Mark,

You write in part:

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You are quite correct and your logic is flawless.  As one (perhaps one of the few in the country) who has both conducted a polygraph exam and a urinalysis exam, I can tell you that there is absolutely no, and I repeat, no comparison between the two in terms of underlying theory, scientific control, accuracy, and reliability.  The very well understood principles of chemistry and physics that make urinalysis possible also make this form of analysis superior in every regard to control question (CQT)  polygraphy (and particularly so in a screening context).  To even mention the two together in similar contexts is a great disservice to those who perform these routine but valuable examinations that are an integral  part of clinical medicine and forensic toxicology.

Mark,

No one here advocates torture and if you could see my interviews you would see it is very much the opposite.  In the same vein, you can not seriously say that polygraph has a 10 to 1 failure rate.  And in most cases a polygraph alone is hardly the end all in an investigation.

You speak of a handful of victims of false positives and a handful of false negatives.  While each and every case is a big deal and perhaps tragic in its own right, it pales in comparison to the many success stories (both NDI and DI).  I wish I could share with you many of the success stories, but obviously each case is at a minimum held in confidentiality.  If it could be possible, I would love to have you spend a few weeks observing my exams and seeing the results.  I'm sure the cop in you would see the usefulness when you saw this investigative tool applied properly.  That is the key, proper application and oversight by the agency utilizing polygraph.

Here is the bottom line of where I take issue with this site:
If the creators of the site really believe the countermeasure methods they endorse would work regardless of the situation, then they believe it is worth assisting murderers, rapists, terrorists and the like, in pursuit of their goal of ensuring no one has to endure a screening polygraph again.  A long stretch for avenging a lost employment opportunity-- to do so at the risk of allowing these people to  continue to offend.  Also seems immoral to influence a person who is innocent, or withholding non-incriminating (or non-eliminating) information into using countermeasures.  When they are caught it renders further suspicion upon them and compromises their integrity.

Ultimately, if you want to stop the negative effects of the few false positives or inconclusive exams, work ethically and constructively.  Call for reform and new methods, but do not attempt to assist criminals, spies, or terrorists; or compromise the integrity of otherwise innocent persons.

Public Servant,

I'd like to comment on a number of things you wrote above. In your reply to "Ref" you wrote:

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The majority view amongst the relevant scientific community is that "control" question "test" (CQT) polygraphy is not based on scientifically sound psychological principles or theory. And there is virtual unanimity amongst them that the CQT can be beaten by augmenting one's responses to the "control" questions.

That polygraphy has been around for the better part of a century does not speak to its validity: the pseudoscience of phrenology survived well over a century.

And while you say that polygraphy "continues to develop based on sound research," the fact remains that CQT polygraphy is completely lacking in any genuine, standardization and control, which are prerequisites for a scientifically sound diagnostic test. (As Drew mentioned, there is no comparison between a polygraph "test" and a urinalysis test in terms of underlying theory, scientific control, accuracy, and reliability, which is a point he expanded on in his discussion of scientific control and polygraphy at the 17 October 2001 public meeting of the National Academy of Sciences' polygraph review committee.)

You also wrote to "Ref":

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It's more than a few people who are being adversely affected by polygraphy: it's many thousands, every year, especially applicants for law enforcement and national security positions. And I think it could be argued that the entire U.S. population is adversely affected by our government's faith in the pseudoscience of polygraphy when double agents like Czech spy Karel F. Kocher, Soviet spy Aldrich H. Ames, Chinese spy Larry Wu-tai Chin, and Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes easily "pass" while innocent persons like Mark Mallah and CTR1 Daniel M. King become the targets of Kafkaesque espionage investigations simply because they "failed to pass." Our reliance on polygraphy, especially polygraph screening, is undermining, not enhancing, our national security.

Addressing me, you wrote:

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Do you really believe that Polycop's analogy comparing me with "Reverend" Matt Hale of the "World Church of the Creator" is an apt one? After visiting that organization's website and actually listening to Hale's latest "sermon," I find Polycop's analogy even more outrageous.

