If you want a job that requires that you take a polygraph test, then you are essentially asking for a position which will require that you initially be dominated like a child (IMO).  Asking if it is "smart" to use cm's is a very good question. In my opinion, the answer is "no." I am an Examiner with years of experience and I have administered countermeasures on my own instrument as well as cohort's instruments. The response magnitude that you will be attempting to obtain on control questions will not overpower the relevant questions, if you are withholding guilty knowledge. Mental math will suppress relevant question magnitudes latently, but not to the degree that you will likely need. Given those points and to make your situation worse, your countermeasures will appear highly artificial---like a poorly executed fake laugh at a party. Although the posters on this site and the prescribed countermeasures make a degree of theoretical sense, the reality is that to use countermeasures is a risk that posters on this site won't be undergoing with you in that dreadful room. Any one here that brags about their success here is probably no different than the morbidly obese man on a dating site proclaiming his physical prowess and muscle definition to unsuspecting single women.

Programmed examinees. hmmm. If you were ever to experiment with polygraph instruments on programmed examinees, you would find very little arousels on either the control or relevant questions. Any person can augment control questions (although conspicuously via the seat cushion component as well as the "form" of arousels) when there is no threat of being caught lying on the relevent question. Telling a student to pretend to steal a 5 dollar bill (knowing of course that they aren't going to keep the money) and then lying about the issue --compared wih lying about actual criminal activity is nothing more than comparing playing guitar with The Who, and playing air guitar in your mother's basement. I have very little regard for anything other than  field studies with regards to polygraph. It's too bad that your intelligence, your tenaciousness, and your resourcefullness regarding this site isn't fighting a cause such as global warming or AIDS in Africa. The world could use a man with such boundless energy for his chosen pet project/activism. 
I do however find the people on this site who proclaim false positives and subsequent career loss/altercation to be compelling. Although it is in my experience that such martydom has more facets than the classic purity of innocence. Being screwed over by authority and subsequently lied to is  as old as prostitution. 

There is a part of me that believes that when the FMRI (Forensic Magnetic Resonance Imaging) replaces the polygraph, there will be a cadre of folks that both believe the 99.4% (I've heard this, not studied it) accuracy rate is unacceptable as a hiring augmenter-------and further more will label the act of moving around, and taking doses of iron pills will "beat the tube." Any person can goof around during any test and skew the results. This is not the same as defeating the test. It's called purposeful non-compliance.

If another senior user bad mouths my grammer on a chat board (which is like critizing a beach goer for wearing casual attire ) than I will not post again. On web boards, the preffered communication is webslang, and webonics. Thanks y'all.

palerider wrote on Feb 21^st, 2007 at 9:34pm:


palerider,

Any and all things that make a sex offenders life tough is OK in my book, to include putting them back behind bars. No 2nd chances for these dirtbags.

That being said, My beef remains with the polygraph being used in the employment  arena. You touch upon drug testing, its quite the stretch to link drug testing (chemistry + pharmacology), known sciences, to polygraph testing, (A pseudo-science). I can with all certainty redo any drug test with known evaluation factors and produce the same result, time and again. How does your polygraph stand up to true double blind empirical testing, it doesn't.  This is because human opinion and judgement drive the results, not proven scientific rigor. Hence why Dr. Richardsons challenge will never be answered by any polygrapher, you can not prove your statements with any known scientific procedure. And as a side note, you should review the (2) 60 Minutes Exposes on this website. The original is still the best, as this story more than proves what a load polygraph testing really is. This expose really is a double blind empirical test.   

And as for me, your interrogation prop may work on the naive and unread, but it can't scare or intimidate those that are truly well prepared and practiced. The end result is always inconclusive, and that is without countermeasures. You can't make an evaluation of PNC if you can't prove it. I win on all accounts. 

