The_Breeze wrote on Dec 26^th, 2002 at 6:16pm:

Stein is the only one who had the balls to specifically address the point, while incidently reinforcing one of mine-even though Im sure he did not mean to.

Actually Breeze, I did mean to reinforce your point.  I don't believe in Countermeasures, as I have said many times on this site.  

I also don't belive in the polygraph as an effective screening tool.

I do believe in using the polygraph for specific incident testing, because there is focus for the polygrapher.  The test results shoulds only be used for narrowing a suspect pool as to whom the investigators should begin work with.  But the polygraph should never exonerate anyone from the suspect pool.

Moreover, the polygraph can be an effective intimidation tool.  Again, test results are worthless, but information garnered by investigators viewing the polygraph proceedings can sometimes be effective.

That is what is known as specific incident testing.

In screening, whether it is employee or pre-employment screening, there is no incident.  The polygraph is used in an extremely broad range of questioning.  Polygraphers decide truth v. deception based on pre-determined assumptions to answers of  inherently "unanswerable" questions.  This type of testing is seriously flawed (opinions I share with the NAS).

Because of the flaws in the system, countermeasures have evolved (mostly for employee and applican use) to correct the inaccuracy of the polygraph.  Too many honest individuals have received "false positive" results, forcing a employees and applicants to counter the possibility of the "false positive."  THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN!!!  The system is completely flawed.  The polygraph must go.

What truly baffles me is the LE professional who defends the polygraph.  No LE pro would ever denounce the investigator on the street as the best tool for conducting investigations.  Their error rate is minimal, and their sucess rate is high.  Why then is the investigator replaced by a machine?  Money.  Agencies are too cheap to put extra people on the street to investigate.  The polygraph, with its high error rate, has replaced the investigator.  

I think I'd be pretty damn mad if I were an LE pro who was replaced by an inaccurate machine.

Chris