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Posted by George W. Maschke
- Aug 05, 2002, 03:22 PMheavyrunner,
What sort of information are you looking for?
For information on the scientific status of the "Control Question Test" (by far the most widely used polygraph technique), see Chapter 1 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. You'll find a fuller explanation of how the "test" actually works in Chapter 3, and in Chapter 4, you'll learn how anyone -- truthful or untruthful -- can pass these asinine "tests."
By the way, to start a new message thread (instead of posting a message in one that is unrelated to your question), go to the forum in which you want to post and click the "new thread" button near the top of the window.
What sort of information are you looking for?
For information on the scientific status of the "Control Question Test" (by far the most widely used polygraph technique), see Chapter 1 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. You'll find a fuller explanation of how the "test" actually works in Chapter 3, and in Chapter 4, you'll learn how anyone -- truthful or untruthful -- can pass these asinine "tests."
By the way, to start a new message thread (instead of posting a message in one that is unrelated to your question), go to the forum in which you want to post and click the "new thread" button near the top of the window.
Posted by heavyrunner
- Aug 05, 2002, 03:10 PMI need some help. I have a mentally ill daughter who has a history of false accusations. Recently she passed a polygraph test. Is there info on this out there
Posted by George Maschke (Guest)
- Dec 03, 2000, 10:20 AM#nosmileys
In an article on page A02 of today's (1 Dec. 2000) Washington
Post entitled, "CIA Shuts Chatroom, Suspends 10, Fires 4,"
staff writer Vernon Loeb reports on CIA's disciplinary
actions against employees who participated in an unauthorized
computer chatroom. Loeb writes in part:
One senior intelligence official responded that
senior CIA management felt compelled to take action
because the organizers of the hidden chat rooms
deliberately deceived their superiors. "The issue
here," the official said, "is violation of trust,"
not just some "off-color" e-mail.
The entire Washington Post article may be read on-line here:
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7159-2000Nov30.html
Senior CIA management needs to realize that trust is a two-
way street. These CIA employees were disciplined for
deliberately deceiving their supervisors, yet these same
supervisors feel at liberty to deliberately deceive every CIA
employee through the polygraph screening process. As Loeb's
anonymous senior intelligence official piously observed,
"the issue here is violation of trust."
Writing to the Federation of American Scientists from the
federal penitentiary at Allenwood, Pennsylvania, convicted spy
Aldrich H. Ames offered some insight into why the polygraph is
so attractive to senior bureaucrats:
Most people in the intelligence and CI business are
well aware of the theoretical and practical
failings of the polygraph, but are equally alert to
its value in institutional, bureaucratic terms and
treasure its use accordingly. This same logic
applies to its use in screening potential and
current employees, whether of the CIA, NSA, DOE or
even of private organizations.
Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is
always an uncertain task, and in a variety of
situations a bad, lazy or just unlucky decision
about a person can result not only in serious
problems for the organization and its purposes, but
in career-damaging blame for the unfortunate
decision-maker. Here, the polygraph is a scientific
godsend: the bureaucrat accounting for a bad
decision, or sometimes for a missed opportunity
(the latter is much less often questioned in a
bureaucracy) can point to what is considered an
unassailably objective, though occasionally and
unavoidably fallible, polygraph judgment. All that
was at fault was some practical application of a
"scientific" technique, like those frozen O-rings,
or the sandstorms between the Gulf and Desert One
in 1980.
The entire text of Ames' letter can be read on-line here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/polygraph/ames.html
It will be recalled that Ames passed two CIA polygraph
"tests" while spying for the Soviet Union and later, Russia.
For more on the CIA's use of the polygraph in the Ames case,
see pp. 11-16 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (503 kb):
http://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf
AntiPolygraph.org is working to hold those people in the
intelligence and counterintelligence business who knowingly
continue to rely on unreliable polygraph "testing"
accountable for their actions, and to warn employees and
prospective employees about the trickery which is being
practiced against them through the polygraph process.
We have recently learned from Al Zelicoff at Sandia National
Laboratories that it is Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) who is responsible for the
insertion of language into the Fiscal Year 2001 Defense
Authorization Act that makes polygraph screening mandatory
for an additional 5,000 Department of Energy employees and
contractors, raising the total number of affected persons to
some 20,000. Dr. Zelicoff's unanswered letter to Senator
Shelby about polygraph screening may be read on the
AntiPolygraph.org website at:
http://antipolygraph.org/articles/article-006.shtml
Those 5,000 additional employees to be polygraphed might want to
ask Senator Shelby the question I asked Secretary of Energy Bill
Richardson on 12 October 2000:
What is the Department of Energy's policy regarding
those employees and contractors who, because of
their understanding of "the lie behind the lie
detector," are unsuitable candidates for
polygraphic interrogation?
The entire letter, which I also copied to Senator Shelby,
among others, may be read on-line at:
http://antipolygraph.org/articles/article-005.shtml
The Secretary never responded. Neither did Senator Shelby.
George Maschke
AntiPolygraph.org