You mention in another thread the fMRI, their are scientists, I know,  already looking at ways to warp or counter this piece of garbage. You ask why would they do this, because like me, its the challenge with messing around with authority or so called authorities. I dislike anything that portrays itself as a validation of someones veracity or background.  As do quite a few of my counterparts.  Real background investigations, (thorough ones), should be the basis of any hiring decisions. But this is expensive, and the polygraph is cheap. And in this society, cheaper costs always win, over doing what is right.  Keep your work in the criminal realm and you will not get any grief from me. But do know that Its not the box you beat, its the polygrapher. And you never know who you have in the chair.

Regards ....

Digithead,

All very good points, and yes your correct in the assessment that all polygraphy should be scrapped. Again its just my opinion that I don't have a problem with the use of a polygraph on sex offenders (I have stated this numerous times, and been taken to task for it too).  A vile tool should be used on vile offenders. Let the punishment fit the crime. I just make a distinction on what I perceive to be issues that really don't effect me. I purposely with few exceptions, never post on that group of threads. It does greatly disturb me that countermeasure information is available to these people, as well as other unsavory entities. But in all fairness, knowlege should be open to all. And that is what I truly believe.
And again my beef is with using this vile device on honest hard working people, who just want to work. I believe this comparison is quite clear cut.

Regards ....

I respect your opinions--but digi is so wrong, It makes me want to abandon the site. To my knowledge, all offenders are on high watch---and a passed poly means status quo---gps,frequent drug/alc tests and reporting. A failed poly means code red. Do you read me Digi? Please in the name of Christ stop stating rubbish about community officials giving passed poly offenders the key to the nursery. Even the best accuracy rates for multi-issue test isn't good enough to trust predators around our dear kids. OK. So the polygraph doesn't work as well as we want---and some Examiners want all to believe in absolute infallacy

As far as applicant screening goes, I'm less a fan of fed hiring criteria than  the tests themselves. OK, so if you smoke marijuana more than 15 times than it's no longer experimentation? I think by the 3rd time I smoked weed I was beyond experimentation. The fed hiring rules have many such arbitrary designations. I look forward to the day of better dna-level drug tests so that the miserable and polarizing issue of substance will be removed from the applicant polygraph (or FMRI) room. Haven't you all noticed the disproportionate outcry of alleged drug question false positives? Either the drug issue is the most deceptive -laden category of potential hirees (meaning all of you f.p. victims/activists are lying), or there is somthing else afoot. There will always be outcry of other issues being the point of the alleged FP's, but the drug issue is vastly disproportionate. If the polygraph is such a "flip of the coin" and such "entrails reading", than why is this disproportion so prevalent? Shouldn't such voodoo be a little less discriminate?

palerider wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2007 at 3:55am:


In what way am I wrong? 

You don't think that there are any false negatives where the polygraph failed to detect serious violations? If so, you're a fool. Joseph Duncan is a prime example who just plead guilty to murdering the Groene family to kidnap and rape their daughter. He was on polygraph containment in the mid-90s for another crime and now he's the prime suspect in several murders in the Seattle area that the poly failed to pick up during that time. Had the poly picked up on these serious offenses like its proponents say that it can, Duncan would not have gone on to murder 6 more people and rape several children...

And don't think for a moment that I want to be soft on sex offenders, I feel that the only "containment" method that works is lifetime civil commitment to keep them away from society. The polygraph is an illusion that it can keep these predators on the straight and narrow and as such is threat to society itself because it gives users a false sense of security...

palerider wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2007 at 4:36pm:


Since I'm assuming you meant narcissistic I'll ask how does my opinion have an inflated idea of its own importance? It appears that your vocabulary and word usage are about as good as your grammar and spelling...

As for your acknowledgement that the polygraph is not 100% accurate, admitting your problems is the first step towards recovery. Next thing you might realize that CQT polygraph is worthless as a diagnostic test and a clear threat to society...

As for attending polygraph school, since the National Academy of Science and the majority of psychologists conclude that it is pseudoscience, I'll pass on your invitation...

I will, however, continue to work to the best of my abilities for the abandonment of this peculiar pseudoscientific flapdoodle in all law enforcement arenas...