, but I object on the ground of relevance.

2. Yes, I do feel sympathy for muslims errouneously linked to terrorist groups.

3. It's spelt "Brett," and I'm not you're honey, guy.

"Bret" honey,  I supposed you were against water boarding of suspected terrorist and discovering LOTS of information which subsequently saved American lives, huh?

Oh yeah, I get the "Canuck" flag on your posts... Truest form of patriotism for YOUR country...?!

And about the Iraqi's who have yet to be identified falsely as terrorist, I suppose your sympathy lies with them?  To answer your question, No!  It DOES NOT matter!!!  We're propping their country up for democracy.   If they, as a nation do not want democracy, then they need to let us know and we'll leave.  BUT, as I see daily in reports back from the middle east, we're doing great things for them, they appreciate it and we will overcome the Iranian subversive movement to keep tyranny in its place.

Sleep well tonight.  If you were able to read this, thank a teacher.  If you read this in the comfort of your own home and in your own native language; thank a soldier!

Sackett

What about all the Iraqis that will be identified as terrorists after commiting no crime? According to the research, it should be AT LEAST 1/5 of anyone who is covertly tracked. At the very least those unlucky false positives are going to have their privacy violated, but they don't hold US citizenship. I forgot they don't matter, not really...

If anything, what George did is the truest expresion of patriotism. He's speaking out against con-artists trying to swindle the US tax payer, and revealing this will prevent soldiers from taking unnecessary risks and expenditures based on overreliance on this worthless device.

18 USC 2381. Treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. 

nonombre wrote on Apr 9^th, 2008 at 11:30pm:


Dear Tyrranical Blowhard:

1) "malice of forethought"  If you knew criminal law, you'd know that it's "malice aforethought" not "malice of forethought".  That said, you misuse the term so badly as to make it clear that you don't know the law.

2) There's a document you may have heard of, called the Constitution.  It defines treason differently than you.

3) If everyone was as stupid as you then any suggestions for improved security measures would be treason.  The original poster is pointing out that they're relying on an ineffective technique, and that such reliance is likely to endanger our troops.

Posts like the these should be commended as true security is achieved through transparent and demonstrable means.  If your security measures need to be secret, that only means that they have weaknesses and should be improved.  Would you consider it treason if I suggested we build a wall with Mexico?  I bet not!  So you're either a hypocrite or a racist.

I sincerely hope that you'll recognize that you are nothing but a useless, free-speech hating blowhard.  That the Constitution is specifically designed to protect people like the original poster against fascist imbeciles like you.

Yes sir, you are the living image of what the founding fathers feared.  A reactionary fascist idiot with no sense of priority or scale.

I hope you die soon, so that you can stop harming the country you claim to like.  Read Ordinary Men sometime.  It's the story of a Police Battalion that shot Jews in Poland.  You'll quickly see that the holocaust happened because of people like you.

You are dangerous and idiotic.  I sincerely hope that you die before you can infect any body else with your anti-american communist ideals.

If you readers haven't clicked on the link and read the whole article,  you owe it to yourself to do so.  I did, and found this little nugget.

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How accurate is it?
The Defense Department has paid for three studies of the handheld lie detector, PCASS. Here are brief descriptions. Follow the links to read the full study reports.

Test one
In the first test, Army basic trainees at Fort Jackson, S.C., were put through what's called a mock-crime drill. Some recruits were told to place a fake bomb by a roadside, while others remained inside. After a detonation was heard, each was questioned. 

They were given an incentive to tell the truth: If they were found to be deceptive, they would have to give a 10-minute speech to their unit on the subject of honesty. (That threat was itself a lie.) The examiners were all polygraph instructors, and the interviews were in English.

The test was performed in three rounds: first with a traditional polygraph, then twice with PCASS.

In the first round, with a polygraph, the examiner was correct 79.7 percent of the time, or 55 out of 69. The Pentagon prefers to cite an accuracy rate that sets aside the "yellow" results, or inconclusives; that yields a success rate of 85.9 percent, or 55 out of 64. (The polygraph was uncertain in 5 cases out of 69, or 7.2 percent.)

In the second round, with PCASS, the device was correct in 63.0 percent of the cases, or 46 out of 73. The Pentagon cites an accuracy rate, setting aside the inconclusives, of 86.8 percent, or 46 out of 53. (The PCASS was uncertain in 20 out of 73 cases, or 27 percent.)