You also wrote:

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When I asked how you can tell if a subject who passes used countermeasures or not, I didn't mean to ask you to reveal any trade secrets. I know the polygraph community frequently claims to have the ability to detect countermeasures of the kind described in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, but there is no convincing evidence that you have any better-than-chance method for detecting such countermeasures. The fact that the American Polygraph Association quarterly, Polygraph, in its 30-year history, has not published a single article detailing such a methodology, and that no one in the polygraph community has had the courage to step up to Drew Richardson's polygraph countermeasure challenge (174 days and counting) strongly suggests that that community has no reliable method for detecting such countermeasures, and knows that to accept Dr. Richardson's challenge would expose their inability to detect countermeasures.

I'd also note that the answer to your question, "Would anyone in the intelligence community provide an al Qaeda member information on how we collect intelligence?" is, regrettably, "Yes." For example, senior NSA officials showed off NSA's electronic eavesdropping capabilities to high-ranking visitors (who had absolutely no need to know) by playing intercepts of Osama bin Ladin's satellite telephone conversations with his mother in Syria. As a result of NSA's willfull mishandling of highly classified information, news of this capability eventually leaked, and bin Ladin stopped using the satellite phone.

Of course, your point is that intelligence sources and methods should be protected. I would agree with you that there are indeed sources and methods that should legitimately be kept secret. But it's worth bearing in mind that virtually nothing about polygraphy is secret, as I pointed out recently in an appeal of the Defense Security Service's decision not to release portions of DoDPI's polygraph handbook under the Freedom of Information Act.

It is perhaps worth noting here that the Al Qa'idah organization has studied polygraph countermeasures.

You also wrote:

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Not only is there no 100% way to know that an NDI was not the result of countermeasures, there is no better-than-chance way to know this. It's not surprising that no criminals have posted to this message board bragging about having beaten the polygraph. (Why do you put "beaten" in quotation marks, as if the polygraph can't really be beaten?) Such persons would have nothing to gain from such behavior. In the vast majority of cases where a suspect beats a polygraph "test," the polygrapher will never know.

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You had earlier written that "usually NDI results eliminates [sic] the examinee as a suspect." Are you now acknowledging that passing a polygraph "test" cannot reliably eliminate an examinee as a suspect? And with regard to DI (deception indicated) outcomes, what do you think of Len Harrelson's claim that without a confession, polygrams are just polygrams?

I think perhaps you've missed the point regarding how confessions mislead polygraphers regarding their ability to detect deception... It is not surprising that nearly all of your NDI exams have been "supported" by thorough investigation. If there were compelling evidence against a suspect, there would have been little need for a polygraph "test" in the first place. It's hardly surprising that most who pass the polygraph are never proven guilty.

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The "theory of psychological set" in the context of CQT polygraphy, a notion promoted by Cleve Backster, is something that has been discussed at length in the open polygraph literature.

On a final note, I'd be interested in your views on what I think is one of the most important issues you raised. You suggested that a subject's failure to pass means that he is withholding information that he believes is relevant. As I've explained above, I think this notion is an extremely dangerous delusion. Could you (or anyone else) explain the basis for your belief? How do you know that a subject's failure to pass means that he is withholding information that he believes is relevant, and not simply that he is more concerned about the consequences of not being believed with regard to the relevant questions than with regard to the "control" questions?

Drew,

You wrote:

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Drew,  I am afraid that Dale Gieringer, Ph.D., very much disagrees with you.  Now I know that this web-site is "Anti-polygraph.org and not "anti-whizquiz.org.  But I smile at the fact that all the anti urinalysis bozos make ALL the same arguments against drug testing that the people on this website make against polygraph.

Please read the following from Dr. Gieringer article: "A paper for the Drug Policy Foundation Published in "Strategies for Change: New Directions in Drug Policy (1992)" 

URINALYSIS: AN UNPROVEN TECHNOLOGY

"Despite the public support for drug testing, urinalysis is a remarkably unproven technology. Were urinalysis a life-saving new drug, it would have had to undergo years of painstaking premarket testing in order to meet FDA regulations, requiring it to be proven fully "safe and effective" in rigorous, double-blind studies. Yet the fact is that urinalysis has been imposed on millions of American workers involuntarily without so much as a single scientifically controlled study to show that it is a safe or effective means of promoting workplace safety...."

