Ways to Counter the Relevant/Irrelevant Technique?

[George W. Maschke]

PDD-Fed,

You wrote in part:

...THANK GOD that LAPD finally saw the folly of their ways and instituted polygraph testing...

God had nothing to do with it. Rather, you can thank the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, who recommended polygraph screening in a knee-jerk reaction to the Rampart Area scandal. Since LAPD adopted polygraph screening in February 2000, approximately half of otherwise qualified applicants have been denied employment on the basis of polygraph chart readings, and many truthful applicants have been wrongly branded as liars. For more on this, see my commentary, "LAPD polygraph test results don't tell full truth," published in the Los Angeles Daily News and the statements of LAPD applicants falsely accused on the AntiPolygraph.org Personal Statements page.

[beech trees]

No, I tell him that I administer this part of the test to convince him that he responds when he lies on the exam.  Then, when I show him that the largest response on the entire chart is to the number he chose (and yes, it really is most of the time), then he/she is usually convinced.  Where is the "flim-flam?

Where is the flim-flam? You're soaking in it.

But nowadays, the card trick has largely given way to the "numbers
test." In a known-solution numbers "test," your polygrapher will
ask you to pick a number, say, from one to six, and to write it on a
sheet of paper. If you're right-handed, he may ask you to write the
number with your left hand. This supposedly makes the act of your
writing the number more significant to you. The number you write
will be known to both you and the polygrapher. Let's say you pick
"4." You write it on the slip of paper. Your polygrapher will then
write in the other numbers, 1, 2, 3 and 5, 6 in a list above and
below or to the left and right of the "4" that you wrote, then he will
affix the paper to the wall in front of you. Your polygrapher will
next instruct you to answer "no" each time as he asks, "Did you
write 1? Did you write 2?," etc. And he will tell you that when you
answer "no" to the number that you wrote, you are to look at that
number on the wall and to consciously think about having chosen
it and written it down, and then to deliberately lie and say "no.".... Whether you showed any discernible reaction while "lying" or not,
your polygrapher will attempt to convince you that you are not
capable of lying without the polygraph instrument detecting it.-- The Lie Behind The Lie Detector, pgs. 73-75

By the way, when his response is not clearly discernable (sp) from the rest (rare, but it does happen), I still show him the chart and explain that the number he chose was not particularlly significant to him....

Sure you do.

By the way, I have NEVER used "cards".  We don't use "cards" in the government....

Who cares? If you TELL a person to lie, is he lying?

Trickery?  No trickery here...

No, of course not.

I don't use "comparision" questions.  If you truly understood polygraph as well as you try to convice these readers you do, then you would know that comparison question testing is only ONE form of polygraph.  I don't compare anything against anything.  It's you against yourself in my test.  I just hold the microphone while you sing....

Oh gee, I'm floored-- I've never heard of a RI polygraph.  I'm not sure why you are characterizing my efforts here as attempting to convince everyone I'm a know-it-all when it comes to polygraphy-- I know enough and have experienced enough polygraph interrogations to know your occupation is based on a pantload of pseudo-scientific bunk, and that it is, with moderate practice, trifling easy to pass polygraph exams. THAT is why I'm here, to expose your occupation for what it is and to point out the folly of our government's ways in trusting your lil black box.

[PDD-Fed]

Beachtrees,

You said, "Where is the flim-flam? You're soaking in it."  You then quoted Mr. M's book, "But nowadays, the card trick has largely given way to the "numbers test...."" as your "proof" that the numbers test is (as you put it) "flim-flam"

Yeah, real good.  Here I see one pissed off, narrow minded guy with no life and a one sided agenda, quoting another  pissed off, narrow minded guy with no life and a one sided agenda...  Yes sir, that surely is "science"... :-/

By the way, here is something else for you to chew on and then call me a "liar" (I'm sure you will, you have to in order to protect your position that all polygraph examiners are "scam artists')...It so happens that I NEVER tell anyone the polygraph procedure detects "lies", nor do I tell them when they fail, that they "lied".  I tell them that I am checking for "significant" responses to certain questions. (that's what  the polygraph is recording anyhow).  When the subject lies, I show him his responses (just like I do on the numbers test.)  You see, the reason the largest response is frequently to the "key" on a numbers test, is because the number is significant just from haven been chosen by the examinee. I then point to the question(s) on the test showing similiar responses and ask him why a particular question seems significant to him.  I then leave it up to him to explain his reponses to me.  It may take a little time, but eventually he tells me about the 200 hits of LSD he sold last week.  I then report that and someone more deserving gets the job.  So, Beechtrees, I ask again, where's the "flim-flam'?)  

