NSA Mole Hunt

[George W. Maschke]

According to Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz, the NSA is presently trying to identify a spy within its ranks:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/1/inside-the-ring-843880610/

NSA mole hunt

The National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a counterintelligence probe at its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters in a top-secret hunt for a Russian agent, according to a former intelligence official close to the agency.

The former official said the probe grew out of the case of 10 Russian "illegals," or deep-cover spies, who were uncovered last summer and sent back to Moscow after the defection of Col. Alexander Poteyev, a former SVR foreign intelligence officer who reportedly fled to the U.S. shortly before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited here in June.

Col. Poteyev is believed to be the source who disclosed the U.S.-based agent network.

NSA counterintelligence officials suspect that members of the illegals network were used by Russia's SVR spy agency to communicate with one or more agents inside the agency, which conducts electronic intelligence gathering and code-breaking.

One sign that the probe is fairly advanced is that FBI counterintelligence agents are involved in the search.

"They are looking for one or more Russian spies that NSA is convinced reside at Fort Meade and possibly other DoD intel offices, like DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]," the former official said. "NSA is convinced that at least one is at NSA."

Some of the 10 illegals who were posing as U.S. citizens helped service Russian agents working inside the U.S. intelligence community, the former official said.

No other details of the investigation could be learned.

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said in e-mail: "I don't have any information to provide regarding your query."

An FBI spokesman had no immediate comment.

NSA has been the victim of several damaging spy cases dating back to the 1960s, when two officials defected to the Soviet Union.

In 1985, NSA analyst Ronald Pelton was caught spying for Moscow. He had provided the Soviets with extremely damaging secrets, including details of an underwater electronic eavesdropping program on Russian military cables called "Operation Ivy Bells."

<sarcasm>But wait! How can this be? The NSA subjects all employees to polygraph testing!</sarcasm>

If there is indeed a Russian spy in the NSA, then it's very likely that the spy has fooled one or more polygraph tests. But you can bet dollars to donuts that that won't deter NSA and FBI counterintelligence officials from resorting to the pseudoscience of polygraphy in an attempt to identify said spy.

[Fair Chance]

"In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

The polygraph system is built upon convincing the "examinees" that the system works.  Using the polygraph on a "non-believer" is useless.

The agencies are trying to convince a mole that digging through the earth is dirty.  The mole knows no other life.  The mole feeds, lives, and recreates underground.  They better find another strategy or they are doomed to failure.

I think this will be the breaking point as their witch-hunt finds good people who are going to be caught-up in "McCarthyism". They will destroy so many loyal and good people in the pursuit of truth only to find that they never catch "the bad guy."

Such a sad waste of resources.

[pailryder]

Fair Chance

In the valley of the green, the giant is king.

Belief is not necessary.  I have sucessfully polygraphed many "non believers".  The techniques are more robust than you suspect. 

[George W. Maschke]

Pailryder,

What precisely do you mean by having "sucessfully polygraphed many 'non believers?'"

[getrealalready]

By "non-believers" I think we have to assume Pailryder means anyone with an IQ over 75 and/or a ten minute education courtesy of searching "polygraph" on Google.  The only missing piece is the evidence of his claimed success.

[pailryder]

Dr. Maschke

Over my thirty year career as a private polygraph examiner I have interviewed many people who expressed doubts, outright scepticism, or even open hostility that polygraph techniques could achieve a proper outcome in their case. Doubt is the beginning of all wisdom, and I, myself, had those same doubts when, many years ago, long before I ever considered a career in polygraph, I was compelled to take a polygraph in a business related matter.  So that is precisely what I mean by non believers.

By sucessful I mean simply that by the end of our session, they, the non believers, agreed that I made a proper evaluation of their situation.

getrealalready

What do you think happens to people who spend ten minutes reading the Secrets of the Poker Stars, and decide to play a professional for real money?

[getrealalready]

Pailryder,

Poor analogy, my friend.  In the world of polygaphy there is no professional playing for or holding the money.  There may be an uneducated and dangerous amateur holding the money, the job, the career, the indictment, the post conviction probation status, but most assuredly there is no professional doing any of the above.

[George W. Maschke]

Pailryder,

Thanks for your clarification. I think that not believing in polygraphy is not the same as holding the view "that polygraph techniques could achieve a proper outcome in their case." I think that not believing in polygraphy is more at not believing that polygraph techniques can be relied upon to achieve a proper outcome.

