Continue reading ‘Is AntiPolygraph.org Being Targeted By the NSA?’ »]]> An e-mail received by AntiPolygraph.org in August from a U.S. Navy petty officer suggests that AntiPolygraph.org may be targeted for electronic surveillance. The petty officer wrote:

I was recently polygraphed by the DOD and they had logs of websites I had visited the night before from my ISP and mentioned this site by name and attempted to disprove to me everything you have on the website. Certainly a scare tactic, more so interesting how they used logs regarding my web activity. Seems somewhat constitutionally messed up if you ask me.

AntiPolygraph.org replied asking whether the logs of websites were from a commercial ISP, or whether it was perhaps the military network NIPRNet. The petty officer replied “It was a commercial ISP from my own personal house!” adding that (s)he was headed to work and would send another e-mail regarding his/her experience later that day.

The petty officer did not send another e-mail and did not reply to repeated e-mail inquiries. Recently contacted by phone, the petty officer hanged up.

It seems plausible that the petty officer received a talking-to before (s)he could send the follow-up message promised in August.

The petty officer’s account suggests that the U.S. Government may be targeting AntiPolygraph.org in an attempt to identify those who visit the site. Journalist Glenn Greenwald reported in July, based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, that the NSA operates a system codenamed XKEYSCORE that “allows an analyst to learn the IP addresses of every person who visits any website the analyst specifies.”

AntiPolygraph.org might be of interest to NSA because we provide information on polygraph techniques employed by the U.S. Government for personnel security screening. Our free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF), includes information on techniques that can be used to pass a polygraph examination whether or not one is telling the truth. We make this information available in order to provide honest individuals with information that can help to mitigate the serious risk of a false positive outcome. However, the same information can also be used by deceptive persons to pass the polygraph.

In August, McClatchy reporters Marisa Taylor and Cleve R. Wootsen, Jr. reported that federal agents had launched “a criminal investigation of instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie detector tests.” A key objective of the investigation seems to have been to identify the instructors’ customers. Business records seized from the two instructors targeted, Chad Dixon and Doug Williams, “included the names of as many as 5,000 people.” AntiPolygraph.org’s free book is downloaded about 1,000 times in a typical week.

NSA whistleblower Russ Tice, contacted in June and asked whether AntiPolygraph.org would be a likely target for direct monitoring in order to match up visitors to the site against a list of government employees or applicants replied: “YES! NSA is already targeting visitors to your site.  This is a no brainer.”

Also in June, in an interview with Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs show, Tice mentioned that contacts inside the NSA who are providing him information are all beating the polygraph:

As a matter of fact, all my people that I talk to have had to learn how to beat polygraphs, and they’ve all been successful in doing it, because it’s easy to beat a polygraph. And that’s something that, if I was still in the business, and I was wanting to get back into this sort of thing, that I’d learn how to beat a polygraph before I did anything.

Tice told AntiPolygraph.org that his contacts learned how to beat the polygraph from AntiPolygraph.org and that the information was retrieved from a computer not associated with their own computers, printed out, and circulated.

AntiPolygraph.org welcomes tips from any readers with relevant information. See our contact information page regarding how to get in touch. Comments may also be posted below.

Continue reading ‘An Interview with Doug Williams Concerning Operation Lie Busters’ »]]> Former police polygraphist Doug Williams spoke with Evan Anderson of Oklahoma City News 9 in an interview that aired on Monday, 19 August 2013. As reported by McClatchy investigative reporter Marisa Taylor, Williams is one of two known targets of a federal criminal investigation called Operation Lie Busters targeting individuals who provide instruction in methods of passing a polygraph test.

Fox News has erroneously reported that Williams was arrested, although, as reported by McClatchy, investigators did confiscate his business records. Correcting the record, Williams told News 9: “I have not been arrested, I have not been indicted, I have not been charged with any crime whatsoever. Period. Ever.”

Willams notes, “They’ve got me scared, but not enough to shut up.” AntiPolygraph.org applauds Williams’ determination not to be intimidated into silence. Williams’ website remains online and he continues to be active on Twitter (@PolygraphCom).