In the third round, with PCASS, the device was correct in 62.2 percent of the cases, or 51 out of 82. The Pentagon cites an accuracy rate, setting aside the inconclusives, of 73.9 percent, or 51 out of 69. (The PCASS was uncertain in 13 out of 82 cases, or 16 percent.)

Test two
In the second test, in Columbus, Ohio, civilians who answered a classified ad for a scientific study on deception. Their incentive: Participants were paid a $50 bonus if the machine showed them to be truthful. Battelle Memorial Institute, a defense contractor, was paid $305,000 to perform this test. The instructors were experienced law-enforcement polygraphers, and the participants were all American, English-speaking and college-educated.

Again, this was a mock-crime test, with the fake theft of a ring from a secretary's desk. Both those who did and didn't steal the ring were then questioned. 

The PCASS was correct in 78.9 percent of the cases, or 56 out of 71. Setting aside the inconclusive, the Pentagon cites an accuracy rate of 91.8 percent, or 56 out of 61. (The PCASS was uncertain in 10 out of 71 cases, or 14 percent.)

Test three
In the third test, the algorithm that makes the decisions was tested in the lab by its creators at the Johns Hopkins University Advanced Physics Lab. The university was paid $1.2 million for its work.

The PCASS was still being developed while they wrote the software, so they had no PCASS exam data to work with. They used a set of polygraph exam records, part of the same set of records that were used to develop the device. All of these records had been independently verified, such as using urinalysis to prove whether or not someone was lying about using drugs.

For every 100 deceptive people, the researchers reported, the device would detect 86 (red), with two false negatives (green) and 12 uncertain (yellow). 

For every 100 truthful people, they said, it would detect 50 (green), with eight false positives (red) and 42 uncertain (yellow).

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With experienced polygraphers, administering polygraph tests, the polygraph procedure was only accurate 79.7 percent of the time!  Which, really confirms what the NAS has said all along about polygraph, it is better than chance.

Additionally, this mini-polygraph is accurate a whopping 50% of the time when used on honest being truthful!  George, you should be getting a medal for exposing this fraud, not being called a traitor!

nonombre,

Sometimes, to convince the Emperor that those who sold him his new clothes have deceived him, and that he is, in fact, naked, it becomes necessary to describe his genitalia.

Sargent 1107

Hmmmmm - as you probably know, your questions if answered at all, will be hmmmm. Occasionally Puxa-teeny Phillis will stick his nose out of his federal hole and answer Hummmm. He does that well. He's a hit and runner. His hits are so shallow he cannot find answers to the questions that follow so he runs. Hmmmmm??

Or...

He published that information so that anyone tempted to rely on such an inaccurate device would know just how easy it is for a terrorist to pass.  He published that information so that anyone tempted to use such a device would know what the terrorists ALREADY know.

Do you honestly believe that if this web site didn't exist there would be no information on test procedure or countermeasures available anywhere in the world?  That if not for this web site liars, criminals, and terrorists would have no knowledge of the polygraph or countermeasures?  That's completely ridiculous.

Treason:  The crime of betraying a nation or a sovereign by acts considered dangerous to security.  Encyclopedia Britannica

My. Maschke, today on the world-wide web you deliberately and with malice of forethought published a “primer” detailing a method you believe can be employed to successfully defeat the Defense Department’s Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening Device (PCASS).  You published this information knowing full well (and even proud of the fact) that Al Qaeda and others out to murder American soldiers and innocent civilians access your “public service” website on a regular basis in order to glean whatever information they can on American intelligence sources and methods.

You have in the past defended such actions (specifically in your attacks on polygraph) by making a number of statements including the following:

1.      Truthful applicants for positions in U.S. government and law enforcement have been “wrongfully” branded as liars and therefore did not get jobs they otherwise “deserved.”
2.      Citizens under suspicion of engaging in criminal acts have been subjected to this unfairly intrusive “pseudo-science”   
3.      Poor, misunderstood sex offenders have had their “privacy” violated.
4.      The government is making a “mistake” by putting their trust in polygraph “testing” (quotes are yours, not mine.)

I add that you have said many times on this site, that the purpose of your efforts is to help truthful citizens “ensure” that they pass the polygraph test and that if a few bad people happen upon your site and use your methods to attempt to defeat the polygraph….well, no big deal.

