It appears that John Mangels' investigative series "Plagued by Fear" on the case of Dr. Thomas C. Butler is no longer available on the website of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but a copy remains available via Archive.org:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150311094102/www.cleveland.com/plague/

quickfix wrote yesterday at 9:01pm:

Because you can't handle the truth.  This whole messed up situation is soaked with irony.

This is the type of non-coherent blather that they are using to get away with abusing people with the polygraph.

Notice how he didn't touch my "concerns with the question" memo from yesterday.  After I would divulge this information to the polygraph operators, they would say "okay, now other than that, what else did you do?"  Like, I'm supposed to forget that they told me that I failed the question before, and somehow suppress the fear and anxiety of what will happen if I would react again.

I was scared shitless that I was going to lose my career if I reacted.  It was like they were holding a gun to my head.  This happened 5 times in 3 years.  I have estimated that over those 20+ hours of interrogation, I was probably asked that goddamn question over 2,000 times.  It keeps me awake at night - still.

I've often explained my uncontrollable reaction as like when you are driving at night and flashing lights appear in your rearview mirror. You haven't been drinking, you aren't speeding, and you know that you haven't done anything wrong.  You can't help but get the butterflies.  Hell, I was getting butterflies on the way to the appointments - just knowing that they were going to ask me that question - and have to sit through another interrogation.

George asks some very pointed questions that have gone unanswered for too long.  Now, dickfix doesn't want to debate the issue either - anybody care to guess why?

George W. Maschke wrote yesterday at 7:32pm:


Yes, they are examples, they are real-world examples of the types of information that a person provides after exhibiting significant responses.  Either you are misinformed about what goes on during a DOD polygraph exam, or you refuse to accept that a truthful person can provide this type of plausible information to explain responses.  There are other examples as well.  I won't debate you on this issue, since you are not an examiner and have no first-hand knowledge of what transpires during an actual DOD polygraph exam.

Quickfix,

Thank you for the examples you provided, but they aren't examples of truthful persons who exhibited significant responses to relevant questions. In both of your example, the examinee had actually answered a relevant question untruthfully (and only came clean during post-test interrogation). So again, hypothetically speaking, what sort of explanation could a genuinely truthful person whose polygraph charts nonetheless turn out "significant response" provide that would lay to rest any security concerns?

Regarding Doug Williams' situation, yes, of course his prison sentence was real. But again — and despite having seized Doug's sales, e-mail, and phone records and having questioned many of his thousands of identified customers — the only "crimes" with which Doug was charged, and to which he pled guilty, are those that our government conceived, planned, and play-acted. Perhaps none of that disturbs you, but it doesn't seem like justice to me.

George W. Maschke wrote on Oct 17^th, 2017 at 10:48pm:

I'll give you a couple of real-world examples, not hypotheticals:

1.  EXAMINEE has or had a romantic affair with a foreign national, When he hears the unauthorized foreign contact question, that's what he's thinking, will they find out/will my wife find out...  Instead of discussing the concern, EXAMINEE chooses to withhold the information, hence the polygraph failure.
2.  Quite common to deliberately mishandling classified information, personnel keep "souvenirs of their tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, i.e. photos, videos that are classified but have no markings, and even documents that had the classification markings cut off the top and bottom.  One Air Force Captain told me he had the video to one of his bombing runs over Iraq, kept as a souvenir.  Every time he heard the mishandle question, that what his concern was.  Again, he chose (initially) not to discuss it because he didn't want to have to turn it in.
George W. Maschke wrote on Oct 17^th, 2017 at 10:48pm:


Really, imaginary crime? Were the prison bars and guards at Florence FCI imaginary too?

Here is the second attachment from my last post...

George W. Maschke wrote on Oct 17^th, 2017 at 10:48pm:


Well said George. And you are quite correct in retrospect I should have refused to help the undercover agent. But you were there and you heard how pitiful he sounded and how much he begged me to help him. I'll give him this much – that undercover agent should get an Academy award for his acting ability. 

The attached "reasonable information" was provided in writing to my chain of command and the SSO shortly after my second interrogation.  It was also included in my appeal - which was also ignored.

The truth is, and hard as it is to get this across, there are many reasons for someone to emit a physiological response.  I've said this many, many times before - fear of failing produces a very strong uncontrollable reaction.  On their polygraph machine, it must look very much like a lie.

For what it's worth, the only facet of my DOD OIG complaint that they actually investigated, was whether or not I had committed a security violation with any of the" reasonable information" which I provided (see the second attachment)

Quickfix,

Regarding John M.'s situation, I can't agree with you. John M. actually did, to the best of his ability, attempt to explain why he might have reacted to a relevant question. As I recall, it had to do with sloppy handling of classified information that, with command knowledge and approval, was routine in his workplace.

Speaking hypothetically, could you provide any examples of the sorts of reasons that a truthful person who exhibits significant responses to relevant questions could provide to a polygraph examiner that would mitigate any security concerns?

Regarding Doug Williams' situation, I don't think he let "his own arrogance do him in," as you put it. In a recorded conversation with an undercover federal agent (J.D. Castillo) that was played in the courtroom, Doug repeatedly refused to help the undercover agent, but the agent would not take "no" for an answer and pandered to Doug's religious sympathies. See my reporting on the 2nd day of the trial here:

https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2015/05/14/u-s-v-doug-williams-day-2-doug-william...

Now, if you were to counter that nonetheless, Doug could have still chosen a different (and better) course of action, I would agree, and I think Doug, in retrospect, would too. But the fact remains that the only "crimes" to which Doug pled guilty are imaginary, victimless ones stage-managed by our government.

And again, this shows that our government cares very much about what Doug Williams is saying about polygraphy. Do you disagree?

George W. Maschke wrote on Oct 17^th, 2017 at 8:35pm:

That's the $64,000 question.  The only person who can answer that question is John M., not me, not you, not the Examiner.  John M.  He was given ample opportunity to provide a reason.  He chose not to.  And that's what did him in. 

As far as Doug goes, he let his own arrogance do him in.  Entrapment, no entrapment, doesn't matter.  He committed a felony, and suffered the consequences.