Feds stinging polygraph "beating" instructors

[marting]

WASHINGTON — Federal agents have launched a criminal investigation of instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie detector tests as part of the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on security violators and leakers.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/...ts-feds-target-instructors.html#storylink=cpy


Interesting. Criminally going after people that offer dubious countermeasures against something not used in courts and considered highly unreliable by the National Academy of Science, and for countermeasures which the Feds themselves claim don't work, seems incredibly bizarre.

Like some psych tests, polygraphy works best when people don't know how it works and when someone completely innocent does learn how it "works" they become more likely to fail.

OTOH, apparently these people were approached by undercover agents claiming to be criminals (or maybe spies) offering money to learn to pass. How disgusing is that? I have no sympathy for those bums.

Nuts.

 

[Mitchell314]

Crazy all around. Charging somebody for teaching how to circumvent polygraph tests is completely asinine. Then again the defendants don't appear to have the best intentions at heart, to put it lightly.

 

[rjh01]

The mythbusters showed how to beat a polygraph machine. The method is to whenever you lie you have a peaceful image in your mind and when you tell the truth you have a nasty image. Trouble is trying to keep this up for an hour or however long the test is is very hard.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's a very disturbing article on several levels:

Who needs a law when you can just make up your own?

By attempting to prosecute the instructors, federal officials are adopting a controversial legal stance that sharing such information should be treated as a crime and isn’t protected under the First Amendment in some circumstances.

Entrapment anyone?

“Imagine you’re a 25-year-old who has dreamed of serving in the field of law enforcement,” he said. “You finally make it, only to find yourself booted out of the hiring process, the result of a false-positive exam result. In my opinion, that’s a real problem, not the sharing of information on countermeasures.”

George Maschke, a former Army Reserve intelligence officer who’s a translator and runs a website that’s critical of polygraph testing, said he also suspected he’d been targeted although he’d done nothing illegal.

In May, the translator received an unsolicited email in Persian from someone purporting to be “a member of an Islamic group that seeks to restore freedom to Iraq.”

“Because the federal police are suspicious of me, they want to do a lie detector test on me,” the email read.

The emailer asked for a copy of Maschke’s book, which describes countermeasures, and for Maschke to help “in any other way.”

Maschke said he suspected the email was a ruse by federal agents. He advised the person “to comply with applicable laws,” according to an email he showed McClatchy.

Of course, who needs to pay for secrets when you can just read the news story?

which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting and mental arithmetic.

 

[The Norseman]

That's a very disturbing article on several levels:

Who needs a law when you can just make up your own?


Entrapment anyone?



Of course, who needs to pay for secrets when you can just read the news story?

Who needs to pay for secrets when Mr. Maschke offers the book for free in either pdf, Scribd, or GoogleDocs formatting?

https://antipolygraph.org/pubs.shtml

 

[alfaniner]

If it goes to court, will they be able to admit the polygraph evidence?

 

[marting]

If it goes to court, will they be able to admit the polygraph evidence?

I've followed polygraphy since a 60 Minutes show 30 years ago. Amongst other segments one was of a single, middle aged, female bank employee, proven to be falsely accused by a polygrapher. It was explained that the examiner had asked, aside from whether she took money, if she was a lesbian*. It turned out to be a very poor choice of comparison question though one that is no longer asked. It peaked my curiosity as to how polygraphs could possibly work and, more than anything else, resulted in me studying the practice. Its as interesting as studying any other kind of "woo" and perhaps more disturbingly so because of the harmful effects false positives can have.

My guess is they won't have to show that polygraphy works or that the countermeasures taught work. I suspect the judge won't even allow any evidence of polygraph or countermeasure efficacy. They only would have to show that countermeasures were taught with the intent of defeating or interfering with a criminal investigation. It's much like the terrorist wannabe stings where the FBI provides non working ordnance the target is incapable of building on their own.

What's obvious is that countermeasures clearly must work to some degree or they wouldn't be trying to shut these guys down. Since exactly how polygraphy works, as well as countermeasures, is public info this is a bit of a risk as it shoots a hole in the argument polygraphers endlessly make that countermeasures not only don't work but could increase the risk of false positives.

I like the comparison to voodoo. Polygraphy works if the subject thinks it does or at least might, the examiner picks comparison questions that produce the proper relative response (something of an art and very subjective), and/or the subject, if innocent, hasn't learned enough on his own to scare the crap out of him and invert the expected response.

*As to why, its easy to find out but if you ever expect to take a polygraph the less you know about it the better.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So specifically which law says dealing in countermeasures is illegal? I still don't see anything even remotely suggesting that is illegal.

 

[marting]

So specifically which law says dealing in countermeasures is illegal? I still don't see anything even remotely suggesting that is illegal.