Continue reading ‘McClatchy on Operations Lie Busters’ »]]>

Crime in progress? Doug Williams explaining how to produce a scorable reaction on a polygraph chart for Penn & Teller Bullshit!

Marisa Taylor and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. report for McClatchy that the federal government is targeting for criminal prosecution those who teach methods for passing a polygraph test, noting that at least two instructors have been targeted by undercover sting operations thus far: former police polygrapher Doug Williams, who runs Polygraph.com, and Chad Dixon, who ran a now defunct website called PolygraphExpert.net. McClatchy reports that in the course of the investigation, which is called “Operation Lie Busters,” [i]nvestigators confiscated business records from the two men, which included the names of as many as 5,000 people who’d sought polygraph-beating advice.”

Dixon has pleaded guilty to unspecified charges that remain under seal and faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, though prosecutors are seeking a two-year sentence. Williams is not reported to have been charged with any crime, and he “declined to comment other than to say he’s done nothing wrong.”

AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke may also have been targeted by an attempted sting. McClatchy reports:

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.

Although federal authorities haven’t contacted him, Maschke said he worried that visitors to his site, AntiPolygraph.org, would be targeted simply for looking for information about polygraph testing.

“The criminalization of the imparting of information sets a pernicious precedent,” he said. “It is fundamentally wrong, and bad public policy, for the government to resort to entrapment to silence speech that it does not approve of.”

Instead of criminalizing truth-telling about the weaknesses of polygraphy, the U.S. government should heed the warnings of the scientific community and terminate its misplaced reliance on this pseudoscientific ritual.

Continue reading ‘Open Letter to Eric Holder Regarding Operation Lie Busters and Polygraph Countermeasures’ »]]> On Friday, 12 April 2013, AntiPolygraph co-founder George Maschke sent an inquiry to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder seeking clarification on whether the U.S. Department of Justice considers the learning, using, or teaching of polygraph countermeasures by or to federal employees or applicants for employment is a crime:

Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:38:55 +0000
From: maschke@antipolygraph.org
To: Attorney General Eric Holder <AskDOJ@usdoj.gov>
Cc: DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano <janet.napolitano@dhs.gov>, “DHS Acting Inspector General Charles K. Edwards” <charles.edwards@dhs.gov>, “CBP Deputy Commissioner Thomas S. Winkowski” <thomas.winkowski@dhs.gov>
Subject: Operation Lie Busters: Is Learning, Using, or Teaching Polygraph Countermeasures a Crime?

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

I’m a co-founder of AntiPolygraph.org, a non-profit, public interest website dedicated to polygraph policy reform. AntiPolygraph.org’s ultimate objective is the elimination of the exemptions to the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 that deny federal, state, and local government job applicants, employees, and contractors the protections against lie detector “testing” that other Americans have enjoyed for the past quarter century.

In 2002, the National Research Council concluded that “[polygraph testing's] accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies.” In 1997, retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Drew Richardson, then a polygraph expert with the Bureau’s Laboratory Division, put it more directly in testimony before a Senate subcommittee: “the diagnostic value of this type of testing is no more than that of astrology or tea-leaf reading.”

Rejecting the science on polygraphy, federal agencies have actually increased their reliance on it over the past decade. Pre-employment polygraph failure rates on the order of 50% or more are the norm among federal agencies with a polygraph requirement, and given polygraphy’s lack of scientific underpinnings, it is inevitable that many honest applicants are being falsely branded as liars by their government and wrongly blacklisted from employment for which they are qualified. Those falsely accused of deception have no meaningful avenue of appeal.

