Distrustful,
The issue of medical questions asked by polygraphers has been a source of controversy in the Department of Energy's polygraph program. Dr. Gordon Barland, formerly chief of countermeasures research and instruction at the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI), is reported to have claimed at a "technical briefing" on polygraphy held on 7 September 1999 at Sandia National Laboratories that there are no medications that have any effect on the utility of polygraphy.
But Sandia National Laboratories senior scientist Dr. Al Zelicoff notes in a 13 June 2001
letter to the Secretary of the New Mexico State Board of Medical Examiners:
Quote:
A series of negotiations and meetings began in late March between Sandia and the DOE Office of Counterintelligence (OCI). I attended one of these meetings, chaired by our Senior Vice President, which included the DOE Chief of Polygraphy (Mr. David Renzelman) and the local DOE "testing center" polygrapher (Mr. John Mata). At this session, the polygraphers continued to insist that (a) medications have an "effect on the polygraph" and (b) that these effects were consistent and reproducible. When I asked for references (articles, reviews, or textbook chapters) to substantiate their claims, they could produce nothing. Instead they made glib, illogical statements like: "well, if you're all hyped up don't you think that your pulse will be changed" (my answer: "of course, but is it differentially changed when your subject is actually lying as compared to telling the truth")....
For further reading, see the message thread,
Drugs, Polygraphs, & Doubletalk from Polygraphers.
It occurs to me that those who are especially physically fit might be at something of a disadvantage during a polygraph interrogation: if their at-rest breathing rate is slower than what polygraphers deem "normal," then they run the risk of being accused of employing countermeasures (even though slow breathing is not a technique that anyone who understands CQT polygraphy would ever employ).
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Medical Questions (Read 4521 times)