Dealing in countermeasures is not illegal. Dealing in countermeasures, or virtually anything else, to facilitate criminal activity is. A guy was recently convicted for building concealed compartments in vehicles. There is nothing illegal about doing that but when you do it knowing with a high degree of certitude that your customer will be using it to smuggle drugs, it becomes criminal.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/alfred-anaya/all/

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Dealing in countermeasures is not illegal. Dealing in countermeasures, or virtually anything else, to facilitate criminal activity is. A guy was recently convicted for building concealed compartments in vehicles. There is nothing illegal about doing that but when you do it knowing with a high degree of certitude that your customer will be using it to smuggle drugs, it becomes criminal.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/alfred-anaya/all/

Analogy fail. Aiding and abetting is a lot more clear when you build a secret drug compartment. What else is the compartment conceivably for and did the people who purchased this service have direct connections to smuggling?

But teaching someone how lie detectors work and how they fail? That's knowledge in the public sphere. Only if you taught a technique to a known criminal who went on to commit a crime is there even the most remote chance of a legit prosecution. Otherwise this is government overreach 101, no brainer.

 

[ravdin]

So specifically which law says dealing in countermeasures is illegal? I still don't see anything even remotely suggesting that is illegal.

It's beside the point whether or not it's illegal. The point is to make an example out of those defying the federal government.

 

[marting]

Analogy fail. Aiding and abetting is a lot more clear when you build a secret drug compartment. What else is the compartment conceivably for and did the people who purchased this service have direct connections to smuggling?

But teaching someone how lie detectors work and how they fail? That's knowledge in the public sphere. Only if you taught a technique to a known criminal who went on to commit a crime is there even the most remote chance of a legit prosecution. Otherwise this is government overreach 101, no brainer.

Your statement that it is clear that building a hidden compartment is illegal isn't true In fact the article discusses, contrary to teaching countermeasures, how widely it is done for completely legitimate purposes. He freaked out when he discovered one of his customers had large qty's of money in one he had to fix. Now he's doing over 20 years in a larger container because the court found he must have known the large amount of money was drug related.

In the case of countermeasures, it's teaching with knowledge that its intended use is to conceal criminal activity. Counterneasure teaching in and of itself is not illegal. So far.

In that scenario, prosecutors may pursue charges of false statements, wire fraud, obstructing an agency proceeding and “misprision of felony,” which is defined as having knowledge of serious criminal conduct and attempting to conceal it.

 

[marting]

It's beside the point whether or not it's illegal. The point is to make an example out of those defying the federal government.

When they wanna get you there are enough "flexible" laws they can find. Martha Stewart was a case in point ... she wasn't convicted of insider trading.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Your statement that it is clear that building a hidden compartment is illegal isn't true

I suppose not since you've built a straw version of my argument.

Building a hidden compartment ... and here's the part you left out ... that is directly connected to drug smugglers.

Hope that helps.

 

[marting]

SG,

Sorry for misstating your argument. It was inaccurate. This was your argument.

Aiding and abetting is a lot more clear when you build a secret drug compartment. What else is the compartment conceivably for ...

The reason this is overreach is that these compartments only become illegal when provided to people that one knows will use them to transport drugs. That may be one use but they are apparently quite popular and not just amongst drug smugglers. From the article:

Over the years, these secret stash spots—or traps, as they’re known in automotive slang—have become a popular luxury item among the wealthy and shady alike.

But prosecutors didn't go after him for aiding and abetting:

But the prosecutors in Kansas went after Anaya for a much graver crime than selling paraphernalia: They indicted him as a full-fledged conspirator in the California-to-Kansas trafficking operation. Even though he had never seen or touched any drugs and had been shunned as an informant after building just four traps in exchange for less than $20,000

OTOH, Dixon plead guilty unlike Anaya who went to trial and was convicted by a jury.

Dixon has pleaded guilty to federal charges of obstructing an agency proceeding and wire fraud.

Anaya, who had never seen drugs or discussed drugs with his customers made this statement to the court after he was found guilty:

I built these compartments just like any other business that I had, doing stereo business, customizing needs to people’s needs in their vehicles, and I admit there was probably some irresponsibility of building these things, but I was only—I just figured it would be, like, as long as I didn’t know what was going on—and don’t want to know—there was no law against it … If I had known there was a law against it, I wouldn’t be here. If there was a law that says these compartments are illegal to build, I would not build them. If I had known this was going to happen to me, I wouldn’t have done it.

Seems to me like they are both overreaches.

 

[luchog]

The mythbusters showed how to beat a polygraph machine. The method is to whenever you lie you have a peaceful image in your mind and when you tell the truth you have a nasty image. Trouble is trying to keep this up for an hour or however long the test is is very hard.

Actually, its ridiculously easy to pass a polygraph with a few controlled breathing and relaxation exercises.

Polygraphs are greatly overrated, and sketchy science at best, bordering on pseudoscience; and the outcome depends at least as much on the operator's personal biases and preconceptions than on the individual being tested. Many jurisdictions do not accept polygraph tests as evidence because of this. There is increasing awareness of their limitations, and pressure to eliminate them entirely because of how easily they are to manipulate by both the operator and the subject.

They gained major ground in the business world back in the '90s, as part of a major management fad that included similarly suspect "honesty tests" and personality type inventories. SI had a good article on said fads around that time.