AntiPolygraph.org News » Other https://antipolygraph.org/blog News about polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, and other purported "lie detectors." Sun, 10 Nov 2013 10:53:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.1 Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs Subject of Scathing DHS Privacy Report https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2013/05/02/customs-and-border-protection-internal-affairs-subject-of-scathing-dhs-privacy-report/ https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2013/05/02/customs-and-border-protection-internal-affairs-subject-of-scathing-dhs-privacy-report/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 12:05:43 +0000 https://antipolygraph.org/blog/?p=973

Continue reading ‘Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs Subject of Scathing DHS Privacy Report’ »]]> James F. Tomsheck

James F. Tomsheck

AntiPolygraph.org has received a previously unpublished report of investigation (934 kb PDF) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Privacy Office into an information-sharing program operated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Internal Affairs (CBP IA), headed by CBP Assistant Commissioner James F. Tomsheck.1

The report, by DHS Chief Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan, is dated 18 July 2012 and documents gross violations of DHS privacy policy by Tomsheck in connection with a pilot program whereby CBP IA shared personal information on CBP employees with the FBI. The project “came to be known as the SAR Exploitation Initiative Pilot (SAREX Pilot or Pilot).”2

The ostensible purpose of this project was for CBP IA to “enhance CBP IA’s Background Investigation (BI)/Periodic Review (PR) process by leveraging the FBI’s supposed ability to conduct federated searches of law enforcement databases.” CBP IA provided personal information on over 3,000 employees to the FBI, but received, “informally,” from the FBI information on only 9 or 10 individuals.3

Callahan’s investigation “revealed a lack of oversight by CBP IA leadership to ensure that DHS policies governing the sharing of [personally identifiable information] were adhered to in conducting” the information sharing pilot program” and “found an apparent blatant disregard for concerns raised by the [Office of Inspector General] and CBP IA staff who questioned the legal authority for, and privacy implications of, the Pilot.”

Callahan also notes, among other things:

…During my meeting with the Assistant Commissioner [James F. Tomsheck] on April 26, 2012, the Assistant Commissioner seemed to believe that CBP IA’s mission exempts it from following applicable privacy law and DHS privacy policy. I believe this attitude is likely to result in a culture of non-compliance in CBP IA. On May 10, 2012, the Assistant Commissioner told me that CBP IA is already engaging in such activities outside the Pilot. It is critical, therefore, that steps be taken now to ensure that any current or future sharing of PII by CBP IA complies with applicable law and DHS policy, and that CBP counsel and the CBP Privacy Officer are consulted prior to implementation of any such projects….

AntiPolygraph.org invites commentary.

  1. Tomsheck’s office appears to be the lead agency in Operation Lie Busters, a criminal investigation evidently targeting the teaching of polygraph countermeasures.
  2. The acronym “SAR” is not defined in the report.
  3. The CBP polygraph unit’s summary of significant admissions obtained during polygraph examinations, which reveals the existence of Operation Lie Busters, mentions that “ten applicants for law enforcement positions within CBP were identified as receiving sophisticated polygraph Countermeasure training in an effort to defeat the polygraph requirement.” It is not clear whether these might be the individuals on whom the FBI informally provided information.
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DHS Seeks Smell-Based Lie Detector https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2009/03/11/dhs-seeks-smell-based-lie-detector/ https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2009/03/11/dhs-seeks-smell-based-lie-detector/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:01:53 +0000 https://antipolygraph.org/blog/?p=277

Continue reading ‘DHS Seeks Smell-Based Lie Detector’ »]]> You’ve heard of the polygraph. Now the US Government is seeking to develop a “smellograph.” UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Shaun Waterman reports that the Department of Homeland Security is funding a “proof of concept” study into whether odors emitted by the human body can be used to determine whether a person is lying:

DHS wants to use human body odor as biometric identifier, clue to deception
Published: March 9, 2009 at 3:35 PM

By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to study the possibility that human body odor could be used to tell when people are lying or to identify individuals in the same way that fingerprints can.

In a federal procurement document posted Friday on the Web, the department’s Science and Technology Directorate said it would conduct an “outsourced, proof-of-principle study to determine if human odor signatures can serve as an indicator of deception. … As a secondary goal, this study will examine … human odor samples for evidence to support the theory that an individual can be identified by that individual’s odor signature.”

The procurement announcement, titled “Human Odor as a Biometric for Deception” is available here. It should be noted that while they didn’t sniff for liars, the East German secret police had similar ideas about identifying people by their odor and maintained a vast “smell register” of glass tubes with cloth swatches storing for future reference the “odor signatures” of dissidents. The scheme didn’t work particularly well. Do we really want DHS to be emulating the Stasi?

Officials said that the work was at a very early stage, but the announcement brought criticism from civil liberties advocates who said it showed the department’s priorities were misplaced.