PDD-Fed
  

[George W. Maschke]

PDD-Fed,

You wrote in part:
 

Yeah, real good.  Here I see one pissed off, narrow minded guy with no life and a one sided agenda, quoting another pissed off, narrow minded guy with no life and a one sided agenda...  Yes sir, that surely is "science"... :-/

If there's anything in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector that you think is wrong, please don't hesitate to bring it to our attention. But note that the description of the "numbers test" that beech trees quoted from it is directly based on DoDPI documention obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

I have a question regarding the way you administer the R/I technique. You say that you never tell anyone that the polygraph detects "lies." That is commendable, for surely, it does not. This being the case, do you ever render a "deception indicated" or "significant response" decision absent any substantive admission by a subject?

[J.B. McCloughan]

beech trees,

You wrote in part:

Whether you showed any discernible reaction while "lying" or not, your polygrapher will attempt to convince you that you are not capable of lying without the polygraph instrument detecting it.

Not true.  I inform the examinee what I am looking for prior to the acquaintance test and as well what the test is for.

Then you wrote in part:

I know enough and have experienced enough polygraph interrogations to know your occupation is based on a pantload of pseudo-scientific bunk, and that it is, with moderate practice, trifling easy to pass polygraph exams.

I think the debates on this topic speak for themselves.  There is an abundance of evidence to support polygraph as a valid forensic science when used for criminal specific issue testing.  You say you have passed a polygraph with your knowledge but did not say you were deceptive to the relevant issue(s).  If you were not being deceptive, nothing is proven of your knowledge but that the polygraph was valid in your instance.

George wrote in part:

...do you ever render a "deception indicated" or "significant response" decision absent any substantive admission by a subject?

Yes.

[beech trees]

I inform the examinee what I am looking for prior to the acquaintance test and as well what the test is for.

And what is it you tell them? For a polygraph to be effective, it is incumbent upon you the polygrapher to lie and deceive your interrogation victim. I just don't see the point in arguing this further, as now matter how you twist your
"But I'm a nice polygrapher, I really yam!" routine, you are still lying to and deceiving your examinee. HOW you do it is irrelavent.

I think the debates on this topic speak for themselves.  There is an abundance of evidence to support polygraph as a valid forensic science when used for criminal specific issue testing.  You say you have passed a polygraph with your knowledge but did not say you were deceptive to the relevant issue(s).  If you were not being deceptive, nothing is proven of your knowledge but that the polygraph was valid in your instance.

JB, you're obviously an adherent to the dictum, "If you say something enough times, people will believe it to be true." So, for the benefit of the readers I will reiterate again, hopefully for the last time:

Polygraphy is not a science. Therefore, it cannot be a valid diagnostic tool regardless of the setting and use.

YES, sometimes woefully ignorant criminal suspects cave and confess when you're particularly persuasive that you can somehow read their minds concerning a particular crime. Cops used to load XEROX machines with pieces of paper that read TRUE or FALSE and then lay the hand of the rube they were interrogating on the scanning bed. They would tell the person to lie about their age, and out would pop a FALSE.

The courts have decided that trickery and deceit are acceptable interrogation tactics when it comes to eliciting confessions. Polygraphy is a part of that process, so in a legal sense it is acceptable. The results, of course, are inadmissible in a vast majority of courts in the US-- indeed, the mere mention of the polygraph is usually enough for a mistrial.

By the way, how many polygraph interrogation subjects have you disqualified for using the kinds of countermeasures recommended in The Lie Behind The Lie Detector (ABSENT an admission from the subject)?

[PDD-Fed]

George, you asked,

This being the case, do you ever render a "deception indicated" or "significant response" decision absent any substantive admission by a subject?

Absolutely, If there are significant responses present, then they are reported as such.  And in the (rare) caes, they are unresolved, then that is also reported.  By the way, there are also lots of times, that the exam is NSR (No Significant Responses) present, and that is reported as well.

George, for me the bottom line is that the vast majority of polygraph examiners I have met, certainly the other government examiners I know are not the malicious "scam artists" this site likes so much to rant and rave about.  They are not uneducated flim-flams.  In fact they do not have any political agenda and do not have any financial stake in whether polygraph lives or dies.

