Anonymous (5/5, 6:14:50) wrote:   

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I’m well aware of the effect of false positives, and the victims have my deepest sympathy.  We humans live in an imperfect world, doing the best we can with what is available.  Without wishing to trivialize the experience of those who have suffered polygraph false positives, I must point out that no diagnostic test is perfectly accurate.  Some errors have more grievous effects than others.  Errors in the medical system have given rise to the saying “doctors bury their mistakes.” 

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You seem to be suggesting that nobody who keeps mum about using countermeasures will ever “fail” the polygraph.  That is simply not true.  Although each agency has considerable latitude in developing its own policies, those whose policies I am aware of allow examiners to report suspected countermeasures as such.  When handled and verified according to the guidelines of those agencies, they are reported to the adjudicators and are grounds for denial of employment for the reasons I stated in my original post in this thread.

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Surely you jest!  Countermeasures and counter-countermeasures are a high stakes battle which directly impacts the criminal justice system and national security.  Those who teach people how to beat the polygraph and those whose job is to detect and prevent that, are in an adversarial relationship.  Both sides are learning how to be more effective.  If I detail how we are detecting countermeasures (i.e., the mistakes the advisors are making), that would boost you considerably higher along your learning curve, hurting the criminal justice system and national security.  With time, experience, and feedback, countermeasure advisors will improve their advice.  In the meantime, the federal polygraph community needs the time to develop long range solutions to the countermeasure problem by developing a more robust test using, say, brain imaging.

Peace

Gordon,

You mention that ...."Errors in the medical system have given rise to the saying "doctors bury their mistakes"........"  These doctors, when shown in a court of law to have done so, are subject to multi-million dollar damage awards/assessments against them.  We are all aware of routine reports of such awards.   You, "....having the deepest sympathy...." for these victims, I assume would approve of similar civil liability for federal polygraph examiners (and others) who have ruined the careers and lives of applicants and employees through polygraph screening, yes??

George Maschke wrote:

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There may be a problem with semantics here.  I did not mean confirm in the sense of absolute ground truth.  That is extremely difficult to do in any real world situation.  Therein lies the big advantage of laboratory research, where we made our initial breakthroughs in detecting mid- and high level countermeasures.  What I did mean was confirm to the satisfaction of the individual agency.  The steps that must be accomplished to reach that level of confirmation vary from one agency to another.  The key point is that in the Federal government, most examiners do not make such a decision arbitrarily.  They must follow their agency’s guidelines, which may require concurrence from their quality control office.

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This approach is so new the field has not developed any uniform response, not in the federal community and certainly not in the police and private arenas.  The only research bearing on this has been done by Honts and his colleagues.  They have published a couple of studies which found, among other things, that subjects who are aware of the purpose of control/comparison questions are at greater risk of a false positive error.  This is another down side to making polygraph information available to the public.  In their understandable desire to help innocent people avoid false positive errors, the authors may be inadvertently increasing the risk for some people.

As for how I would deal with the situation, I would have no qualms about conducting an examination.  My personal outlook is “when in doubt, give it a try and see what happens.”  I would go into the situation with my eyes open, aware of the pitfalls, and make sure that the person receiving my report was also aware of the need for caution in relying upon the results.  When I was an examiner in private practice, I tested several polygraph examiners on real world matters.  The only thing I did differently from testing a naïve subject was to use a relevant/irrelevant (RI) test format, which is less susceptible to point countermeasures.  The RI test is far more sophisticated in design and interpretation than most critics give it credit for.  To be used successfully, I believe it requires formal training followed by an internship under experienced practitioners, so this option is not realistic for many examiners.

Peace

Gordon,

In this message thread, you've referred to three categories of polygraph countermeasures: low-level, mid-level, and high-level. Could you explain the distinction between the three?

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Surely you jest!  Countermeasures and counter-countermeasures are a high stakes battle which directly impacts the criminal justice system and national security.   
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No, my friend, surely you jest!  Although you wrap yourself, your former profession, and its practices in the American flag and give it the solemnity due national security, this will not continue for long.  Once stripped of this artificial association to national security (national security and criminal justice will be furthered through the elimination of polygraphy), polygraph counter-countermeasures and the like will properly be relegated to the likes and gravitas of Boris and Natasha or spy vs. spy of Mad Magazine.  The only remaining interest and purpose left standing will be the long-term employment prospects of your former associates...

