Examiner,

You wrote:


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I really expected better from you than this.  I do not "simply" decide to pass or fail people who take polygraph examinations.  I know that is what you want people to believe, but in my agency at least, it doesn't work that way.

I assume you're referring to my explanation of how a completely invalid procedure can be right more than half the time (seemingly better than a coin flip):


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I think wannabe and others refer to "coin flip" accuracy as meaning "no better than chance." While polygraphy has not been shown to work better than chance, the "coin flip" metaphor may be misleading to the extent that it suggests that polygraphers are wrong half the time. This need not be the case. For example, when you polygraph a servicemember who has tested positive on a urinalysis test, you have strong presumptive evidence that the person knowingly used an illegal drug. If you simply decided to "fail" all such persons when they come to you for a polygraph "test," you'll likely be right much more than half the time, even though such a methodology is completely invalid from a scientific standpoint. Similarly, in the case of counterintelligence-scope polygraph screening, if you simply decide to "pass" everyone, you'll be right almost all the time, because almost no one is a spy or saboteur. And yet again, this technique is completely invalid.

I did not mean to suggest that you personally score your polygraph charts on the basis of the simplistic methodology I described above. Perhaps it would have been better had I substituted "one" for "you," but I think if you re-read my post, it's unmistakably clear that I was describing a hypothetical situation.

(It is noteworthy, however, that according to the data provided in the DoD Polygraph Program Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2001, all DoD counterintelligence-scope polygraph exams in that fiscal year seem to have been scored on the basis of passing everyone who did not make "substantive" admissions. For more on this, see my Open Letter to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld on Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in the DoD Counterintelligence-Scope Polygraph Program.)

You also wrote:


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I appreciate your clarification of the information in your download, obviously I did have the options in the wrong order.  I was happy to note that your advice to criminals is do not take a polygraph and it ends there.  I would agree that countermeasures will not mitigate their result.

Note that it was not our advice to criminals in particular that they should not submit to a polygraph interrogation. Rather, that is our advice to anyone -- innocent or guilty -- who is suspected of a crime. And you are mistaken if you suppose that we agree that countermeasures cannot help criminals to beat the polygraph. "Control" Question "Test" polygraphy is easily defeated through the use of simple countermeasures that polygraphers cannot detect.