FCSenior wrote on Sep 13
th, 2001 at 7:28am:
Sir,
It appears you have far more intimate information regarding these examiners than I. If you would, please expand upon your commentary. Also, you are not aware of the fact that in my role as a supervisor, I cannot pronounce discipline on an subordinate staff member that is assigned to my areas of responsibility. I am somewhat interested in your observations that all four of our examiners are "liars". I say this as one of my long time associates made the same comment to me several weeks ago. He could not elaborate on his issues, but perhaps you can. Would you be so kind as to expand upon your statements? I would be in your debt. Thanks.
I'd be happy to expand, explain, and elucidate.
Lie: n. 1.A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood. 2.Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.
Fundamentally, the pseudo-science of polygraphy depends upon the examiner deceiving the examinee. Deceptive statements or more succinctly 'lies' are propounded by the polygrapher in each of the phases of a polygraph interrogation. Rather than relate all that information here, I would highly recommend you download and read the .pdf file available on this website,
The Lie Behind The Lie Detector, and take special note of chapters Three and Four therein.
The ethics of lying in order to obtain confessions or admissions one might not have obtained otherwise is discussed in superb fashion in another thread here on the boards, but I will quote Dr. Drew Richardson here:
"Deceptions for the average examiner would include (but not necessarily be limited to) intentional oversimplification, confuscation, misrepresentation, misstatement, exaggeration, and known false statement. Amongst the areas and activities that such deceptions will occur within a given polygraph exam and on a continual basis are the following:
(1) A discussion of the autonomic nervous system, its anatomy and physiology, its role in the conduct of a polygraph examination, and the examiner’s background as it supports his pontifications regarding said subjects. In general, an examiner has no or little educational background that would qualify him to lead such a discussion and his discussion contains the likely error that gross oversimplification often leads to.
(2) The discussion, conduct of, and post-test explanations of the “stim” test, more recently referred to as an “acquaintance” test.
(3) Examiner representations about the function of irrelevant questions in a control question test (CQT) polygraph exam.
(4) Examiner representations about the function of control questions and their relationship to relevant questions in a CQT exam.
(5) Examiner representations about any recognized validity of the CQT (or other exam formats) in a screening application and about what conclusions can reasonably be drawn from the exam at hand, i.e. the one principally of concern to the examinee.
(6) A host of misrepresentations that are made as “themes” and spun to examinees during a post-test interrogation.
(7) The notion that polygraphy merits consideration as a scientific discipline, forensic psychophysiology or other…
This listing is not offered as complete (nor in any way are the surrounding thoughts fully developed) but merely as a starting point for the following commentary and recommendation. You have stated that court opinions have been written which sanction the use of deception on the part of law enforcement officers. Agreed. I would suggest for your consideration the following points:
(1) The deceptions cited in such decisions are generally isolated to specific actions/conversations occurring within specific investigations, not pandemic and not necessary to the day-to-day general and routine practices of law enforcement officers.
(2) The decisions you might cite clearly refer to law enforcement officers. On what basis would you extend this “license to lie” to civilian polygraph examiners conducting polygraph exams related to purely administrative, commercial, or domestic subjects or even to polygraphers hired by the accused in a criminal matter?"
(please see
http://antipolygraph.org/cgi-bin/forums/YaBB.pl?board=Proc&action=display&num=99... for this thread in its entirety)
As you no doubt now gather, I am disgusted and appalled by those in authority who would depend upon such deceit, trickery, intimidation, and abuse of one's inalienable rights in order to achieve their goals, and those men and women who, as liscensed polygraphers, set themselves up as tin gods and final arbiters of truth. Deception as part of the investigative phase of judicial process? Court rulings dictate those tactics are acceptable, so I suppose it's
caveat emptor. Any other application of falsehood, deceit, trickery, whatever by any federal, state, or local government entity is a total, 100% abrogation of one's inalienable rights. It would not be an overstatement to say it's tyranny.
I'm not certain who is more contemptible: the polygrapher and his deceptions, or the bureaucrat who trusts the scratchings and/or subjective opinion of the polygrapher.
In conclusion, I hope I've answered completely, or at least cited sources that will answer and support my earlier assertion that each of the four people you mention are known liars, lie for a living, and ultimately will lie to you when questioned about their deceptions. Don't believe me? Ask any of them any of the following questions:
1. How accurate is the polygraph?
2. What is the purpose of the 'stim test' or 'aquaintance test'?
3. What is the purpose of the 'Control' or 'Comparison' questions?
4. How do you (the polygrapher) determine truth or deception?
Come back here with their responses.
Sincerely,
BT
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