Once again we are treated to a stern and indignant reply regarding the inherent dishonesty built into polygraph formats.... this has been a consistant theme with the loyal few anti-polygraph folks that linger here.  Lets think about this for a moment: somehow it is justified in the name of self preservation (the abuses one will receive if polygraphed) to give advice to an applicant, that is designed to confuse or obstruct the applicant process. It goes without saying that this good advice could be misused by a criminal.  This does not matter however, because the individual is all important in our current time and we should eliminate the polygraph because it hurt me.  (Or at least the agency made it seem that way, since they did not want you anyway...)
We will not listen to or accept the fact that many thousands of applicants every year, find thier polygraph experience routine and uneventfull.  Like the news programs that focus only on the violent and sensational, this site presents a view that is wholly incorrect and self serving.  I might think the US was on the verge of anarchy if all I paid attention to was Dan Rather, likewise I may think that polygraph was a huge plague on American society if I only visited here. My experience in both areas suggest otherwise.
It always makes me chuckle to have my own sucessful experiences with the polygraph minimized or ridiculed by someone not cut out for LE duty, while such importance and faith is placed in various victims tales that are factually incomplete, or embellished in some cases. Why be threatened by an opposing view? The fact that you feel victimized by a process does not mean your story is typical, or even particularly instructive.
So, in some polygraph formats the pre-test is misleading.  As I understand it, that is to help AN INNOCENT PERSON.
So if countermeasures are justified because the polygrapher is lying to you to get you through a process, how bankrupt is your position that it is ok to lie to the liar, when the lie is given to protect you?
You are innocent after all.....