LieBabyCryBaby wrote on Apr 27^th, 2009 at 6:35pm:


I have big issues with this statement.  About 5 years ago, I failed a polygraph when I was applying for an internship at a state crime laboratory due to a false positive.  I was naturally devastated at the time because the laboratory I had applied to had previously had a long history of problems due to a particularly well known scientist.  Later, I applied to a much better agency and passed their polygraph and am now working for them as a fingerprint examiner.

Anyone with a real forensic background knows that you cannot be an objective scientist and an investigator at the same time - it's too easy to manipulate your results.  I think your statement reveals your true intent - it is to have some control over another person's future.  I think the real objective truth is unimportant to you. 

As a forensic scientist, I am going to tell you flat out - you and I are not in the same league and we are not performing our work by the same ethical standard that the public deserves.  By your statement, it is clear we are not on the same side of the public's interests and that you have your own agenda.  When I identify someone, I make no assumptions about that person's guilt or innocence.  Can you say that you do the same?

I've seen a some defense of polygraphing based upon the 2003 NAS report.  In case you are not aware, in 2008, the NAS met again to review all forensic sciences, including fingerprints and death investigation.  The results of those proceedings WILL eventually have an impact on laws and law enforcement practices.  There is a big push for all expert disciplines with some scientific application to move toward a statistical basis for their conclusions.  Are you prepared for that since your discipline is not admissible in most courts?  Are you prepared to meet the guidelines prescribed by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD) and have your discipline become accredited?  Are you prepared to participate in the mandating that all practitioners of your discipline (outside your agency) undergo the same training, validation, proficiency testing, and court/admissibility to the highest level of your discipline?

And just to let you know, in case you are claiming to be more psychology based that an applied science, as an expert in anything you can be called to defend the merits of your discipline in court (which polygraphy hasn't faired so well in the past).  In one of my cases, the officer is being called to testify in a Daubert hearing just so that he can be admitted as an expert in gang activity.

When I examine a latent print, I have to take into account all the distortions and potentially minimal area there by itself before I even assess whether it is an identification.  DNA examiners have to deal with mixed profiles.  Other disciplines have to shift through their data to find the appropriate conclusions for their examinations.  I find your view on countermeasures rather arrogant and unscientific.  Because you assume someone may not make it easier for you to do your exam through countermeasures that's an automatic determination of deception?  Grow up!  If you want to be an expert, the weight of analyzing an examination is on you - not the subject.

examiner wrote on May 1^st, 2009 at 2:13am:


"Examiner," by stating that I have caught examinees attempting countermeasures, which effectively ended their career goals with my employer, I don't claim or imply that I am the deciding factor in the employment process. I simply report the data. Believe it or not, there are well-known criteria for countermeasures, and they often stand out so well that even a beginning student of polygraphy can easily see them. As the NAS report I quoted pointed out, there is no evidence and no supportable studies to show that, despite George Maschke's claims to the contrary, a person can quickly, easily and effectively learn to "beat" a polygraph exam through the use of countermeasures. My personal experience has confirmed that this is correct.

You say that I have an agenda--that I want to have some control over people's lives. Nothing could be further from the truth, and for you to assume that about me is either naive or intentionally provocative. When I conduct a polygraph exam, as I explained previously, I must go into the exam with an impartial frame of mind. I really have to not care one way or the other whether the examinee passes or fails the exam. However, I must confess my weakness in this area, because it is actually my hope before every polygraph exam that the examinee will pass the exam. I don't want to have to confront someone in his or her lies. I don't want to have the polygraph be one of the judgment criteria that my employer will use to disqualify a job applicant and take away his or her opportunity. Besides, it makes my job much easier and my day much brighter when someone passes the exam. I am not like a snake in the brush just waiting to strike, but rather like a porcupine that has the potential to "quill" someone. If an examinee chooses to use countermeasures, it's his or her choice. But again I say, it's just not worth the risk.

Furthermore, "Examiner," I didn't conduct your polygraph exam in which you claim to have been a "false positive." I haven't seen the data. I'd love to see your polygraph charts and question list, though. When someone fails a polygraph exam, there is almost always a very good reason why, but in your case perhaps you were indeed the victim of an imperfect process. I am happy to hear that you now have a good job with another agency, and you have my best wishes for a long and successful career in law enforcement.

As for Mr. Cullen, didn't you pay attention to my last post? If so, you wouldn't have wasted your time with any more off-the-subject tired rhetoric about polygraph validity. Remember, you admitted that you have no experience--which is absolutely correct--yet here you are again making claims you really know nothing about.

Mr. Cullen, if you or other readers wish to read my opinion regarding the nonsense you just posted, look for my posts in Drew Richardson's silly "Countermeasures Challenge" thread.

As for the reast of what you stated regarding "the machine," you really have no business commenting on a subject you know very little about other than what you've read on this forum and questionable lab studies.   And really, must I point out once again that you STILL have absolutely no experience? You've sat in a polygraph chair, and I assume you've failed a polygraph exam, but that doesn't mean you've "walked the walk," as the saying goes.   