The procurement notice said the department is already “conducting experiments in deceptive behavior and collecting human odor samples” and that the research it hopes to fund “will consist primarily of the analysis and study of the human odor samples collected to determine if a deception indicator can be found.”

“This research has the potential for enhancing our ability to detect individuals with harmful intent,” the notice said. “A positive result from this proof-of-principle study would provide evidence that human odor is a useful indicator for certain human behaviors and, in addition, that it may be used as a biometric identifier.”

DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told United Press International that “proof of concept” work was the very earliest stage of technological development.

The directorate “is trying to determine what factors of human behavior and chemistry can provide clues to the intent to deceive,” she said, adding that the work would be carried out by the Federally Funded Research and Development Center run by the non-profit Mitre Corp., which conducts cutting-edge research for U.S. military, homeland security and intelligence agencies.

Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty project, told UPI that the plan showed the department had “misplaced priorities.”

“The history of DHS’ deployment of these technologies has been one colossal failure after another,” he said. “There is no lie detector. This research has been a long, meandering journey, which has taken us down one blind alley after another.”

Steinhardt added that even well-established biometric-identity technologies like fingerprinting have resulted in individuals being inaccurately identified, like Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who got an apology from the FBI after being wrongfully accused of having had a hand in the 2004 Madrid rail bombings.

“None of the biometrics for identity have worked very well, with the possible exception of DNA,” he said, adding that even fingerprint evidence was “increasingly being challenged in courts around the country.”

“This shows the misplaced priorities (of DHS),” he said. “The government doesn’t need to take us down another blind alley.”

Steinhardt is right, and given the current financial crisis, this technological flight of fancy should get the budgetary axe.

Recent scientific research shows that so-called volatile organic compounds present in human sweat, saliva and urine can be analyzed using a technique known as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Research published by the Royal Society in London in 2006 found “a substantial number of marker compounds (in human sweat) that can potentially differentiate individuals or groups.”

Researchers took five samples each from 179 individuals over a 10-week period and analyzed them, finding hundreds of chemical markers that remained more or less constant for each individual over time.

An analysis of these compounds “found strong evidence for individual (odor) fingerprints,” the researchers concluded.

However, they warned that some individuals appear to have less distinctive odors than others, adding that “the reason for the variation in distinctiveness is unclear.” More importantly, some individuals’ odors changed during the course of the study. “Not all subjects had consistent marker compounds over time, which might be due to physiological, dietary or other changes,” the researchers concluded.

The researchers also cautioned that some of these marker compounds might be “exogenous chemical contaminants” from skin-care or perfume products or tobacco smoke and other substances present in an individual’s environment. About a quarter of the 44 apparently distinctive marker compounds they were able to analyze appeared to be artificial contaminants, the researchers said.

“Determining the origins of individual and sex-specific odors — and controlling exogenous chemical contaminants — may provide the most important challenge for future … studies,” the researchers said.

Those challenges are likely to be significant, and they will multiply if the techniques are deployed in the field.

“While some of these sensors perform well in the lab, the real world may be different,” technology consultant and author John Vacca said. “The technology is still in its infancy.”

AntiPolygraph.org’s George Maschke has prepared the following video commentary regarding DHS’s plans for a smell-based lie detector:

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Sam Harris on True Lie Detection https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2009/01/03/sam-harris-on-true-lie-detection/ https://antipolygraph.org/blog/2009/01/03/sam-harris-on-true-lie-detection/#comments Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:36:28 +0000 https://antipolygraph.org/blog/?p=211

Continue reading ‘Sam Harris on True Lie Detection’ »]]> Neuroscientist Sam Harris answers the Edge Foundation’s annual question for 2009, “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” with a commentary titled “True Lie Detection.” Excerpt:

When evaluating the social cost of deception, one must consider all of the misdeeds — marital infidelities, Ponzi schemes, premeditated murders, terrorist atrocities, genocides, etc. — that are nurtured and shored-up, at every turn, by lies. Viewed in this wider context, deception commends itself, perhaps even above violence, as the principal enemy of human cooperation. Imagine how our world would change if, when the truth really mattered, it became impossible to lie.

The development of mind-reading technology is in its infancy, of course. But reliable lie-detection will be much easier to achieve than accurate mind reading. Whether on not we ever crack the neural code, enabling us to download a person’s private thoughts, memories, and perceptions without distortion, we will almost surely be able to determine, to a moral certainty, whether a person is representing his thoughts, memories, and perceptions honestly in conversation. Compared to many of the other hypothetical breakthroughs put forward in response to this year’s Edge question, the development of a true lie-detector would represent a very modest advance over what is currently possible through neuroimaging. Once this technology arrives, it will change (almost) everything.

Economist Robin Hanson at the Overcoming Bias blog takes a more skeptical view in his brief commentary, “A World Without Lies?”

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