Hot Topic (More than 15 Replies) Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten (Read 15109 times)
Paste Member Name in Quick Reply Box George W. Maschke
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Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Oct 5th, 2007 at 11:46am
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As noted on the blog, it appears that retired FBI polygrapher Ron Homer of Walnut Creek, California, currently listed as a member of the California Association of Polygraph Examiners' board of directors, was beaten by disgraced Olympic track star Marion Jones, who is expected to plead guilty today to having lied to federal agents regarding her use of performance-enhancing substances. Homer found Jones non-deceptive in a polygraph examination administered on 16 June 2004 in which he asked if she had ever used performance enhancing drugs.
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #1 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 4:27pm
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George,

This report presents a very unique paradox. Lets examine this:

Polygraph test given with NDI results.
No indication of countermeasures (any type)
Normal charts produced.
Polygrapher is of sufficient vintage to have countermeasure detection training.

Examinee lying through her teeth. Beats the polygraph. 

Must be a fluke, a deviation from the norm. Its the only thing that can explain this.

Perhaps our resident polygraphers would like to crack this nut ?


Regards .....
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #2 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 4:53pm
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EosJupiter wrote on Oct 5th, 2007 at 4:27pm:
George,

This report presents a very unique paradox. Lets examine this:

Polygraph test given with NDI results.
No indication of countermeasures (any type)
Normal charts produced.
Polygrapher is of sufficient vintage to have countermeasure detection training.

Examinee lying through her teeth. Beats the polygraph. 

Must be a fluke, a deviation from the norm. Its the only thing that can explain this.

Perhaps our resident polygraphers would like to crack this nut ?


Regards .....


I think you hit the nail on the head.
 
It was a fluke.
 
Be careful though ---- not having seen the charts, we really don't know about the normal-ness of them
 
---------
 
It might be interesting to see the questions, as this could be the difference between "drugs" and "substances" - a fine line for sure. Nevertheless, it would be most interesting to understand more about what happened, as it does seem like a rare occurrence.
 
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #3 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:13pm
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Ludovico wrote on Oct 5th, 2007 at 4:53pm:
I think you hit the nail on the head.
 
It was a fluke.
 
Be careful though ---- not having seen the charts, we really don't know about the normal-ness of them
 
---------
 
It might be interesting to see the questions, as this could be the difference between "drugs" and "substances" - a fine line for sure. Nevertheless, it would be most interesting to understand more about what happened, as it does seem like a rare occurrence.
 


Ludovico, 

I can live with a fluke, in this case justice was served. Guilt was established, punishment meted out. 

But lets just extrapolate this out a bit. So one fluke or maybe he was missioned, if this happened during the hiring of a person for a sensitive or trusted position. That person would have avoided detection, if beating the machine was the intent, and would be running wild within any one of the US agencies. We must assume that for this penetration, this persons motive is not benevolent. All it takes is one fluke and you have another Pollard, Hansson, or Ames. So explain to me why this fluke can't happen again, with much more sever consequences ? 

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #4 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:14pm
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It won't happen again.

We'll all be especially watchful now.
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #5 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:25pm
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Ludovico wrote on Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:14pm:
It won't happen again.

We'll all be especially watchful now.


Ludovico,

I can see you are earnest in that belief. But It presents the question, do you know what you are watching for ?
If so, within the realm of not devulging trade secrets. Add to this discussion, with more than one line answers.
We need to know, the investigative process is just that .... to answer questions, explore, explain. Perhaps one of your other colleagues would like to answer ?

Best Regards .... 
  

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Paste Member Name in Quick Reply Box George W. Maschke
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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #6 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:26pm
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Ludovico wrote on Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:14pm:
It won't happen again.

We'll all be especially watchful now.


It will happen again. An invalid test such as CQT polygraphy will inevitably yield erroneous results. All the more so when the test is easily countermeasured.
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #7 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:44pm
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Please site peer reviewed scientific proof that your countermeasures can successfully thwart a true positive. Pretty Please?  Roll Eyes
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #8 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:49pm
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See the studies by Honts and others cited with abstracts in the bibliography of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. With no more than 30 minutes of training, some half of programmed deceptive subjects passed the polygraph.
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #9 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 6:05pm
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I am sorry, I thought I asked for peer reviewed studies and I don't believe such has been provided.
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #10 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 6:14pm
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The studies by Honts and others to which I referred were indeed published in a peer-reviewed journal (the Journal of Applied Psychology). Perhaps you should have checked before making a sarcastic post?
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #11 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 6:29pm
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Right Right----the old Honts study---the alarm study which launched 1000 frantic counter-countermeasures. Are you printing that old documant on T-shirts? Jesus H. Did they use sensor pads in that study? Did they train the examiners on how to spot the countermeasures? C'mon George.
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #12 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 6:37pm
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Paradiddle,

You dismiss these peer-reviewed studies out of hand, and yet it's evident from your questions that you haven't read them...