Well, Mr. Cullen, at least you didn't try to defend your lack of experience. Any defense would have been ridiculous, so I commend you for not opening yourself up for easy ridicule.  So, what we are left with in your latest post is yet another detour from the subject. As for the NAS, I obviously respect it because I quoted it with regard to countermeasures, which of course is the subject of this thread.  I accept that it has come to its own conclusions with regard to polygraph utility and validity based on a few laboratory studies, and I have read the report in its entirety several times.  As an actual polygrapher, though, the most credible laboratory studies are those that I can see confirmed every day in real life experience, which I believe does count for something.  Otherwise, I would be doing the same as you, which is simply going by the studies that support your own biased, inexperienced opinion.  Now, can you return to the subject of this thread, or must you continue to spout the usual second-hand rhetoric found either as the subject or the deviation of almost every thread on this forum? From personal experience (gee, we keep coming back to that word, don't we?) I predict that you will return once again with something about how the polygraph is a "pseudoscience," blah, blah, blah, when you really have no business pretending that you have any personal knowledge whatsoever.

Oh, just one more thing. Why do you use two different but similar user names on the forum? How am I to differentiate between one ignoramus and the other? Or is that the whole point?

The polygraph is an imperfect process.  We have no argument there.  I base what I've said on studies we polygraphers believe are correct due to experience that backs them up.

Sergeant1107, I don't know why you've failed three out of four polygraph exams. I didn't conduct those exams, and I haven't seen the data. I'd love to see your charts and question lists. I can't judge your integrity or lack thereof. But I would never claim that one person's negative outcomes--even if they are true "false positives"--or even those of a handful of self-potrayed experts on this forum show that the process doesn't work, especially when I've seen hundreds or even thousands of times that it has. This is obviously a forum comprised almost entirely of people who failed the polygraph exam and those who will soon be taking a polygraph exam and are falsely led to believe that there's a good chance they will fail too. In other words, it's the blind leading the blind. People who pass the polygraph exam have no need to come on this website and complain about the process--it's over for them and they move on. And experience has shown me that the vast majority do pass the exam.

Now, I've stated before that countermeasures just aren't worth the risk. At the very least they may cause you to come up "inconclusive" on the exam, and at the very worst, which I've seen too many times, they lead to failure on the exam. Since you are an "Especially Senior User" on this forum, and you've taken four polygraphs, three of which you failed, you might be in a better position to tell all of us whether your countermeasure attempts were successful.  If you really believe in countermeasures, surely you've attempted them.  If so, you've obviously screwed yourself, which simply confirms what I and the NAS have said.

I must also assume that, like George Maschke and Mr. Cullen, you have no actual experience conducting polygraph exams, so why are you on this forum portraying yourself as having any idea what you are talking about?

Sergeant1107 wrote on May 2^nd, 2009 at 11:17pm:


Glad you said that, Sergeant1107.  It helps confirm my point. Where are all the people who passed the polygraph with countermeasures while lying to the relevant questions? That's right, we never hear from them.  Not even on an anonymous forum like this one.  Studies show that countermeasures don't help the innocent, and the NAS says that countermeasures may very well work the other way, making an examinee appear more deceptive. Furthermore, someone who does not lie on the relevant questions and passes the exam, even assuming that they escape detection, can't prove that they wouldn't have passed the exam anyhow.

No, Sergeant, I did not agree with you that research into the successful use of countermeasures is likely to be flawed. In fact, ther IS no research that shows countermeasures to be successful.  Because you obviously didn't read a little further back in this thread, or you chose to ignore it, here again is what the NAS has to say about countermeasures and research into the same:

Authors such as Maschke and Williams suggest that effective countermeasure strategies can be easily learned and that a small amount of practice is enough to give examinees an excellent chance of “beating” the polygraph. Because the effective application of mental or physical countermeasures on the part of examinees would require skill in distinguishing between relevant and comparison questions, skill in regulating physiological response, and skill in concealing countermeasures from trained examiners, 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. There is also evidence that innocent examinees using some countermeasures in an effort to increase the probability that they will “pass” the exam produce physiological reactions that have the opposite effect, either because their countermeasures are detected or because their responses appear more rather than less deceptive. The available evidence does not allow us to determine whether innocent examinees can increase their chances of achieving nondeceptive outcomes by using countermeasures.

The claims by Maschke and others on this website that countermeasures work and can be successfully implemented have absolutely no basis.

Again, if a person is "innocent," there's no research to show that countermeasures will help ensure that he/she will pass the polygraph exam; in fact, studies show exactly the opposite to be more likely. So, no one who really didn't lie to the relevant issues and who passed the exam without detection using countermeasures can prove that he/she wouldn't have passed it anyhow. And where are all the people who lie on the relevant questions, but who pass the polygraph by using countermeasures?  That's right, we never hear from those people, do we? Not even on an anonymous forum.

Sergeant, you are just like the rest of the self-portrayed experts on this website who have no practical experience conducting polygraph exams, but who try to convince scared people that you know what you are talking about. Give it up because your ignorance is glaringly obvious, and you don't have a leg to stand on.

I, on the other hand, can point out my favorite polygraph studies just like you, Maschke, and all the other pretenders on this website, but unlike you I have a wealth of experience to back me up.

Ok, next pretender, please.