I just LOVE his statement, "urinalysis has been imposed on millions of American workers involuntarily without so much as a single scientifically controlled study to show that it is a safe or effective means of promoting workplace safety."

SOUND FAMILIAR???????

How about "False Positives"?  Yep, it seems that is a problem too:

"...The important question remains whether false positives may be caused by lab error. Early surveys of drug testing labs reported remarkably high error rates. However, industry and government have taken steps to insure against false positives for the sake of public credibility and liability...given the profusion of unregulated labs, higher error rates may well be common. It should be noted that even if false positives occur in as few as one in 100,000 tests, hundreds of Americans per year can expect to be falsely branded as illicit drug users."

Oh my God!  Does that mean that innocent people might be unfairly accused?  Quick, we better call for the complete ban of all Urinalysis tests!!!
  
The good doctor also freely discusses Uninalysis countermeasures.  Please read from the same article:

"A more reliable, if ethically dubious, way to foil urine tests is to furtively tamper with the sample. One popular trick is to adulterate the sample with one of a number of household products that are known to interfere with the common EMIT test so as to produce a false negative for marijuana. (10) Popular adulterants include detergent, salt, bleach and Drano crystals, which can be concealed under the fingernails. However, such substances may be detectable by sight or smell by diligent lab technicians. A more sophisticated, less easily detected adulterant is currently sold on lthe underground market. (11) and has been proven to be quite reliable at producing false negatives for marijuana (the manufacturer was compelled to move operations when the Texas legislature passed a bill outlawing sale of urine adulterants)."

Gee, innocent unfairly accused?  The guilty able to get away by using countermeasures?  You know George Maschke was quite insulted when I compared this site to any one of the hundreds of anti-urinaylsis sites, opting instead to compare himself to some genious who invented a cryptologic algorithm (Now that's a surprise).  Nonetheless, I believe the comparison is still alot closer to the "Ban the piss-tests" sites.  After all, if it walks like a duck.....

Polycop

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I'm sorry, but I just can't find any posts like those to which you're referring above. At the most, various posters intent on a career in law enforcement have asked about various minor transgressions in their past that may or may not disqualify them from becoming officers of the law. The most alarming post I can recall was one fellow who had smoked marijuana as recently as six months prior to his post. Regardless, the 'party line' among the antipolygraph community when responding to those types of queries seems to be:

1. Be honest in your application about prior bad acts, or prior acts of malfeasance that would concern your employer.
2. Don't believe your polygrapher when he says honesty is enough to pass a polygraph.
2a. Because the results of a polygraph interrogation are wholey unreliable, use countermeasures to ensure an NDI result.
 
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That is an outrageous, outlandish, and inflammatory lie polycop. Nowhere on this website do posters trade 'helpful hints' or strategy about how to exploit anyone. I invite you to use your customary tactic of torturing language, twisting meanings, and making blind inferences to prove otherwise-- Fiction seems to be an area in which you shine, so by all means step up to the plate and try to prove your above lies.

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To borrow a phrase from your fellow propolygrapher, Eastwood, "you suck" polycop. It was only a matter of time before your camp paraded out the Nazi hate playing card. Comparing the goals of the abolishment of polygraphy as a screening tool (and in many cases in its use as a criminal investigation tool) to those of a white supremacist is just vile.

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In adition to being hateful, prejudiced and inflammatory offal, this appears to me to be a admission tantamount that the types of countermeasures described in The Lie Behind The Lie Detector are undetectable, unbeatable, and powerful. Since you have argued repeatedly that is is easy to detect countermeasures, I must ask, are you lying now, or were you lying then? If countermeasures are so easily detected, as you have repeatedly boasted you have caught the 'swaggering misinformed' in the course of your work, whaddaya care what we espouse or advise?