Since 2000, AntiPolygraph.org has made available a free book titled The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF) providing documentation on polygraph validity (or lack thereof), policy, procedure, and countermeasures. Polygraph countermeasures are techniques that can be used to pass a polygraph whether or not one is telling the truth. While deceptive individuals can use countermeasures to fool the polygraph, truthful persons may also elect to use them to mitigate the high risk of a false positive outcome. AntiPolygraph.org has no desire to help liars beat the polygraph, but we know of no way of making such information available to honest persons with a legitimate need for it without also making it available to everyone. We believe that such speech is protected by the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The choice of a truthful person to use polygraph countermeasures is not an irrational one. The late David T. Lykken, an eminent authority on polygraphy, opined: “…if I were somehow forced to take a polygraph test in relation to some important matter, I would certainly use these proven countermeasures rather than rely on the truth and my innocence as safeguards. An innocent suspect has nearly a 50:50 chance of failing a CQT [Control Question Test -- the technique used by federal law enforcement agencies for pre-employment screening] administered under adversarial circumstances, and those odds are considerably worse than those involved in Russian roulette.” (A Tremor in the Blood: Uses and Abuses of the Lie Detector, Plenum Trade, 1997, p. 277.)

No polygraph operator has ever demonstrated the ability to detect the kind of countermeasures we discuss in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, and polygraph community documents recently released by AntiPolygraph.org show that the polygraph community has no coherent methodology for detecting such countermeasures.

Information has come to our attention suggesting that, unable to detect polygraph countermeasures, at least one federal agency is construing the teaching, learning, and/or use of them to be a crime, at least in some circumstances.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has revealed the existence of a criminal investigation called Operation Lie Busters in which 10 applicants for employment with CBP “were identified as receiving sophisticated polygraph Countermeasure training in an effort to defeat the polygraph requirement.” The CBP Public Affairs Office refused to answer any questions regarding Operation Lie Busters, including the name of the operation, which AntiPolygraph.org has independently learned.

AntiPolygraph.org has also learned that two senior investigators involved in the operation, John R. Schwartz, who heads CBP’s Credibility Assessment Division, and Special Agent Fred C. Ball, Jr., a polygraph examiner with CBP Internal Affairs, have been scheduled since the beginning of January to give a three-hour keynote presentation on the operation before members of a private polygraph organization on 3 June 2013.

If polygraph operators involved with Operation Lie Busters can showboat the operation at a polygraph convention, then the public should also be entitled to know details of this operation, which the CBP Credibility Assessment Division has characterized as “precedent setting” (without clarifying what precedent is being set). I thus seek clarity from you regarding the following questions:

1. Does the U.S. Department of Justice consider it a crime for federal employees or applicants for federal employment to learn about polygraph countermeasures?
2. Does the U.S. Department of Justice consider it a crime for federal employees or applicants for federal employment to use polygraph countermeasures?
3. Does the U.S. Department of Justice consider it a crime to teach federal employees or applicants for federal employment about polygraph countermeasures?

 

Sincerely,

George W. Maschke, Ph.D.
AntiPolygraph.org
Tel: 1-424-835-1225
Fax: 1-206-426-5145
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ap_org

PS: I am an American living abroad. My postal address is Van Trigtstraat 53, 2597 VX The Hague, The Netherlands.

Continue reading ‘Operation Lie Busters’ »]]> The federal criminal investigation into polygraph countermeasure training reported by AntiPolygraph.org last week is named “Operation Lie Busters.” The name, which was redacted from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) document (5.4 mb PDF) released to the Center for Investigative Reporting under the Freedom of Information Act, suggests that polygraph countermeasures are central, and not peripheral to the investigation, in which 10 applicants for employment with CBP “were identified as receiving sophisticated polygraph Countermeasure training in an effort to defeat the polygraph requirement.”

While polygraph countermeasures may be used by deceptive persons to pass a polygraph, truthful persons may also choose to employ them to protect themselves against the high risk of a false positive outcome. CBP, for example, has a pre-employment polygraph failure rate of about 60%, and given polygraphy’s complete lack of scientific underpinnings, it is inevitable that many truthful applicants, like Eric Trevino, are being falsely branded as liars by CBP and other federal agencies and suffering irreparable career harm.

Polygraph countermeasures, such as those explained in AntiPolygraph.org’s free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF), are simple, easily learned, and effective, and the polygraph community has no coherent methodology for detecting them. Being unable to detect countermeasures, it appears that the U.S. government is attempting to criminalize them.

