"Lying, deception and fraud cannot be allowed to influence the hiring of national security and law enforcement officials..."
Wait until I get my breath back. Laughing that hard can really hurt.
A former cop and owner of the website Polygraph.com has pleaded guilty to five charges of obstruction of justice and mail fraud for teaching people how to cheat lie detector tests. Douglas Williams, 69, of Norman, Oklahoma, faces up to 20 years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine for selling polygraph-evasion training to two …
"If they really were 'lie detectors' then it would not be possible for Mr Williams, or anyone else, to teach you how to 'cheat' the test."
But that doesn't matter. Pseudo science like this is great for the law enforcement authorities - if it supposedly shows you're guilty they'll use it against you, but it it says you're not then it won't be proof of innocence.
It's an interesting concept, because if these undercover agents didn't actually commit the crimes they admitted to, how can the guy be charged with obstruction?
The official indictment indicates that there are two counts of mail fraud (pretty much any criminal use of the USPS is considered mail fraud... it's a nice two-for-one in many cases) and then three counts of witness tampering, which seem to be convincing the people who claimed to have committed crimes to try to convince the Federal Government they did not commit crimes.
Seems off. While I have no doubt that actively working to help someone fraudulently obtain employment, government or otherwise, is at least grounds for a civil case, if not criminal depending on the means, I get a little bothered that he's being charged with obstructing justice for imaginary crimes. Based on the wording in the indictment, the act of doing a background check and polygraph is considered an "investigation" of the candidate, meaning that trying to hinder law enforcement's ability to investigate is obstruction... but again... no actual crime was committed and this should have been enough to at least get a search warrant to find real people he helped.
The two positions in question were for the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol. Both are law enforcement positions. Interfering with the police in any way, directly or indirectly, can be considered obstruction of justice. That's where the charge comes from, and the charge is in federal court since both are federal positions and because he crossed state lines to commit them.
The two positions in question were for the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol. Both are law enforcement positions. Interfering with the police in any way, directly or indirectly, can be considered obstruction of justice. That's where the charge comes from, and the charge is in federal court since both are federal positions and because he crossed state lines to commit them.
I misspoke in that the first undercover story was an already hired airport inspector (not an LEO in any way, shape, or form) being investigated for letting a friend through with contraband. So that would be an actual crime, though again, it never actually happened meaning there was no actual investigation being obstructed. It sure could be used as evidence for a search warrant to get actual records or access to actual cases where he tried to help someone fool the machine.
The second one, however, is not because it's an LEO, but because the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has allowed the Border Patrol to flag some of their positions as being subject to deeper "suitability determinations" (their own description) that can include polygraph tests. The fact that it was an LEO made the position more likely to be subject to such checking, but there are other positions within the OPM's purview that can be subject to these requirements and have nothing to do with being an LEO or even working with them.
My point is that as no actual crime or application was being investigated so no actual crime by Mr. Williams was committed. Unlike a sting operation where a perp is caught handing over a brick of cocaine or illegal weapons, the possession of which is a crime, this is a man who is trying to help someone impede something that doesn't exist. This should be a basis for further investigation, including wire taps and account monitoring, while they either wait for an actual situation where he's trying to help someone evade criminal charges or mislead an investigation or they can go through his history and tie him to someone they already investigated and charged or let go.
"...if there are techniques like meditating,..."
Forget about meditation. Use the Penn & Teller method instead. Can be learned in one minute or so, and is so mainstream that it has been explained in several TV series. The Penn & Teller's videos are in Youtube,
Can't understand why the USA is still using those devices for anything related to Law enforcement or security. It's a fucking scam!
Never seen the shows you're referring to but we messed around with one in the biomechanics lab when I was at University. It generally "worked" if one was totally cooperative with it and it took a while to suppress deviations on lies but it only took about 10 minutes to learn to create false positives on control questions and render the device entirely useless.
It generally "worked" if one was totally cooperative with it and it took a while to suppress deviations on lies but it only took about 10 minutes to learn to create false positives on control questions and render the device entirely useless.
It is strongly dependent on the skills of the interrogator/operator to identify a baseline and then ask questions that give a sufficient deviation from that baseline to raise questions. The cause of that deviation is where the problem lies with polygraph testing. The issue is not that people lie, it is why.
If you are a pathological liar - won't work.
If you are a sociopath - won't work.
If you truly believe your own lie - won't work.
If you simply don't care whether your questioner believes you or not - won't work.
If you have other concerns on your mind (either deliberately or involuntarily) - won't work.
If you have a medical condition that randomly affects your breathing/heart rate/sweating - won't work.
The polygraph does not know if any of the above applies. So it can not detect lies.
Pathological liar who lies about everything - Include obvious questions. If the person lies about those, put him aside as such and investigate further.
Sociopath - Use questions that may trigger alternate responses. Sociopaths rarely are perpetually calm; they merely react differently and can be tested for such.
Delusion - Test for delusion using contextual questions. If subject is deluded enough to believe his own lie, set aside for psychiatric evaluation.
Random/erratic pulse/breating for other reasons - Check for these before the polygraph. If they're like this before the test, you can predict inconsistency and try another way.
And how do you know what I am? I'm not going to tell you, am I?
Am I a pathological liar? What if I don't lie about obvious questions?
Am I sociopath? Maybe I appear calm because I'm telling the truth.
Am I delusional? I may be telling the truth, they might be my lies. You don't know.
Do I get breathless randomly? I don't have to be connected to a polygraph to be lying. Or maybe I'm a very ill person. Which is it?