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Again, you appear quite hypocritical in your wild accusations. 
If countermeasures are so easily detected, as you have said before, I ask you again, whaddaya care? If anything, I would think you would want guilty suspects to visit this site, attempt to use these atrociously transparent countermeasures, be caught by you and your ever-so-bright peers, and thus be even more intimidated into confessing their crimes.

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All of the activities noted above, if engaged in, are already illegal, polycop. Do you blame match manufacturers for arson, or the arsonist? Do you blame lock and hinge manufacturers or the home invader who breaks the door down? Do you blame bullet makers or the criminal who shoots them into the bodies of others? Do you blame the makers of fertilizer or the bomber who uses it as an explosive agent? For that matter, do you hold The Department of Defense responsible for making public The Department of Defense Polygraph Institute Interview and Interrogation Handbook, thus enabling and empowering citizens to understand and avoid the linguistic traps interrogators use as part-and-parcel of their trade? Is the Department of Defense guilty-- civilly and criminally liable-- because criminals might read the manual and avoid detection during an interrogation?

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Laughable. For one who is so quick to challenge another's knowledge of the law, your dearth in knowledge of same is ludicrous.

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I found it to be bland left-overs, reheated so often as to be completely unpalatable.

Polycop,

You wrote in part:

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It was not my purpose to compare my intelligence with Phil Zimmermann's. (Note that Zimmermann, while highly gifted in his own right, did not invent the cryptographic algorithms used in PGP: he merely implemented them in a software application.) But our action in making information about polygraph countermeasures publicly available is comparable to Mr. Zimmermann's action in making strong encryption publicly available in some relevant respects:

1) Both actions serve a legitimate civic purpose: information on polygraph countermeasures enables law-abiding persons to protect themselves against the very real danger of a false positive polygraph outcome; strong encryption enables law-abiding persons to protect the privacy of their communications;

2) Both actions were done without any profit motive: both the information on AntiPolygraph.org and Zimmermann's PGP software are free;

3) In both cases, the information (or software) provided could also be exploited by criminals.

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Ah yes, the mythical legions of swaggering misinformed who stroll into your 'polygraph lab' with a copy of The Lie Behind The Lie Detector under their collective arm.

When asked to produce any example of your ability to detect countermeasures, you have repeatedly ignored the requests or declined to do so-- instead you insist you absolutely, positively can detect countermeasures, you have done so many times, and anyone who attempts them has a good chance of being 'caught' by you. When your bluff is called again, you beg off and say words to the effect that you can't describe how you do it, but if we were there in real time you could 'show' us-- I guess the entirety of the English language isn't up to the job that simple finger-pointing at the poly chart and-- what, grunts and clicks?-- can do. Fine, for the second time I suggest backing up your assertions by getting out your Big Red Pen, scanning charted examples of countermeasures and sending them to George, whom I am almost certain will be happy to post them. Get a hotmail account, access it through an anonymizing proxy, and send the proof. NOTE: Telling me you really, truly, abso-positively-lutely can detect countermeasures will not suffice as a response, polycop. Neither will shrill accusations of felonious behavior on my part nor the outrageous attempts to link this website to pedophilia.

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In what fields of science have you been deemed a Forensic Expert by the courts?

Dave

P.S. Please stop the strawman argument re: scientific validity of urinalysis. We're here to debate the scientific validity of the polygraph , not the ability of medical doctors and technicians to detect the components of urine samples.

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Drew,

I have no problem agreeing that urinaylsis testing is more accurate than CQT polygraph.  I really believe that it is.  From my experience, I would say that CQT polygraph testing is 85 to 95 percent accurate, and I suspect that urine testing falls in the 97% plus range.  Funny though, I know for a fact that in many agencies, they use polygraph to confirm urinaylsis results, when those results have been challenged for some reason....  I have done many, many urinaylsis polygraph exams and I have found that 98% of those tests result in a deceptive finding and the VAST majority of those folks confess.

Gee, I hope the polygraph & the urinalysis were not BOTH wrong....

Polycop