The CBP polygraph unit (formally titled the “Credibility Assessment Division” clearly prides itself on Operation Lie Busters, having showcased it as the first item in a 28-page “Significant Admissions Summary,” even though no “significant admission” is alleged in connection with the investigation.

CBP Public Affairs declined to answer any questions about this investigation, including whether any of the 10 CBP applicants have been criminally charged, what the underlying crime in the alleged conspiracy is, whether CBP considers it a crime to receive or provide instruction in polygraph countermeasures, how the applicants in question were identified as having received polygraph countermeasure training, who provided the training, and why the name of the operation was redacted and whether it could now be disclosed.

Despite CBP’s refusal to comment, AntiPolygraph.org has learned that the head of CBP’s Credibility Assessment Division, John R. Schwartz, and CBP Special Agent Fred C. Ball, Jr. have been scheduled since at least January 2013 to give a presentation on the operation on Monday, 3 June 2013, as the keynote and opening presentation at the American Association of Police Polygraphists‘ annual seminar, which is scheduled for 2-7 June 2013 at the Omni Charlotte Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina. The seminar schedule, a copy of which has been provided to AntiPolygraph.org, reveals the name of the investigation to be “Operation Lie Busters”:

If the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s polygraph unit can showboat Operation Lie Busters at a convention organized by a private group such as the American Association of Police Polygraphists, then the public should be entitled to know about this allegedly “precedent setting” investigation, too.

Documents provided to AntiPolygraph.org reveal that the two primary sources of information about polygraph countermeasures that concern the polygraph community are AntiPolygraph.org and former police polygraphist Doug Williams of Norman, Oklahoma, who sells a manual titled “How to Sting the Polygraph” and offers personal training in polygraph countermeasures. AntiPolygraph.org notes that both John Schwartz and Fred Ball are assigned to CBP offices in Houston, Texas, whose jurisdiction extends to Oklahoma City, of which Norman is a suburb.

For discussion of Operation Lie Busters, see “Is It a Crime to Provide or Receive Polygraph Countermeasure Training?” on the AntiPolygraph.org message board.

Continue reading ‘Polygraph Countermeasures: What Polygraph Operators Say Behind Closed Doors’ »]]> Publicly, polygraph operators claim that countermeasures are ineffective and that they can easily detect them. But documents provided to AntiPolygraph.org reveal that behind closed doors, they admit that countermeasures can indeed be effective and that they are difficult to detect.

The most informative of these is by Mark D. Handler, who at the time of writing is the American Association of Police Polygraphists’ Research & Information Chairman. In 2009, Handler gave a PowerPoint presentation (55 mb PDF | 19 mb PPT) to the Kentucky Polygraph Association titled “Countermeasures: What every examiner should know.” According to the file’s metadata,¹ it was created by Captain (then Lieutenant) Walt Goodson of the Texas Department of Public Safety, who at the time of writing is the American Polygraph Association’s Vice-President for law enforcement matters and has served as director of the Texas Department of Public Safety Law Enforcement Polygraph School.

In addition to Goodson, Handler thanks Professor Charles R. Honts of Boise State University (who has conducted peer-reviewed research into polygraph countermeasures), Raymond Nelson of the Lafayette Instrument Company, who at the time of writing is also a director of the American Polygraph Association, and Charles E. Slupski, a former instructor at the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute who now runs the American International Institute of Polygraph and who, at the time of writing, is the American Polygraph Association’s President-Elect.

In his presentation, Handler characterizes sources of countermeasure information, including AntiPolygraph.org co-founders George Maschke and Gino Scalabrini, as “threats” (slide 26):

Discussion of AntiPolygraph.org begins at slide 67 and continues to slide 94. The presentation characterizes AntiPolygraph.org’s free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF), as an “[e]xcellent polygraph manual with extensive chapter on CMs [countermeasures]:

Slide 68 shows six photographs of AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke under a quote from Sun Tsu, “Know thy enemy and know thyself and you will win a hundred battles”:

A biographical sketch follows, which appears to be based on Maschke’s public statement, “Too Hot of a Potato: A Citizen-Soldier’s Encounter with the Polygraph.” Slide 97 acknowledges that AntiPolygraph.org’s book provides “accurate information about how polygraph tests work and about possible countermeasures”:

