Daily Beast Article on Polygraphy

[George W. Maschke]

Earlier this week I spoke with Brandy Zadrozny, a reporter for The Daily Beast who was working on an article about polygraphy on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the first polygraph "test" to be admitted as evidence in a court of law:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/04/the-polygraph-has-been-lying-for-90-years.html

I think she did a good job, though I would not characterize AntiPolygraph.org as being dedicated to "cheating" the lie detector. We make information about polygraph countermeasures available to the public to provide truthful persons a means of protecting themselves against the error associated with an invalid procedure. That's not cheating.

[pailryder]

Dr Maschke

Yes, it is cheating, called by another name.  I defend every subjects right to chose to defect to protect himself or herself.  If truthful have that right surely deceptive do as well.  Still cheating.   

[George W. Maschke]

pailryder,

In what sense is it "cheating" for a truthful person to do that which is possible to protect herself against the high error rate associated with polygraphy (a procedure that itself depends on the examiner lying to and otherwise deceiving the person being "tested")?

[Evan S]

My thoughts:

The logic of the polygraph community is to question why an innocent person would research the polygraph, since in their mindset only a guilty person would research the polygraph.  (I acknowledge polygrapher Dan Mangan is an exception to this observation.)

If the polygraph community questions the ethics of researching/studying for a polygraph test, then they should question the ethics of high-school seniors studying for the SAT (or ACT).  I remember the ETS (owner of the SAT) claiming it's not possible to significantly increase one's score by studying, and yet self-help study books and SAT prep classes have flourished and so they must have some success in inflating SAT scores.   Only a naive person would believe the ETS; smart students (and their parents) know better.

Is learning how to "game" the test (be it SAT, LSAT, MCAT or polygraph) so as to artificially inflate the score considered cheating?  Why would George's online manual be any different from other self-help manuals and prep classes?

Regards, Evan S

[Dan Mangan]

In my most humble opinion -- and this is only the view of one lowly polygraph operator with a mere ten years of experience -- any potential subject who does not study for a polygraph "test" is not just a fool, but a damned fool.

Daniel Mangan, M.A.
Full Member, American Polygraph Association
Certified PCSOT Examiner
www.polygraphman.com

[pailryder]

Dr Maschke

The directed lie techniques do not require any deception on the part of the examiner.

Using countermeasures is cheating, not learning about them.  A person who has applied for a position of trust and responsibility has an obligation to cooperate with the employment process.  Faking cooperation is cheating.  When an otherwise truthful subject chooses noncooperation, rather than protecting themselves they create another way to lose the job.  Not only do they lose if the examiner make an error, they also lose if the examiner detects their noncooperation.

[Dan Mangan]

Dr Maschke

The directed lie techniques do not require any deception on the part of the examiner.

Using countermeasures is cheating, not learning about them.  A person who has applied for a position of trust and responsibility has an obligation to cooperate with the employment process.  Faking cooperation is cheating.  When an otherwise truthful subject chooses noncooperation, rather than protecting themselves they create another way to lose the job.  Not only do they lose if the examiner make an error, they also lose if the examiner detects their noncooperation.

I disagree.

Daniel Mangan, M.A.
Full Member, American Polygraph Association
Certified PCSOT Examiner
www.polygraphman.com

[George W. Maschke]

Dr Maschke

The directed lie techniques do not require any deception on the part of the examiner.

Using countermeasures is cheating, not learning about them.  A person who has applied for a position of trust and responsibility has an obligation to cooperate with the employment process.  Faking cooperation is cheating.  When an otherwise truthful subject chooses noncooperation, rather than protecting themselves they create another way to lose the job.  Not only do they lose if the examiner make an error, they also lose if the examiner detects their noncooperation.

Even the directed-lie technique depends on the examiner deceiving the examinee. The most fundamental deception is the notion that the procedure has any validity as a test for deception. I've explained the deception associated with the directed-lie technique in greater detail in my 1999 article, The Lying Game: National Security and the Test for Espionage and Sabotage.

