wrote on May 3^rd, 2004 at 1:54am:

Well no BS here my friend, it must be your breath... Riddle me this smart guy, I now have a better understanding of the questions asked on the poly and it still seems highly illogical that I would use counter measures on questions such as my name etc and not on the relavent ones... But hey what do I know?.. Thanks again for your insightfull post it has been helpful. I guess the saying is true opinions are like assholes, every one has one, and you appear to have a large one than most. --ts

This Sucks,

Screening tests are looked on as suspect by many polygraphers that otherwise value them for specific incident tests and as interrogation tools. Confounding the uncertainty associated with screening polys is the widespread info, not always understood, about how polys work.

Non deceptive individuals will still vary considerably in their response to various questions but now we have the additional criteria of CM detection. This will convert some additional exam results from NDI to CM's suspected. This may happen even when the examinee is in fact non deceptive. It will likely also convert some true DI's to NDI's.

Absent open discussion about how polygraphers examine the informed, one can reasonably speculate the principal CM detection mechanisms target people that deploy them erroneously, such as on irrelevent questions or the "long and strong" suggestions offered here recently. Unfortunately, some of these will falsely identify CM's simply due to individual variation. You may well be one of these.

Marginal science produces marginal results. The theory is that false positives are unfortunate but unavoidable. However, the loss of highly qualified individuals that simply avoid careers in LE is a likely consequence that is not a part of the agency's equation.

-Marty