How is this???

This is because the examiners I have known do NOT depend in any way on polygraph for their livelyhood.  Remember, these people are federal/state/local government employees.   If polygraph went away tomorrow, they would simply revert to the detectives, criminal investigators and counter-intel agents they were before they ever went to polygraph school.  They would not so much as skip a single paycheck.  These people do this job, because they strongly BELIEVE in what they do.  In the federal government, they are college graduates, many with advanced degrees.  Contrary to the arguements put forth on this site, they feel that they have improved the safety and security of the citizens of their communities.  Why do they feel so strongly?

In the case of criminal issue examiners, they know that they have put alot of really bad people in prison.  These criminals would have never got there if it were not for polygraph, period.  These are examiners who test eight soldiers in an armory where an M-16 has been stolen.  Six pass, one is "No-Opinion", and the eighth falls the test, confesses to the theft, and leads investigators to the stolen weapon...Your readers don't want to believe this, but this is exactly how it goes, over, and over, and over again...

In the case of pre-employment screeners, these guys rightfully refer to countless cases over the years, where they have identified applicants who, had it not been for polygraph testing, would have been hired into badge and gun carrying jobs, even though they had been involved in everything from drug dealing, to child molesting, to drive-by shootings.  Background investigations almost NEVER turn this stuff up.  What other than polygraph, do you suggest?

George, we can argue validity rates, privacy issues, and what to do with false positives/negatives all day long.  These are all fair concerns.  Nonetheless, I would ask you to consider the examiners who are truly dedicated to what it is we do.  We have made mistakes for we are human and those of us who take this endevour seriously, are always looking for better ways.  Frankly, your endless depiction of the polygraph community as a wagon train of card dealing, shell shuffling gypsies, is not only inaccurate, but is getting really, really "old."  

PDD-Fed

[beech trees]

Beachtrees,

You said, "Where is the flim-flam? You're soaking in it."  You then quoted Mr. M's book, "But nowadays, the card trick has largely given way to the "numbers test...."" as your "proof" that the numbers test is (as you put it) "flim-flam"

Yeah, real good.  Here I see one pissed off, narrow minded guy with no life and a one sided agenda, quoting another  pissed off, narrow minded guy with no life and a one sided agenda...  Yes sir, that surely is "science"...

It is as much science as your profession. I never claimed my viewpoint is based in science-- only that YOUR profession, sir, is not science, has never been proven to be science, and never will be science-- unless phrenology and alchemy suddenly become fashionable again. Polygraphy is not science-- the Courts assert that statement, the medical profession asserts that statement, and the absence of peer reviewed literature to the contrary asserts that statement. It's funny and slightly sad, but you are the mirror image of the people you are describing above-- you and 'Batman' bemoaning the truth that this website reveals and your desparate and in my opinion, pathetic attempts to not only delude the readership into believing the legitimacy of your profession but also that you are all somehow 'on our side' when it comes to a polygraph interrogation. You two are beginning to sound just like the professional crybabies you so loathe.

By the way, here is something else for you to chew on and then call me a "liar" (I'm sure you will, you have to in order to protect your position that all polygraph examiners are "scam artists')...It so happens that I NEVER tell anyone the polygraph procedure detects "lies", nor do I tell them when they fail, that they "lied".  I tell them that I am checking for "significant" responses to certain questions. (that's what  the polygraph is recording anyhow).  When the subject lies, I show him his responses (just like I do on the numbers test.)  You see, the reason the largest response is frequently to the "key" on a numbers test, is because the number is significant just from haven been chosen by the examinee. I then point to the question(s) on the test showing similiar responses and ask him why a particular question seems significant to him.  I then leave it up to him to explain his reponses to me.  It may take a little time, but eventually he tells me about the 200 hits of LSD he sold last week.  I then report that and someone more deserving gets the job.  So, Beechtrees, I ask again, where's the "flim-flam'?

You apparently feel yourself to be morally superior because you administer the RI technique. Carefully parsing your language and telling the interrogation subject one thing when it means something else entirely still makes you a professional liar.

Feel free to post the name of the person who sold '200 hits of LSD last week'. Is he currently in jail? Where? When is his court date?

[beech trees]

George, we can argue validity rates, privacy issues, and what to do with false positives/negatives all day long.

