Ars Technica has some
great reader comments on the news of Doug Williams’ indictment. Here are some samples:
Modern Major General Thanatos writes:
Quote:I'm not sure what is more asinine, using polygraphs as an employment requisite or preventing people from talking about how to beat polygraphs.
to which dfjdejulio replies:
Quote:Reminds one of the anticircumvention measures in the DMCA, doesn't it?
"Yes, we know that this copy protection is horrible and easy to defeat, but if you provide tools that, among their other uses, can be used to circumvent it, you are now breaking the law."
feldon30 writes:
Quote:How the crappity smack is this a crime? Is this North Korea?
adipose writes:
Quote:The polygraph is used as a scare tactic more than anything. Reassuring people that it can be beaten is the first step away from that fear. That can't be allowed!
Evan E writes:
Quote:This reminds me of a story Feynman used to tell (it's in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman). He figured out how to get into many of the safes at the Los Alamos project - some he could actually pick, and others it was easy to guess the combinations (since it was a bunch of physicists, pi or e being a combination was common). He brought this to the attention of the military admins in charge, and their responses was to issue a memo essentially saying "Do not let Prof. Feynman near any of the safes".
If you're relying on a test that can be defeated this easily (and often registers false positives just because people are nervous while taking the test), the problem is with your test, not with the testees.
Matt Bieneman writes:
Quote:When will the people who are selling the polygraph machines & training courses to the government be prosecuted for fraud as well? Their actions are much more obviously fraudulent. The not only cost the government money, but they are seriously endangering national security because the government relies on these machines to screen people for security clearances, rather than spending the money on some kind of meaningful security checks. The polygraph tests are only capable of stopping rank amateurs, and then with no better accuracy than a coin flip. The real spies are guaranteed to pass the test because they are prepared for it.
adamrussell writes:
Quote:From Geo Orwell's 1984:
"The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp."
This is not about diaries - its about rule of law. Without laws you can be arrested for just doing something they dont want you doing. It seems like lately courts have started bending laws to make sure that anyone that is doing something "against common decency" he can be arrested for it. Its a slippery slope that leads to a nightmare.
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Doug Williams Polygraph Trial Discussion Thread (Read 132016 times)