Handler attempts to show that merely providing information about polygraphy to examinees has no effect on accuracy cites several laboratory studies in support of that view.² However, it should be borne in mind that such studies were conducted in situations where the examinees had very little incentive to apply themselves to the task of mastering polygraph countermeasures.³

Contradicting the public proclamations of numerous polygraph operators, Handler characterizes as “fiction” the notions that “[countermeasures] are easy to detect” and that “countermeasures are not effective against [an] experienced examiner” (slide 104):

Handler also states it to be a “fact” that “[i]t is easy to make realistic reactions” and that “[i]t is difficult to detect [countermeasures] when skillfully applied by trained subjects” (slide 105):

Dismissing countermeasure classes that purport to “provide ways for examiners to detect countermeasures,” Handler notes that they are inappropriately based on a “case study approach” (slide 110):

Handler observes that some polygraph “experts” have claimed based on case study data that they “can determine when subjects are attempting countermeasure[s]” and that “if a subject is attempting countermeasures the test should be considered unreliable and not admitted as evidence”⁴ (slide 113):

Handler further notes that “[n]o published scientific study shows that [sic] any person to be better than chance at detecting countermeasures, either from watching the subject or from analyzing the charts.” (Slide 114):⁵

Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, Handler concludes, “Extraordinary claims of ability, require extraordinary evidence of performance.” Who can argue with that?

1. In the PPT file’s properties, the author is cited as “WG08186.” A Google search on this term leads to Walt Goodson’s member page on the American Polygraph Association website.
2. Cited studies include:
   Rovner, L.I. (1979). The effects of information and practice on the accuracy of physiological detection of deception. Dissertation Abstracts International. (University Microfilm # AAD80-05308)
   Rovner, L.I. (1986). The accuracy of physiological detection of deception for subjects with prior knowledge. Polygraph, 15, 1-39.
   Honts, C. R. & Alloway, W. (2007). Information does not affect the validity of a comparison
   question test. Legal And Criminological Psychology, 12, 311-312. (Erroneously cited as “Alloway & Honts, 2002”)
3. In this regard see, Iacono, W.G. “Effective Policing: Understanding How Polygraph Tests Work and Are Used,” Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 35, No. 10, pp. 1295-1308 at pp. 1301-2:
   COUNTERMEASURES
   Honts and colleagues have published compelling findings showing that guilty individuals can readily defeat a CQT when briefly instructed how to do so (Honts, Devitt, Winbush, & Kircher, 1996; Honts, Hodes, & Raskin, 1985). This can be accomplished by covertly enhancing the response to control questions (e.g., by engaging in mental arithmetic when these questions are asked or lightly biting the tongue), and these covernt maneuvers are undetectable. Moreover, although the CQT is ideally administered in a manner that makes it difficult to readily identify control questions, anyone who wishes to can easily find out how to identify controls by accessing articles such as this one or Web sites such as www.antipolygraph.org. Nevertheless, these practicing scientists have concluded that the possible use of countermeasures is of no consequence in real life CQTs because those undergoing CQTs cannot figure out on their own how to use them to advantage (e.g., Honts & Alloway, 2007). It Honts and Alloway (2007), this conclusion was reached by testing undergraduates who were asked to steal movie-pass vouchers. A total of 10 individuals in the guilty condition were asked to read a 220-page book containing information regarding how to beat a CQT, and if they were successful, they were to receive theatre passes as a bonus. One can reasonably ask how this motivational manipulation might compare to the motivation criminals have to learn to beat a CQT. The former involves working hard for a possible but trivial reward of movie tickets, the latter involves trying to avoid incarceration. Considered from this perspective, it is perhaps not surprising that only seven guilty subjects admitted trying to use countermeasures, and only two beat the CQT.
4. Polygraph results should never be admitted as evidence in a court of law or equity, as polygraphy is completely without scientific basis.
5. The first point in the slide, asserting that countermeasures used by innocent persons “produces negative effects for them in terms of their total score,” is evidently a reference to Honts, C.R., Amato, S.L, and Gordon, A.K., “Effects of Spontaneous Countermeasures Used Against the Comparison Question Test,” Polygraph, vol. 30, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1-9.
   This study, published in the non-peer-reviewed trade journal of the American Polygraph Association, examined so-called “spontaneous” countermeasures attempts, that is, attempts to alter outcomes by people who have not been educated or trained in polygraph procedure and countermeasures. It is hardly surprising that countermeasure attempts by people who don’t know what they’re doing might be counterproductive.