No, not really. There is no arguing the facts:

1. Polygraphs have never been found to be more accurate than chance, ie.e, a simple coin-toss.

2. Many polygraph interrogations, regardless of the testing format, are sickening violations of the test subject's Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth Amendments to The US Constitution.

3. How can there be any argument here, when a false positive in many cases results in the ruination of a man's career, finances, and/or personal life? How many men and womens' lives have you ruined or irrevocably changed in this fashion?

[PDD-Fed]

Beechtrees,
You said:

Feel free to post the name of the person who sold '200 hits of LSD last week'. Is he currently in jail? Where? When is his court date?

Beechtrees, we give that information to congress, not to you.

PDD-Fed

[George W. Maschke]

PDD-Fed,

In reply to my question whether, in light of your admission that the polygraph does not detect lies, you ever render a "deception indicated" or "significant response" decision absent any substantive admission by a subject, you wrote in part:

Absolutely, If there are significant responses present, then they are reported as such.  And in the (rare) caes, they are unresolved, then that is also reported.  By the way, there are also lots of times, that the exam is NSR (No Significant Responses) present, and that is reported as well.

If the polygraph cannot detect lies, then just what does it mean when you report that there are "signficant responses" present? What the hell do those responses signify?! Absent an admision/confession, you haven't got a clue: the polygraph cannot detect lies. But in most governmental agencies, "significant responses" are taken to mean that the subject was lying. Applicants for employment who show "significant responses" are branded as liars and their applications are summarily rejected. All on the basis of a technique that has no scientific basis whatsoever and cannot detect lies.

However honorable your intentions, you, and your colleagues in the polygraph community, are participants in a process that on a regular basis results in innocent people being wrongly accused of deception and denied due process. It is this fundamental injustice that we find un-American and intolerable. We acknowledge that polygraphy has some utility in getting admissions from the naive and the gullible, but we believe that the collateral damage you (the polygraph community) are inflicting on the innocent is  unacceptable.

Members of the polygraph community may genuinely believe in polygraphy, but that belief does not alter the fact that they are charlatans--practitioners of a fraudulent art that has no grounding in the scientific method.

Our purpose here at AntiPolygraph.org is to warn members of the public, especially those who may face a polygraph interrogation, of the fraud you and your colleagues in the polygraph community are practicing against them. If this causes you chagrin, get used to it. We're not going away. But you're welcome to challenge anything we say in this uncensored forum.

[beech trees]

Beechtrees,
You said:


Beechtrees, we give that information to congress, not to you.

PDD-Fed

Again, I find it curious that you refer to yourself in the plural.

Your answer is dismissed as cutesy pablum. There never was a test subject who confessed to selling '200 hits of LSD last week'.

Another lie.

[J.B. McCloughan]

And what is it you tell them? For a polygraph to be effective, it is incumbent upon you the polygrapher to lie and deceive your interrogation victim. I just don't see the point in arguing this further, as now matter how you twist your
"But I'm a nice polygrapher, I really yam!" routine, you are still lying to and deceiving your examinee. HOW you do it is irrelavent.


JB, you're obviously an adherent to the dictum, "If you say something enough times, people will believe it to be true." So, for the benefit of the readers I will reiterate again, hopefully for the last time:

Polygraphy is not a science. Therefore, it cannot be a valid diagnostic tool regardless of the setting and use.

YES, sometimes woefully ignorant criminal suspects cave and confess when you're particularly persuasive that you can somehow read their minds concerning a particular crime. Cops used to load XEROX machines with pieces of paper that read TRUE or FALSE and then lay the hand of the rube they were interrogating on the scanning bed. They would tell the person to lie about their age, and out would pop a FALSE.

The courts have decided that trickery and deceit are acceptable interrogation tactics when it comes to eliciting confessions. Polygraphy is a part of that process, so in a legal sense it is acceptable. The results, of course, are inadmissible in a vast majority of courts in the US-- indeed, the mere mention of the polygraph is usually enough for a mistrial.

By the way, how many polygraph interrogation subjects have you disqualified for using the kinds of countermeasures recommended in The Lie Behind The Lie Detector (ABSENT an admission from the subject)?

beech trees,

I will respond to you in part.  

First, I believe it to be quite clear from my prior posts what the acquaintance exam is used for.

Second, where has it ever been proven that it is incumbent for a polygraph examiner to lie to the examinee for the exam/test to be valid?