Gordon,

     You gave the following reply to George Maschke when queried about how to deal with a potential polygraph examinee knowledgeable about (1) the examiner deception involved in CQT polygraphy and (2) publicly disseminated countermeasures to this technique.

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As for how I would deal with the situation, I would have no qualms about conducting an examination.  My personal outlook is “when in doubt, give it a try and see what happens.”  I would go into the situation with my eyes open, aware of the pitfalls, and make sure that the person receiving my report was also aware of the need for caution in relying upon the results.  When I was an examiner in private practice, I tested several polygraph examiners on real world matters.  The only thing I did differently from testing a naïve subject was to use a relevant/irrelevant (RI) test format, which is less susceptible to point countermeasures.  The RI test is far more sophisticated in design and interpretation than most critics give it credit for.  To be used successfully, I believe it requires formal training followed by an internship under experienced practitioners, so this option is not realistic for many examiners. 
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     Mr. Maschke then characterized the RI technique as “thoroughly discredited” and “hardly reassuring” to a knowledgeable person facing the prospect of taking such an exam.  He is correct on both counts, but because this audience is likely largely unfamiliar with the RI technique, I would like to spend some time with it---its theory of practice, suggested shortcomings (even in comparison to CQT polygraphy), its scoring, and ready methods for countermeasuring this type of exam or one with any number of single-stimulus (relevant) questions.  All of that is a bit beyond this post, though, and the time I have available to devote to it this evening, but I would like to comment on what I believe is a critical juncture in the dialogue we are now having.

     If this were a criminal interrogation, you were a criminal suspect (hopefully having been read your rights by now), and the alleged crime was fabricating the existence of a viable polygraph counter-countermeasure program for CQT polygraph screening applications, at this juncture I would stop the interview and take a signed-sworn statement.

     Although you have continually (in this thread) suggested to the contrary, through your quoted commentary to Mr. Maschke what you have done is implicitly admit that no such program exists.  When asked how you would handle the subject, instead of saying “I would proceed as planned with the CQT polygraph screening because no problem exists, i.e., I can rely on my DoD-developed countermeasure detection algorithm to sort out any countermeasure attempts…” you have done quite something else.  What you have done is to abandon CQT polygraphy as a sinking ship under the conditions Mr. Maschke presented you and to strike out with another format (again, even a more problematic one to be discussed at a later time).  The issue here is not the comparison between CQT and RI polygraph techniques, but that you would so quickly abandon CQT polygraphy.  This ready betrayal of the present mainstay of government polygraph screening programs (CQT polygraphy) plus your unwillingness (and I suspect inability) to answer my questions about counter-countermeasures can only lead a reasonable person to conclude what I have said all along----counter-countermeasures to CQT polygraphy are but a bluff and a wish of a dying industry…

Gordon,

Although you somewhat place your admission in perspective, it in no way changes its overall nature as simply that--an admission that CQT counter-countermeasures are for all practical purposes a functional myth. Although you suggest keeping the CQT in the present polygrapher's armamentarium, you give no compelling reason for doing so. In fact, your own subsequent commentary relegates the CQT to ancient history dependent upon the widespread naïveté of a gullible populace. In fact, Gordon, under cross-examination, you would make an excellent expert witness for why the national security should no longer rest with CQT polygraphy. You should be congratulated on your honesty, even though it clearly runs counter to the sort of wild claims of invincibility normally put forth by the polygraph community, e.g., numerous such posts on polygraphplace.com.

If you believe what you suggest about information-based tests, then we do have some common ground.

You still need to answer to those victimized by the CQT regarding how they should be compensated (following up on your "doctors bury their mistakes" observation). And you should very clearly understand that the reason for Americans providing the world with polygraph countermeasures is that the American population is that which has been most heavily victimized by polygraphy (American polygraphers representing a majority of the world's population of polygraphers). Although Great Britain has had spies as has the U.S., British subjects have not played a role in disseminating polygraph countermeasure information, not because they are more patriotic than U.S. citizens, but because their relatively enlightened government has protected its subjects from the victimization of polygraphy.......