VA OIG Polygraph Program

[George W. Maschke]

AntiPolygraph.org has received a copy of U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Office of Inspector General Directive 51 210 dated 13 August 2012, which "outlines the OIG policies and procedures concerning the use of the polygraph examination as an investigative technique." The document, which was released pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request and includes some redactions, may be downloaded as a 15.4 mb PDF file here:

https://antipolygraph.org/documents/va-oig-polygraph-program.pdf

If you are a VA employee and have been asked to submit to a polygraph examination, you'll want to review this document first. It makes it clear that the whole point of OIG polygraph "testing" is to get admissions. Section 1.b.3 provides:

...The detection of deception is only part of the procedure. Examinations are completely successful when the end result achieved is arriving at the truth...

"Arriving at the truth" is a euphemism for getting a confession from the person under investigation.

A particularly odious provision of the VA OIG directive is that the audio or video recording of polygraph examinations "is normally not authorized." (See Sections 4.a.1 and 2.) There is no good faith reason not to record a polygraph examination. The sole rationale for not doing so is to give the polygraph operator carte blanche to use whatever interrogation tactics he or she pleases, knowing that no objective record of what transpired in the polygraph suite will ever surface. If there's any dispute about what was said or done, it will, by design, be the polygrapher's word against the suspect's.

If you've been asked to submit to a polygraph "test," be aware of the provisions of Section 6.a:

Refusal to Undergo a Polygraph. If a VA employee is the subject of an OIG investigation and declines to undergo a polygraph examination, no adverse administrative action may be taken against the employee based solely on their refusal to take the exam. Investigators should advise VA managers and/or supervisors that no adverse action may be taken based against [sic] an employee based solely on the employee's refusal to undergo a polygraph examination.

However, if you take the polygraph and fail, the results can (and no doubt will) be used against you. It is quite common for truthful persons to fail the polygraph, and you would be well advised to exercise your right to refuse.

[Doug Williams]

So they are finally admitting that what I testified to in Congress in 1982 is true!  The polygraph is nothing but a "psychological billy club" that is used to coerce a person into confessing.  Often these are false confessions!

[George W. Maschke]

Well, they aren't making that admission explicitly. Section 1.b.3. also states in its entirety:

The polygraph is a scientific, diagnostic instrument that graphically records physiological changes that take place in a person at a specific time. In the hands of a trained examiner, it is highly reliable in detecting deception being practiced by a subject regarding a specific issue. The end result of the procedure, therefore, is to obtain the truth concerning a specific matter. The detection of deception is only part of the procedure. Examinations are completely successful when the end result achieved is arriving at the truth (see example Polygraph Examination Report).

Of course, the National Academy of Sciences disagrees with the VA OIG on the reliability of polygraphy, concluding instead that "Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy."

Professor Stephen Fienberg, who headed the NAS polygraph review panel, has put it more bluntly: "Polygraph testing has been the gold standard, but it's obviously fool's gold." More recently, he told Chicago Tribune reporter Duaa Elbeib, "The problem is people are regularly lulled into believing that if they're innocent, the polygraph will show that they're innocent, and I don't think anyone should expect that."