On 3 April 2001, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a hearing on the Navy's handling of the case of Petty Officer 1st Class Daniel M. King. Statements prepared by King's attorneys for the Committee are available on the Federation of American Scientists website at:
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/king/index.html#ssci
Para. II.A of the statement of LT Matthew S. Freedus, USN provides the most detailed publicly available account of the polygraph interrogation of CTR1 King by Special Agent Robert Hyter of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service:
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/king/ssci_freedus.html#13
I am at a loss for words to describe my revulsion by the Navy's conduct in this case.
I am continually astounded at the means with
which the polygraph examiners will get their
confessions. (up to 19 hour sessions ??? For a man
who proudly served his country ??)
This is nothing less than a willful and capricious
effort to run a person's life for reasons that remain unclear.
In my opinion, every examiner who
willfully forces a confession is committing a serious dereliction of duty and has violated the
public trust. I honestly cannot believe it.
Based on my own personal polygraph experience at the hands of the CIA, experiences relayed on this board, and based on The Lie Behind The Lie Detector book, it's blatantly obvious that far too many examiners have an ego to feed. If a polygraph is inconclusive or "failed", they see it as a personal mission to get some sort of confession or additional salient piece of information from the "subject". If they don't get this extra bit, their ego takes a hit.
Moreover, in cases of an inconclusive polygraphs, the examiner's report often contains supposed reasons why the subject is showing reactions. But of course, these are based on nothing but conjecture. So why do they put conjecture in reports? Again, it's ego. Examiners apparently have this need to appear to always be right and especially, to appear always to know what they're doing and what's going on. It's nothing more, unfortunately, than a huge act -- at the great cost of national security.
It is outrageous, and there needs to be accountability. Based on what I read, it seems that several people involved in that case should be criminally prosecuted.