The polygraph examiners knew in advance what countermeasures would be used but still could not detect them. Although no sensor pads or strain gauges were employed, only one of the countermeasures tested -- pressing one's toes to the floor -- might have been detected by a sensor pad. The other two techniques tested and demonstrated to be effective are among those recommended in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector: tongue-biting and mental (or cognitive) countermeasures.
  

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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #13 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 6:39pm
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Paradiddle wrote on Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:44pm:
Please site peer reviewed scientific proof that your countermeasures can successfully thwart a true positive. Pretty Please?  Roll Eyes


Paradiddle,

You should keep in mind that the onus for proof is on the proponents of a theory, not the critics. Perhaps you should be citing the peer reviewed scientiffic research that demonstrates that what happened was just a fluke. 

Speaking to nobody in particular,

     Now this is something I've been wondering about for awhile. It's been argued that people with certain medical conditions are likely to fail simply as a result of their weak heart or what have you. Could the same be true for the opposite case; people of exceptional health.

    This is one of those things that could very well be an urban myth for all I know, but I heard that while the avg person might have a heart rate of 72 bpm at rest, an healthy could be as low 60 bpm at rest. Is it possible that all finely tuned athletes could have that secret ability to pass polygraphs simply by way of superb health? I know that's really off topic since she was "user." I just thought it'd be fun to talk about.
  
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Re: Ex-FBI Polygrapher Ron Homer Beaten
Reply #14 - Oct 5th, 2007 at 7:49pm
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Brettski wrote on Oct 5th, 2007 at 6:39pm:
Paradiddle wrote on Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:44pm:
Please site peer reviewed scientific proof that your countermeasures can successfully thwart a true positive. Pretty Please?  Roll Eyes


Paradiddle,

You should keep in mind that the onus for proof is on the proponents of a theory, not the critics. Perhaps you should be citing the peer reviewed scientiffic research that demonstrates that what happened was just a fluke. 



Keep in mind that we have two theories here:

1) that countermeasures can defeat the test in a modern testing context (I think we all know that old studies don't cut it - the situation is changed now that George has initiated his campaign to educate and encourage every terrorist, psychopath, and sex offender to use countermeasures),

and 

2) that countermeasures can be easily detected.

Even your own digithead's favorite source of information - the NRC report - concurs that there is evidence that countermeasures don't help, and that claims that they do require supporting evidence.

I think they had this to say about mental countermeasures:

Quote:
It is widely believed that physical and mental countermeasures are ineffective for reducing physiological responses to relevant questions in polygraph examinations, but investigations of this strategy have not been reported. (page 141)


and this 

Quote:
The empirical research on countermeasures has not provided enough information to determine whether specific countermeasures have the specific physiological effects that would lead a polygraph examiner to judge an examinee as nondeceptive. Consequently, it is difficult to determine why specific countermeasure strategies might or might not work. We
would not expect specific countermeasures (e.g., biting one’s tongue) to have uniform effects on all of the chart readings obtained during a polygraph test, and studies that focus exclusively on the effects of countermeasures on accuracy do not allow one to determine why specific approaches might work or fail to work in different contexts.


You've all read this stuff.

Quote:
Polygraph examiners commonly claim to be able to detect the use of countermeasures, both through their observations of the examinee’s behavior and through an assessment of the recorded polygraph chart. Some countermeasures, such as the use of psychoactive drugs (e.g., diazepam, commonly known as Valium), have broad behavioral consequences and should be relatively easy to detect (Iacono, Boisvenu, and Fleming, 1984). Whether polygraph examiners can detect more subtle countermeasures
or, more importantly, can be trained to detect them, remains an open question.


They don't sound convinced one way or the other.

Oh well.

but this is noteworthy

Quote:
Because it is possible that countermeasures can increase “failure” rates among nondeceptive examinees and because a judgment that an examineeis using countermeasures can have the same practical effect as the judgment that the test indicates deception, their use by innocent individuals may be misguided.


"failure" meaning, of course "not passing"

and finally,

Quote:
...claims that it is easy to train examinees to “beat” both the
polygraph and trained examiners require scientific supporting evidence
to be credible. However, we are not aware of any such research.


-------

So, with that....

"Have fun storming the castle!"

l

« Last Edit: Oct 5th, 2007 at 10:48pm by Ludovico »  

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