I disagree with your suggestion that when a person chooses to use countermeasures she "create(s) another way to lose the job." First, the polygraph community has no methodology for the detection of so-called "sophisticated" countermeasures (the type that persons who understand polygraph procedure would employ, such as those explained in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector). Second, not using countermeasures affords the examinee no protection against the risk of being accused of using countermeasures.

Now, I see how, as someone who makes a living giving these "tests," you might consider it "cheating" for an otherwise honest person to practice minor deception to protect herself against the high risk of error associated with an invalid procedure that itself depends on major deception by the examiner. But I think you're doing a lot of rationalization about the deception inherent to polygraphy.

[Aunty Agony]

A person who has applied for a position of trust and responsibility has an obligation to cooperate with the employment process.

An agency that has advertised employment in a position of trust and responsibility has an obligation to treat applicants with honesty and candor.

A contract implemented with trust and responsibility by one party and duplicity and deceit by the other is the very essense of injustice.  If your goal is an eventual scandalous disaster you could not invent a better plan than to hire people under such circumstances.

-Aunty.

[Doug Williams]

A person who has applied for a position of trust and responsibility has an obligation to cooperate with the employment process.

An agency that has advertised employment in a position of trust and responsibility has an obligation to treat applicants with honesty and candor.

A contract implemented with trust and responsibility by one party and duplicity and deceit by the other is the very essense of injustice.  If your goal is an eventual scandalous disaster you could not invent a better plan than to hire people under such circumstances.

-Aunty.

Well said!

[Drew Richardson]

Pailryder's last post in this thread would suggest that there is not only deception involved with the directed lie control question test (DLCQT), but also that there is purposeful deception in the public discussion of it. 

The truth is that the DLCQT does involve reducing some aspects of the emotional abuse/browbeating that is part and parcel of the control question setting that occurs during the pre-test phase of the probable lie control question test (PLCQT), but that examiner deception is rampant in both types (PLCQT and DLCQT) of lie test.

Once the aforementioned truth is recognized, the basis for the simple objection of Mr. Mangan, and the elegant words of Dr. Maschke and Aunty Agony regarding the absolute and relative (examiner/examinee) deception, the right to defend oneself against injustice, and the consequences to agency and society of allowing such a flawed system to continue become manifest.

[Ex Member]

Yes, it is cheating, called by another name.I defend every subjects right to chose to defect to protect himself or herself.If truthful have that right surely deceptive do as well.Still cheating. 

Pailryder,
I perceive you to be a pretty straight forward and honest guy and from our conversations, I don't see you as one who would use the polygraph as a rubber hose. In all fairness, using polygraph countermeasures does have a flip side; those with malfeasance on their minds could use them to put themselves into an advantageous situation so as to exploit. However, considering the fact that the only crimes Doug is charged with were situations that were fabricated by the authorities, leads me to believe that most of the job candidates are not rascals trying to deceive the agencies they are applying for. In the case of PCSOT, most individuals probably would not have the aptitude to study, practice and utilize countermeasures efficiently enough to slip through the cracks each and every time.

From the posts of others, the ethics seems to be that it's not cheating if you are just countering an already stacked deck. In other words, it's not wrong to cheat the cheater. Honestly, I personally have mixed feelings about it.

ARK.

[Doug Williams]

Yes, it is cheating, called by another name.I defend every subjects right to chose to defect to protect himself or herself.If truthful have that right surely deceptive do as well.Still cheating. 

Pailryder,
I perceive you to be a pretty straight forward and honest guy and from our conversations, I don't see you as one who would use the polygraph as a rubber hose. In all fairness, using polygraph countermeasures does have a flip side; those with malfeasance on their minds could use them to put themselves into an advantageous situation so as to exploit. However, considering the fact that the only crimes Doug is charged with were situations that were fabricated by the authorities, leads me to believe that most of the job candidates are not rascals trying to deceive the agencies they are applying for. In the case of PCSOT, most individuals probably would not have the aptitude to study, practice and utilize countermeasures efficiently enough to slip through the cracks each and every time.