Well allow me to explain what you succeeded in actually doing here today.  You see, if you had read the MSNBC article and associated OFFICAL DoD documents carefully, you would have seen that the PCASS device is ONLY authorized for use on NON-U.S. CITIZENS and is being specifically fielded to a combat zone in a time of WAR to ASSIST in ferreting out terrorists, insurgents, and other murderers of U.S. troops and innocent civilians.  The government, while admitting the device is not perfect, believes (rightly or wrongly) that it is at least better then “gut feeling”, which is ALL our soldiers have now when dealing in these very dangerous matters.

So what did the brave, ex-patriot George Maschke do?  He immediately published on the internet a list on instructions (which he believes) can be used to defeat this technology.

But wait.  I find myself confused.  You see, George Maschke did not provide this information to some young FBI applicant.  You see, the FBI does not test its applicants with PCASS.

This information isn’t being provided to some poor misunderstood sex offender in Cleveland, Ohio.  He too will never be tested with PCASS.

My. Maschke, please explain to me how providing this information assists truthful American citizens “ensure” that they pass the PCASS test?  Americans will never be tested with this device.  Oh, I am sure you could argue that maybe one day they will be, but that is NOT the purpose at this juncture.  Please don’t try to say that you just provided this information to terrorists because maybe one day, an American “might” be tested.  That would be weak, even for you.

So why did you provide this information?  You did not assist a single “innocent victim” by what you have done today.  So in the end, who were you attempting to “help” by compromising the safety of our soldiers in this way?  Oh, I am sure you will say that you were simply exposing the weaknesses of another “pseudo-science”.  Hmmm, you exposed this “pseudo-science by publishing a way to “defeat” it (you believe).  Hmm.  Isn’t that sort of like publishing a way to easily shoot down an American military helicopter, because you don’t agree with the use of military helicopters?
 
What you actually did Mr. Maschke (quite stupidly) was “provide aid and comfort to the enemy during a time of war.”  That, Mr. Maschke is a rock solid definition of “TREASON”.

You see, based on what you did today, you can no longer rationalize the outrageous behavior you have exhibited for YEARS on this website.  You have finally allowed the bitterness of your true colors to bleed through.  The truth is, you don’t care about anything other than your ongoing narcissistic “hissy fit” against the “system” that dared deny you what you continue to believe was your “right” to federal employment.  In doing so you openly, intentionally, and with GREAT MALICE provided information you in fact HOPE will be used to circumvent American Intelligence sources and methods.  My. Maschke, there is no other purpose for this technology.  You KNEW that.

Finally, Mr. Maschke, I leave you with a simple question.  If you had been one of those Iranian government officials you so like to hang out and drink tea with, and let’s say you disagreed with an intelligence method they employed.  So you published a procedure on the internet you were sure could defeat that method, what EXACTLY would your fellow Iranians do to you??????  Hmmm????      

So, in the end Mr. Maschke, you are officially, and undoubtedly a traitor, guilty of high treason against your countrymen and potentially responsible for the deaths of innocent people….

Sleep well tonight…

Spies, saboteurs, and terrorists can easily defeat the U.S. Government's new hand-held lie detector, the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System or PCASS. The polygraph countermeasures explained in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF) will also work against the PCASS. In essence, all one has to do is to covertly augment one's reactions to the "control" (or comparison) questions. This can be achieved by biting the side of one's tongue, thinking exciting thoughts, or doing mental arithmetic. In addition, although we don't suggest it for polygraph examinations that might include a seat pad, constricting one's anal sphincter muscle would be a simple and effective countermeasure against the PCASS, which doesn't include a seat pad.

The control/comparison questions likely to be used on the PCASS are listed in Appendix H of a November 2006 study by the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (which has since been renamed the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment), and are highlighted below:

Quote:


It should be borne in mind that Al-Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents are already aware that the lie detector is a sham and have an idea of how it can be fooled.

U.S. military personnel deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq should place no reliance whatsoever on the results of this bogus test. The fact that an examinee gets a "red" (fails) result doesn't mean that he's lying and should be blacklisted. The fact that he gets a "green" (passes) doesn't mean he should be whitelisted. This kind of screening is completely without scientific basis and the results should not be allowed to influence decision-making in any way.