The technique is very simple, I will teach it here, as I have successfully "beaten" them on several occasions. First, get comfortable and proficient with meditation. You need to be relaxed and stay that way. Second, when asked to "lie" on a control question, visualize something disturbing to initiate a nervous response. Then, no matter what you are asked, just stay relaxed, the machine DEPENDS on you to tell it you are lying. Finally, just for good measure, take a beta-blocker to help mask any remaining reaction. With these techniques you can sail through any test. This information is protected under the First Amendment, so you government goons can blow this out your ass.
Can't understand why the USA is still using those devices for anything related to Law enforcement or security. It's a fucking scam!
Maybe the real test is to see if you start looking up ways to beat the polygraph? BTW, it's a normal scam, a f*cking scam is entrapping a senator with someone who is not his partner :)
So, if he'd turned the supposed DHS guy into the FBI for attempting to learn how pass the polygraph, then he would have been ok? Or maybe turning in some or all of former clients? I'm puzzled by this whole thing because as I recall, polygraph tests cannot be used in a court of law as they are "unreliable" and based on the skill or lack of skill of the operator.
I'm not sure where the mail fraud came in.. they paid, he delivered said services.
I have very mixed feelings about this... my sense is they went after him because of the "ex-cop" part.
I think it is more probably along the lines of "did he intend to commit a crime or was he reckless as to whether it was a crime or not?"
No wait: "Do we think he intended to commit ... "
Hang-on: "Can we convince a jury he intended ... "
Nailed it: "Will he cop to a plea rather than face 300 years without parole?."
I think they went after him because they want to continue using the lie detector and they want to suppress anything that endangers their toy.
The obvious value of the lie detector is not in detecting lies, but in scaring the people who believe in it. Who cares if it works if the tested subject believes it works (and will change his behavior or quit before taking the test). But maybe they'll get the Streisand effect with this case and more people take note of the ridiculous pseudo-scientific practices in the law enforcement agencies.
I's be curious how this would up in court if he'd fought it. Generally something like this would be used for finding evidence of *other* crimes which the person could be charged for, otherwise the charges are made purely based on his intent to commit a crime and not his having committed the crime itself, which is somewhat questionable to say the least
Actually, it does. See, there are warm deserts and cold deserts. Desert just means that precipitation is slim to non-existent. Large parts of Canada's arctic, for example, are deserts. They just aren't the "hot Nevada sun" kind of desert. So which desert matters, as it gives me an idea of what is plausible to see at my feet, and I can then infer what the first thing I'd see might be by using my knowledge of flora and fauna statistical distribution for the various world deserts.
For that matter, why be limited to Terran deserts? Most of our solar system is desert. That's a lot of different things I could see at my feet. There's some interesting geology out there!
This man did not do anything more than provide *INFORMATION* that was his own.
This conviction is bullshit on the highest possible order; it is the epitome of "prosecution of thought crimes".
So much for the Constitution of the United States of America, and so much for any freedoms that we may have ever had.
Remember kiddies, and learn the lesson here. Simply speaking, passing along instruction, that is to say, teaching someone how to do something by your words, can now be prosecuted by Big Brother.
Even Orwell would be shaking his head in disbelief.
>Hmmm, sounds to me like he encouraged them to lie while under oath. That's the crime.
It seems weird to me, given that he knew he was skating close to the edge, that he ever allowed his clients to discuss why they wanted his services. Is he on "perverting the course of justice" charges or "conspiracy to pervert the course of justice" charges?
It also seems odd that organisations involved in security would use such dumb systems. Isn't it common knowledge that if you add bad security to good security you end up with bad security - i.e. your effective security level is the lowest of all your security systems?
Everyone knows that a polygraph -- a 'lie detector' -- doesn't work that well and belief that it somehow is an absolute verifier of truth shows a mindset rooted in the 1950s.
I'm very unhappy that the Feds feel that they can prosecute someone for telling people what the shortcomings are of this type of machine and how they can be exploited. This is wrong on so many levels. But then they get away with successfully prosecuting people for lying to them -- or rather, disagreeing with their version of events (which is what every defendant in a criminal case does, which is why they're defending themselves). The Feds are a menace to both our society and our Constitution....they really need reining in.
Surely the only thing he can be charged with is on the lines of false advertising / trade description / misrepresentation?
The polygraph doesn't work - its a stupid con trick. Therefore any claim to be able to train to beat it is also a con.
However in this case he has a good defence: if he can scientifically prove that polygraphs don't work, then it would be impossible to convict him of trying to beat it. Of course if he does go down that route, then he becomes a self-incriminated fraudster
The only reason that the U.S. Government still uses polygraphs after all these years is that they haven't got the balls to admit they've been conned.
They bloody things have about as much scientific basis validating their operation as Scientology's E-meter.
Isn't the e-meter based off the same technology as the polygraph? Galvanic response?
The polygraph measures multiple signals - that's the "poly" part.
The e-meter (the "cans") is a toy1 version of one aspect of the polygraph. Also, in the Scientology promotional films I've seen,2 it doesn't produce a graph, just an instantaneous reading with a meter. They've probably fancied it up by now, though.
1As opposed to the polygraph, which is a fairly sophisticated piece of nonsense technology.
2Dropped by the "church" a couple of times with friends back in my undergrad days, to take their whacky personality-profile test for later mockery. You also had to sit through the film, though it offers some decent MST3K moments. We gave it up when we discovered the Moonies do the same, but with free snacks.
Aha, thankee for the in depth response. I knew polygraphs relied on more than just galvanic response - as you said, that's the poly part - but it's been a few years since I've done my research into Scientology and the e-meter specs were a little fuzzy. Cheers!
This is typical US govt overreach. They like capitalism, of course, but if you're making money, they want their pound.
All this info is readily available on the 'net. Ex-cop, they want to teach him a lesson and all who might follow him.
No matter where you live in the world, if you think anything American is legal, it's only because they haven't arrested you yet!