From the posts of others, the ethics seems to be that it's not cheating if you are just countering an already stacked deck. In other words, it's not wrong to cheat the cheater. Honestly, I personally have mixed feelings about it.

ARK.

The evolution of how polygraph operators, and the government, have dealt with me has changed drastically in the forty years I have been fighting the abuse caused by the dangerous myth of lie detection.  It tells you more about them and the police state that our country has become than it does about me.  At first they simply ignored my assertions that I could teach anyone how to pass a polygraph test in ten minutes or less.  I think they were hoping that I would just shut up and go away.  They didn't want to respond to me because they didn't want to do anything that would draw attention to the problems inherent in calling the polygraph a "lie detector".  Polygraph operators are much like cockroaches in that they don't like the light of objective scrutiny to be shined on their shady operation.  They all know the polygraph is not reliable and effective as a "lie detector", and they know they can't prove that it is a valid and reliable means to detect deception or to verify truthfulness.  So, when I first came up with the idea of teaching people how to pass a polygraph test and published my little manual, HOW TO STING THE POLYGRAPH, they simply ignored it. 

I have been putting on seminars, instructing people on the Sting Technique and giving television demonstrations of how easily a person to control every tracing on the chart for almost forty years.  I even testified in the US Congress, and explained in detail how easily a person could be taught to "beat" a polygraph test.  I hoped that by doing this so publicly I would be able to drive home the point that the polygraph was worthless as a lie detector.  Polygraph operators have always said that the polygraph is accurate 85 to 95% of the time, but all the scientific evidence proves that simply is not true.  Polygraph proponents also maintained steadfastly that it was impossible for a person to control the results of a polygraph test and always produce what the polygraph examiner would expect to see from a truthful subject.  But I kept proving that both of those claims by polygraph operators were false.  The polygraph is no more accurate than the toss of a coin, and the results can be easily manipulated by anyone with just a small amount of training.  Polygraph operators then changed the way they responded to me by simply saying that all I was doing was teaching people how to make "distortions" to the polygraph chart.  They still maintained that I could not teach a person how to duplicate a "truthful" polygraph chart. 

Eventually they recognized that they had to take a different approach to "the problems caused by Doug Williams" because, by the early 80's, I had been on national television demonstrating how easily I could teach a person to control every tracing on the polygraph chart and produce a classic "truthful" polygraph chart tracing by simply following my simple instructions.  So they changed their strategy and adopted the position that while it was possible for me to teach a person how to control every tracing on the polygraph chart, that these so called "countermeasures" were easily detected.  It was then that the word "countermeasures" first began to be used by polygraph operators to describe my Sting Technique.  As mentioned in my book, FROM COP TO CRUSADER: THE STORY OF MY FIGHT AGAINST THE DANGEROUS MYTH OF "LIE DETECTION", the government polygraph school, under the direction of Dr. Gordon Barland, actually started teaching courses on how polygraph operators could learn to detect the use of the use of these "countermeasures".  And, as I have also mentioned in this book, Barland used my manual, HOW TO STING THE POLYGRAPH, as his textbook.  After he retired, Barland told me that he was very concerned that polygraph operators were "overly confident in their ability to detect countermeasures".  He as much as admitted in one of his e-mails to me that it was impossible for them to tell, with any degree of certainty, whether or not a person was using my techniques to pass their polygraph test.

I have two reasons for teaching people how to pass their polygraph tests:  1) just telling the truth only works about half the time, so if you are going to pass you must learn how to pass, and 2) if I could prove that I could teach a person how to control every tracing on the polygraph chart, and always produce a "truthful" polygraph test result regardless of whether they are lying or telling the truth, that would be prima facie evidence that the polygraph is absolutely worthless as a "lie detector".  Polygraph operators know this is the best evidence that the polygraph is worthless as a "lie detector" and it would be all that was necessary to finally destroy the myth of "lie detection" – which is why they refused for many years to acknowledge that so called "countermeasures" actually work.