Continue reading ‘Customs and Border Protection Polygraph Screening: A Critical Commentary on the Center for Investigative Journalism’s Recent Reporting’ »]]> On 4 April 2013, the Center for Investigative Reporting published two articles by Andrew Becker on U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s pre-employment polygraph screening program. The first, which has garnered considerable attention and was featured on Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast, is “During polygraphs, border agency applicants admit to rape, kidnapping.”¹ Becker’s reporting is based primarily on an internal report by CBP’s polygraph unit (formally titled the Credibility Assessment Division). This document, first obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, is available on AntiPolygraph.org as a word-searchable PDF file. Becker opens the article:

One [CBP applicant] admitted to kidnapping and ransoming hostages in the Ivory Coast. Others said they had molested children or committed rape. And one, as he prepared for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, contemplated assassinating President Barack Obama.

These are among the thousands of applicants who have sought sensitive law enforcement jobs in recent years with the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection.

In many cases, these people made it all the way through the hiring process until one of the last steps – a polygraph exam. Once sitting with a polygraph examiner, they admitted to a host of astonishing crimes, according to documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The records – official summaries of more than 200 polygraph admissions – raise alarms about the thousands of employees Customs and Border Protection has hired over the past six years before it began mandatory polygraph tests for all applicants six months ago. The required polygraphs come at the tail end of a massive hiring surge that began in 2006 and eventually added 17,000 employees, helping to make the agency the largest law enforcement operation in the country.

Indeed, some of these applicants did admit to serious criminal behavior. Based on public reaction on Twitter, it would seem that many infer that that such conduct is commonplace among CBP applicants. But do the numbers justify such alarm? The CBP signficant admissions summary (5.4 mb PDF) adduces some 220 admissions from 2008 to 2012. (There are 221 items in the list, but the first is not an admission.) A report by the Government Accountability Office documents that during this period, CBP conducted some 11,149 polygraph examinations:

Thus, the 220 substantive admissions account for just under 2% of the polygraph examinations conducted.

Becker enumerates some of the reported admissions:

The 200-plus “significant admissions” described in the summary reports paint a small yet troubling portrait of some of the kinds of people who have applied to be Border Patrol agents and customs officers since 2008. They also highlight potential weaknesses in the costly hiring process that failed to screen out questionable applicants earlier.

In one case from February, Jose Ramirez, 25, admitted during a polygraph exam that he was the driver in a 2009 single-car crash that killed someone. He previously told investigators in Yuma, Ariz., that the dead passenger was the driver, according to the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office. Ramirez now faces second-degree murder and other charges.

One applicant admitted to smoking marijuana 20,000 times in a 10-year-period. Another was more bizarre: “Applicant had no independent recollection of the events that resulted in a blood doused kitchen and was uncertain if he committed any crime during his three hour black out,” according to the Customs and Border Protection summary.

In another example, a woman seeking a job with the bureau told an examiner that she smuggled marijuana into the country – typically by taping 10 pounds of the drug to her body – about 800 times. Scores more admitted that they had engaged in or had relatives involved in human smuggling or drug running. Some said they harbored immigrants not authorized to be in the U.S. or had family members living in the country illegally.

These admissions are indeed disturbing, but they should not be mistaken for evidence of the validity of polygraphy. There is broad consensus in the scientific community that polygraphy is without scientific basis. It is only useful for getting admissions to the extent that the person being “tested” doesn’t understand that the “test” is a sham.

Becker also writes:

The summaries disclose dozens of attempts to infiltrate the agency, including 10 applicants believed to have links to organized crime who had received sophisticated training on how to defeat the polygraph exam, according to Customs and Border Protection.

