icedancer,

Regarding your questions, see The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, especially chapters 3 & 4. Also with regard to DoD's counterintelligence-scope polygraph program, see the message thread How to Pass the DoD CI-Scope Polygraph and my article, "The Lying Game: National Security and the Test for Espionage and Sabotage."

LieChazer,

I agree with you that those seeking security clearances should  be forthright with their polygraph examiners. Ideally, they should also admit to having visited AntiPolygraph.org and to knowing "the lie behind the lie detector." Regrettably, however, it seems that the polygraph community has decided to arbitrarily accuse any who admit to such knowledge of deception and/or countermeasures. Apparently, this community cannot abide those honest enough to admit knowing the truth about their fraudulent profession.

You make a false analogy with your comparison of tongue-biting as a countermeasure to touching one's tongue to a frozen flagpole. You are suggesting that those making information on countermeasures available are secretly trying to trick and cause harm to those to whom the information is provided. This is utter nonsense. The effectiveness of tongue-biting as a countermeasure, and the inability of even experienced polygraphers to detect it, is supported by peer-reviewed research cited in Chapter 4 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

A better analogy to the bunch of kids who convince a gullible child to touch his tongue to the frozen flagpole is the polygraph community: a community that lies to and otherwise deceives those "tested" from beginning to end of the polygraph process.

LieChazer,

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The fact that polygraphers are subjected to polygraph examinations is a meaningless exercise that testifies to nothing and is merely a reflection of the polygraph community's need to maintain the illusion that polygraphy has some validity.

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Again, the peer-reviewed research on countermeasures suggests that even experienced polygraphers cannot detect countermeasures of the kind described in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (to include tongue-biting) at better-than-chance levels.

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I do not maintain that all examiners would accuse anyone with knowledge of polygraphy of deception and/or countermeasures. But that seems to be the most common result based on accounts received by AntiPolygraph.org. Again, polygraph examinations administered by polygraphers to other polygraphers are evidence of nothing in this regard.

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There is something fundamentally wrong with making decisions about the honesty and integrity of applicants and employees based on the pseudoscientific fraud that is polygraphy. The National Academy of Sciences last year completed a review of polygraph screening and found it to be completely invalid. So long as our government continues its foolish reliance on this pseudoscience, it would behoove anyone submitting to a polygraph interrogation to learn, practice, and employ countermeasures to protect him- or herself against the random error associated with this invalid "test."

A question for you LieChazer, that has always nagged in the back of my mind. In regard to your statement; "I would also explain that I, like most other examiners, have taken polygraph exams routinely and are testiment that you don't have to cheat to pass.", what exactly is the topic of these tests you give each other?

LieChazer,

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You are dead wrong. I answered all questions truthfully during my FBI pre-employment polygraph examination and was nonetheless falsely accused of deception with regard to all relevant questions. Mark Mallah was also truthful in his FBI polygraph examination, and the Bureau specifically cleared him.

wondering wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2003 at 8:49pm:


Conversely, a professional liar reported that George was being untruthful? Hmmmmmmm.........