- Welcome to AntiPolygraph.org Message Board.
A forum for free and open discussion of polygraph-related topics
Posted by George W. Maschke
- Apr 13, 2003, 07:32 AMIn the above post, I mentioned Professor Charles R. Honts' comments to the National Academy of Sciences polygraph review panel. I think what he said is especially quote-worthy. Speaking at Woods Hole, Massachusetts on 23 July 2001, Professor Honts stated:
You can listen to Prof. Honts' comments here (about 25 minutes into the recording):
http://video.nationalacademies.org/ramgen/dbasse/072301_2.rm
QuoteWhen I got to DoDPI, I was told that the mission of the Research Division was to demonstrate the validity of everything that was taught at DoDPI. Now, you need to read that literally, because that's how it was told to us. It was not, "We want you to test the validity and see if what we are doing is valid." We were told to validate it. ... "Don't you mean we should test the validity?" And it's like, they didn't even know what that question meant.
You can listen to Prof. Honts' comments here (about 25 minutes into the recording):
http://video.nationalacademies.org/ramgen/dbasse/072301_2.rm
Posted by George W. Maschke
- Apr 09, 2003, 08:11 AMLast night, I watched a superb HBO movie called The Pentagon Wars (Richard Benjamin, 1998), a dark comedy that satirizes waste, fraud, and abuse in the Department of Defense. The movie is based on James G. Burton's non-fiction book, The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard (United States Naval Institute, 1993).
The movie, which deals with the U.S. Army's research and development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, documents how Pentagon officials lie, cheat, steal, and viciously retaliate against whistleblowers.
The institutional corruption portrayed in this movie is not unlike that found in the U.S. Government's polygraph program(s). At the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI), research that fails to support policy objectives is covered up. For example, DoDPI never published Dr. Sheila Reed's third study of the "Test for Espionage and Sabotage" and apparently destroyed her research data. DoDPI suppressed Dr. Gordon H. Barland's racial bias study wherein innocent blacks were about twice as likely as innocent whites to wrongly "fail" a polygraph "test." Professor Charles R. Honts, a former DoDPI researcher, has testified before the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that he was told that his job at DoDPI was not to test the validity of the polygraph techniques used at DoDPI, but to show that those techniques were valid. In addition, DoDPI apparently misled the National Academy of Sciences regarding the existence of polygraph countermeasure studies. In The Pentagon Wars, corrupt officials deliberately avoided live-fire tests of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle that would have shown that its armor was easily penetrated by even light anti-armor weapons, and that any soldiers inside would have been killed. In the same fashion, it appears that DoDPI is deliberately avoiding any meaningful research into polygraphy's most glaring weakness: it's ready susceptibility to countermeasures.
The retaliation that the whistleblower in The Pentagon Wars (Burton) experienced is also reminiscent of that suffered by Dr. Drew C. Richardson, the FBI Supervisory Special Agent and polygraph researcher who in 1997 blew the whistle on polygraph screening before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. In retaliation for his candor, Dr. Richardson was precluded from conducting any further polygraph research. (Later, the FBI suddenly and without warning dismantled its polygraph research laboratory while its sole remaining polygraph researcher was temporarily away.) The FBI prohibited Dr. Richardson from testifying in court on polygraph matters, even though he was eminently qualified to do so, prevented him from publishing under his own name an article critical of polygraphy in a peer-reviewed journal, and prohibited him from testifying in other fora.
The movie, which deals with the U.S. Army's research and development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, documents how Pentagon officials lie, cheat, steal, and viciously retaliate against whistleblowers.
The institutional corruption portrayed in this movie is not unlike that found in the U.S. Government's polygraph program(s). At the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DoDPI), research that fails to support policy objectives is covered up. For example, DoDPI never published Dr. Sheila Reed's third study of the "Test for Espionage and Sabotage" and apparently destroyed her research data. DoDPI suppressed Dr. Gordon H. Barland's racial bias study wherein innocent blacks were about twice as likely as innocent whites to wrongly "fail" a polygraph "test." Professor Charles R. Honts, a former DoDPI researcher, has testified before the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that he was told that his job at DoDPI was not to test the validity of the polygraph techniques used at DoDPI, but to show that those techniques were valid. In addition, DoDPI apparently misled the National Academy of Sciences regarding the existence of polygraph countermeasure studies. In The Pentagon Wars, corrupt officials deliberately avoided live-fire tests of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle that would have shown that its armor was easily penetrated by even light anti-armor weapons, and that any soldiers inside would have been killed. In the same fashion, it appears that DoDPI is deliberately avoiding any meaningful research into polygraphy's most glaring weakness: it's ready susceptibility to countermeasures.
The retaliation that the whistleblower in The Pentagon Wars (Burton) experienced is also reminiscent of that suffered by Dr. Drew C. Richardson, the FBI Supervisory Special Agent and polygraph researcher who in 1997 blew the whistle on polygraph screening before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. In retaliation for his candor, Dr. Richardson was precluded from conducting any further polygraph research. (Later, the FBI suddenly and without warning dismantled its polygraph research laboratory while its sole remaining polygraph researcher was temporarily away.) The FBI prohibited Dr. Richardson from testifying in court on polygraph matters, even though he was eminently qualified to do so, prevented him from publishing under his own name an article critical of polygraphy in a peer-reviewed journal, and prohibited him from testifying in other fora.