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Additionally Paul M. Menges, who teaches the DoDPI countermeasure course, has recently suggested that making countermeasure information available to the public is unethical and should be criminalized. Would he be making such arguments if DoDPI had a reliable method of countermeasure detection?

George,

Your assertion that since a DoDPI official feels teaching countermeasures is unethical and should be illegal, countermeasures cannot be detected; is quite flawed.  No doubt, you assume that if countermeasures can be detected, there is no possibility of harm being caused by countermeasures.  Thus examiners should not care if countermeasure techniques are publicized.  

The flaw in this thought process is as follows.  Whether detected, or undetected, countermeasures do harm.  You (incorrectly) assume the only concern an examiner has is not allowing the deceptive person to avoid detection.  In fact, the examiners job is to get to the truth regarding the relevant matter.  Thus, even detected countermeasures interfere with the mission of a sworn law enforcement or intelligence agent.  The examiner who catches an examinee using countermeasures now has to determine if the person is concealing guilt or is an innocent person just trying to "help" himself. This leaves the examiner with nothing more than interrogation to resolve the matter (assuming thorough investigation has been conducted, as well it should, prior to the exam).

An otherwise innocent/non-deceptive person caught utilizing countermeasures has now compromised his or her own integrity and damaged their own professional reputation.  This site advocates the use of countermeasures by innocent persons to ensure they pass (no doubt to disassociate themselves from criminals who might also use the info to avoid justice). However, the provider of countermeasure information with advice to use them, to any otherwise non-deceptive person, is complicit to the damage caused by countermeasures being detected (not just for damage caused by a guilty person using them to evade justice).  

If you take a cheat sheet with you to an exam in college, yet find you knew the answers without using it, does it negate the ethical violation?  Your integrity is still jeopardized; and if you were caught with the cheat sheet, you could never prove you actually passed the exam of your own merits.  Correlate this to polygraph and a fair-minded person will see why complaints, based upon ethics, to countermeasure info dissemination, does not indicate countermeasures cannot be detected.    

Regards,

Public Servant