When the examinee doesn't believe in polygraphy, the polygraph, like the Wizard of Oz unveiled, loses its mystique, and hence its ability to elicit admissions, which is its only true utility.

Getrealalready,

I think that polygraphy is more analagous to the old three shell swindle than to poker. Once you understand that it's a hustle, you don't have to personally be able to perform the trick to avoid being hustled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Wr-PPct1M

[pailryder]

Dr M

I use no slight of hand.  I am not a hustler or fraud or a cheat, and frankly, I am disappointed that you choose to continue to refer to me as such.  I don't think that a fair reading of my postings support your attacks on my character.  You continue to do to me what you banned my fellow examiners for doing to you.  I expected better.  Try to see past your ingrained stereotypes.

I am a private, not government, examiner and am not defending compelled governmental use of these techniques.  I speak only for myself, and I dare to think that I have a posting history that deserves basic respect. 

I am a working class person and have never cheated anyone.  People, businesses and agencies seek me out and pay for my opinion based on an interview/interrogation technique that includes consensual recording of physiological response when they suspect they are the target for a lie of deception.  I answer all questions and explain the technique honestly and openly to both sides.  I have nothing to hide.  I have nothing to fear from their knowledge.  The techniques work, some better than others, and do not depend on me lying to my client or the subject, although examiners often do that.
Each person, agency or business is free to decide for themselves how much to rely upon the results.

How well I am able to do my job and how much others choose to rely on the result are two different matters. 

For myself, I caution prudence when relying on the result of any psychological test.

[George W. Maschke]

Pailryder,

Although we don't know each other, based on your posting history, I do respect you, and actually think of you as someone I might like to have as a friend.

And yet, standard polygraph techniques all depend in fundamental ways on examiner deception, be it the probable-lie CQT, the directed-lie CQT, or the relevant/irrelevant technique.

If you have a pre-test script that does not involve an element of deception, I'd be interested to hear it.

George

[pailryder]

Well, George,

I don't have a script.  I have a conversation with both the client and subject about the issue we are trying to  adress.  When we agree on the target issue and the wording of all questions, we collect the data.  I hand score, computer score, and explain my opinion of the results.

[getrealalready]

Pailryder,

I guess you realize that your last reply (to George) is one of the most ridiculous non-answer answers given in some time.  Every polygraph examiner would say more or less the same thing about their polygraph procedure as you have yours.  You didn't answer George's basic question about deception.  Do you lie during this process?  If you use a probable lie control question test, do you lie when you introduce the control/comparison questions?  Do you try to make the examinee try to think those questions are relevant?  Do you try to make the examinee think the irrelevant questions are control questions? Let me save you the trouble of composing another non-answer answer.  Of course you lie.  Get real already!

[pailryder]

getrealalready

Sorry to disappoint you, but my last answer to Dr M is true.  I truthfully and fully answer all questions and I don't lie to the client or the subject and the techniques work just fine.  Yes, I know what is taught as standard proceedure.  I have answered all of your questions in past posts and am not inclined to repete myself.  Read my past posts and I will answer about anything that is still unclear to you.

My point to you, getreal, is that there is much more to polygraph than the government screening tests that generate so many of the complaints here.  For instance, did you know that private business testing has been regulated by federal labor law since 1988, and I have never seen a complaint on this site about even one test administered under that law.  Educate yourself about the entire field of psychophysiological detection of deception and you may find some surprises.   The one size fits all approach is yielding to a more scientific explanation that does not require lying to anyone.

[getrealalready]

Pailryder,

And I am sorry to disappoint you.  The polygraph community's universal deception as displayed in virtually all paradigms excepting concealed information testing over the last century outweighs your anonymous claim of being a truthful outlier in that community.  If you have developed a paradigm which doesn't involve deception, outline it, George and others can inspect and test it.  I'm sure a simulated crime/polygraph examination scenario can be arranged with you as the examiner.  If your format does not involve deception and it is found to be valid in terms of separating truth from deception, then I will be the first to congratulate you.  But at this point you are a long ways from being congratulated or even remotely believed.  And please don't confuse polygraphy with psychophysiology.  The two are as related as astrology and astronomy.

[pailryder]

getrealalready

I did not develope it, but I often use the directed lie comparison question technique.  Works fine and does not require deception on the part of the examiner.  Additionally the R/I format requires no examiner deception, as there are no comparison questions in that technique, but it is out of favor since it is more subjectively scored.