This is a reference to the first paragraph of the CBP admissions report. But a review of the actual report reveals that no admission is alleged with respect to any of these 10 applicants, and the CBP report does not  allege that they were believed to have links to organized crime, though it does speak of a “conspiracy.” For commentary on this alleged infiltration attempt, see “U.S. Customs and Border Protection Reveals Criminal Investigation Into Polygraph Countermeasure Training” on this blog and “Is It a Crime to Provide or Receive Polygraph Countermeasure Training?” on the AntiPolygraph.org message board.

The CBP polygraph admission summary goes on to enumerate 17 additional alleged “infiltration attempts” (paras. 2-18). However, a close reading of these paragraphs reveals that only one (para. 15) clearly involves an applicant allegedly seeking CBP employment for nefarious reasons, and in that one instance, there was no admission. Polygraph examiners are typically rated on the basis of admissions obtained after a failed polygraph examination. This provides a perverse incentive to exaggerate the significance of admissions obtained. Polygraph units also have an incentive to overstate admissions in order to justify their budgets (and indeed, their very existence). Such incentives may help to explain the CBP polygraph unit’s dubious claims of having detected “infiltration attempts.” In any event, it would be a very stupid infiltrator indeed who would confess during a polygraph examination. It is likely that the great majority of any infiltrators would make no admissions against their self-interest.

Becker also addresses a CBP internal study called the “Clear Shelf Initiative” (123 kb PDF) in which 283 applicants who were otherwise cleared for hire completed polygraph examinations. 44% failed the polygraph, and 38% of these made “unsuitable” (disqualifying) admissions. 44% passed, but even among these, 10% made disqualifying admissions. Under polygraph protocols, only those who fail are subjected to a post-test interrogation, which is the point at which most admissions are obtained. One can only wonder what disqualifying admission rate might have been obtained had all those who passed also been subjected to a post-test interrogation.

Regarding a second CBP internal study (1.1 mb PDF), Becker writes:

Another internal study, “Test versus No Test,” found in 2010 that employees who had not taken the polygraph exam were more than twice as likely to engage in misconduct, such as stealing government property or drug abuse, than those who took the screening before they were hired.

This study (actually, a 2-page summary) may raise more questions than it answers. It states that 1,293 CBP applicants passed pre-employment polygraph examinations between fiscal years 2008 and 2010. But only 203 (15.7%) of these went on to enter duty and attend the training academy. What happened to the remaining 84.3% who passed the polygraph? The study does not address why they did not enter duty.

The 203 who passed the polygraph and entered duty were compared with a randomly selected group of 203 recruits hired during the same period who were not polygraphed. During the study period (three years) 20 of those polygraphed were determined to be “of record” with Internal Affairs while 41 of those not polygraphed were “of record.” This indeed would suggest that polygraphed recruits are less likely to get into trouble than those not polygraphed (though without additional documentation of the study, it is not possible to adequately assess its methodological soundness). In any event, it should be a matter of concern that even among those polygraphed, some 10% were “of record” with Internal Affairs within three years being hired.

Becker also notes:

Internal affairs officials have considered requiring polygraphs for current employees. But such a move, which would have to be approved by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, could face stiff resistance from unions that represent the bureau’s frontline employees and some high-ranking officials alike.

“If you were to survey the agents, you’d probably find out a good percentage failed a polygraph elsewhere and they’re doing a good job here,” said Chris Bauder, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents union. “Lots of corruption cases could have been caught if they had gone through a thorough background investigation.”

If polygraphy were truly a valid means of detecting deception, wouldn’t it make sense to polygraph current employees on an ongoing (preferably random) basis, even more so than applicants? After all, most new recruits haven’t yet had the opportunity to become corrupt. Yet the National Border Patrol Council has good reason to be leery of the polygraph.