Third, my arguments for the validity of CQT polygraph were based on peer reviewed scientific research.  I am not here to convince anyone of anything.  Banter as you may, it does not change the results of the current available scientific research. You have a right to your 'opinion' about polygraph.  Conflicting views neither prove or disprove that polygraph is a science.  I have already debated this topic providing the contradictory evidence of CQT polygraphs validity and will let it stand at that.

Fourth, please cite for me recent federal court rulings on polygraph were there is reference to blanket exclusion as forensic scientific evidence.  Please cite a recent case were the mere mention of polygraph is grounds for a mistrial.

Finally, I don't think you have paid close attention to what I have wrote in the past.  I do not nor have I ever conduct pre-employment polygraphs.  So I have never disqualified anyone with a polygraph exam/test countermeasures or not.

[PDD-Fed]

Let's go back to the original message that started this string.  I believe the question was:

Q:  "How Can I Counter the Relevant/Irrelevant Technique?"
A:  There ain't none.
Q:  But what about the advice given to me by George Maschke, the great anti-polygraph master himself, "create reactions to a different pair of two relevant questions during each chart presentation in order to avoid a "con-spec-nificant" reaction to any one relevant question."
A:  Sure, and by creating responses to "a different pair of two relevant questions during each chart presentation", the examinee has just created more than enough responses to ensure that he fails the exam.
Q:  Do you mean that the advice given to me by Mr. Maschke, will actually CAUSE me to fail the exam?
A:  Yep.  (I suspect he is actually a "plant" for the American Polygraph Association)
Q:  But Mr. Maschke, Mr. Williams, Mr. Scalabrini, and Mr. Beechtrees all tell me that ANY polygraph exam can be beaten "rather easily"  All I have to do is create responses to "control" questions...
A:  Maybe, maybe not.  How about we just take away all the "controls" and see how you do?
Q:  But that's not fair!
A:  Life's not fair.  How about telling the truth?
Q:  But if I tell the truth, I won't get this really cool job!  How about if I tell my prospective employer that I do not feel like taking his R&I pre-employment test?
A:  How about if your prospective employer suggests you find a new career in either the home cleaning or food service industries?
Q:  But the guys on this site tell me that I can beat ANY polygraph exam, that I can beat the examiner "at his own game!"  I have to take this R&I test tomorrow!  I must know where to "create responses", where to "take control."  PLEASE, PLEASE tell me how to Counter the Relevant/Irrelevant Technique!!!!!!!!!!1

Well George and friends.  You are so fond of "challenges".  You like to throw down the gauntlet?  Here is my challenge to you.  Tell this poor lost soul how to "beat" the R&I test that he is REQUIRED to take to get this job he wants but based on his past behavior, does not deserve.  Now, I know you will remove this message quickly from the "Ten most recent posts."  You ALWAYS remove any post from that list that does not support your personal belief system (You have removed at least 2 of mine).  But if you do take up the challenge, then either figure something out, or ADMIT there is at least ONE procedure that all the spinctor squeezing, tack sticking, toe curling, and cheek biting in the world, can not counter....

PDD-Fed

[Anonymous]

With regard to the RI polygraph test, it is not Mr. Maschke or any of his 21st century antipolygraph colleagues who long ago largely dismissed this form of testing, but the polygraph community itself.  Although sorely lacking in scientific control, it presumably was the aim of Cleve Backster and others (hardly stalwarts of the antipolygraph community) some forty plus years ago to remove the embarrassment of RI testing from the polygraph community through the introduction of the control question "test."  That which has been overlooked in this present discussion and which most assuredly gets the cart before the horse is that the RI test has no validity as a diagnostic test.  Discussions about countermeasures to this format largely miss the point.  This format is simply a series of "hot-button" items (relevant questions) which may be intercompared without any form of control and which each individually can cause autonomic response for a plethora of reasons (amongst others--simply the circumstance of having been questioned about subject matter(s) obviously emotionally laden to all).  Many of those who have used it over the years (particularly in the federal polygraph intelligence community) have not even pretended that it had a scientific basis or that it should be objectively scored (generally some form of rank-order scoring when done).  They simply "clinically" read these charts---a polygrapher's euphemism for arriving at any conclusions/opinions that he cares to see/render based on any or no considerations he chooses to employ.  This format is such an embarrassment to this day, that even the polygraph community would rise up in arms if told to abandon their control question test (albeit completely lacking in scientific control) for this nonsense....