I knew polygraph operators especially those in the government were very upset with me, and were becoming more and more paranoid and frustrated by what I was doing to undermine the myth of "lie detection".  In about 2001, aside from selling my manual and video/DVD on my website www.polygraph.com, I began offering practice tests and what I referred to as personal polygraph test preparation training.  And this made polygraph operators even more paranoid and angry than ever!

This one-on-one training is simply a way to help truthful people prove their truthfulness because all the evidence, and, even the government's own statistics, proves that just telling the truth only works about 50% of the time.  So I just offer people a chance to come see that they can produce a perfect truthful chart by simply following the instructions in my manual.  The training consists of a little relaxation training I call the enhanced mental imagery training where I incorporate a form of hypnosis and train people to relax when they answer the relevant questions.  This relaxation training simply involves reciting a hypnotic script I have created and linking it to the relevant questions.  I tell the person being trained that in order to re-create the feeling of relaxation that this hypnotic script induces they simply have to label the relevant questions as relevant questions in their mind prior to answering them on the polygraph test.  It is amazing how well this works.  I have been doing it for a number of years now and everyone is able to overcome their nervousness when answering the relevant questions by simply labeling the questions as the relevant questions prior to answering them because that triggers the subconscious mind into thinking about the beach rather than thinking about the relevant questions.  I then hook them up to the polygraph and run three practice tests tailored to their situation.  I have the latest computerized polygraph instrument with the latest scoring software and we run three practice tests.  At the conclusion of each test I show them their computer generated score and it is always NO DECEPTION INDICATED.  I have always maintained, and have proved, that it makes no difference whether or not a person is telling the truth as long as they know how to utilize the "Sting Technique" properly; they will always pass their polygraph test – nervous or not – no matter what!


In 2013, the polygraph industry took a much more aggressive approach to dealing with me – and with the problems I caused them by continuing to teach so-called "countermeasures".   They finally admitted that "countermeasures" were being used, and they spent millions of dollars trying to convince themselves and others that while countermeasures did indeed exist and that they could be used effectively, it was not a problem because polygraph operators could be taught to recognize them.  But they were becoming more and more paranoid because they knew that countermeasures did indeed work and that they were in fact unable to determine whether or not anyone was using them to pass their polygraph test.  Their paranoia had increased to the point that they began routinely accusing everyone of using countermeasures.

Finally in 2013 their hatred of me and their paranoia of my ability to destroy the myth of "lie detection" by proving that countermeasures were indeed effective and that their polygraph machine was worthless as a lie detector increased to the boiling point, and they began an unscrupulous and unconstitutional attempt to criminalize the teaching of so-called "countermeasures".   They decided that the only way to shut me up was to try to put me in prison!  This plan, devised by John R Schwartz, was a blatant assault on my rights under the 1st and 4th Amendments called "OPERATION LIE BUSTERS" - and this investigation resulted in the charges to which ARK has referred.

[St. Paul]

85 - 95%.  Ok, Here is an interesting question to ask.  Ask the examiner if he or she would put his future on the line using their own test.  Ask is APA or any other organization if they use polygraph to settle internal disputes.  If the answer is no, there should be a very important follow up question.

Why not?

And a follow-up to that.

Are you afraid of a false positive because you are not sure if polygraph really works? Or, are you afraid that polygraph does work, and maybe you're afraid of someone knowing the truth?

I think they are fair questions, and the answers should be interesting.

[George W. Maschke]

85 - 95%.Ok, Here is an interesting question to ask. Ask the examiner if he or she would put his future on the line using their own test. Ask is APA or any other organization if they use polygraph to settle internal disputes. If the answer is no, there should be a very important follow up question.

I think the directors of the American Polygraph Association are smart enough not to eat their own dogfood.