In a second article that received considerably less attention, Becker notes that even though Congress (in 1988) prohibited most use of polygraphs in private sector employment owing to concerns over its reliability, the federal government has since then only increased its use of polygraphs. Becker recounts the story of one victim of the CBP pre-employment polygraph screening program:

Eric Trevino, however, is not willing to accept that Customs and Border Protection considers him dishonest. Trevino, 37, of Harlingen, Texas, is one of three applicants who told the Center for Investigative Reporting that they had wrongly failed the polygraph.

Seeking a job as a customs officer, Trevino failed the polygraph exam in June 2010 and was barred from retaking the exam for three years. He hopes to take the exam again this summer as a Border Patrol applicant, which has a higher age limit for new employees.

Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, Trevino grew up traveling into Mexico to eat and go shopping with his family. He said his dream job is to be a customs officer. He said he has an uncle who is an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection recently hired his brother.

When asked if he had ties to foreign nationals or drug traffickers and whether he ever went to terrorist training, Trevino answered no. But the examiner said he was less than truthful and had erratic breathing, a possible countermeasure to defeat the test, according to Trevino.

“It seemed more like an interrogation. I’ve never been arrested. I’ve got two speeding tickets in my life. I don’t smoke or drink,” Trevino said. “The frustration is when I know I’m not lying about it, but the machine says I am, especially terrorist training and loyalties to America. It’s like, give me a break.”

Given polygraphy’s lack of scientific underpinnings, it is clear that many of the roughly 60% of CBP applicants who fail to pass the polygraph are being falsely accused of deception and wrongly denied employment for which they are qualified. AntiPolygraph.org believes this practice is immoral and runs counter to basic human values of fairness. Polygraphy’s utility depends on perpetuation of a false public belief that it is a scientifically sound test for deception. It is no such thing. As we have documented in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF), polygraph “testing” is a pseudoscientific fraud that actually depends on the polygraph operator lying to and deceiving the person being “tested.” The procedure is inherently biased against the most truthful and conscientious of persons, and yet susceptible to simple countermeasures that polygraph operators have no demonstrated ability to detect.

In its landmark report, The Polygraph and Lie Detection (10.3 mb PDF), the National Research Council warned that “polygraph testing yields an unacceptable choice…for employee security screening between too many loyal employees falsely judged deceptive and too many major security threats left undetected. Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies” and that “overconfidence in the polygraph–a belief in its accuracy not justified by the evidence–presents a danger to national security objectives.”

It’s high time the U.S. government started heeding the science on polygraphs.

1. The Daily Beast ran with the less sensationalist title, “On Polygraph Tests, Would Be Border Patrol Agents Confess to Crimes”

Continue reading ‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection Reveals Criminal Investigation Into Polygraph Countermeasure Training’ »]]> A document (5.4 mb PDF) released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reveals the existence of a criminal investigation into polygraph countermeasure training received by ten CBP applicants for employment. The document, first obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, is a summary of significant admissions obtained during polygraph examinations. The criminal investigation is revealed in the opening paragraph:

1. During the conduct of a precedence [sic] setting criminal investigation known as Operation [redacted], ten applicants for law enforcement positions within CBP were identified as receiving sophisticated polygraph Countermeasure training in an effort to defeat the polygraph requirement. None of the CBP applicants were successful, but others involved in the conspiracy were [redacted]. The Insider Threat caused by the physiological and psychological polygraph countermeasures employed against other agencies has been investigated by CBP-IA with assistance from affected agencies. This investigation provides proof of the necessity and effectiveness of the Anti-Border Corruption Act, and revelation of the previously unknown vulnerabilities of the hiring process.

The document does not state how the applicants were identified as having received polygraph countermeasure training, what the underlying crime at the heart of the alleged conspiracy is, or what precedent the investigation sets. It is not a crime to provide or receive instruction in polygraph countermeasures (although a senior federal polygraph instructor has suggested that it should be).

AntiPolygraph.org has contacted the CBP press office seeking answers to the following questions:

• Have any of these applicants been criminally charged? If so, what are their names and what crimes have they been charged with?
• The paragraph alleges a criminal conspiracy; what is the underlying crime?
• Does CBP consider it a crime for applicants to receive instruction in polygraph countermeasures?
• Does CBP consider it a crime to provide instruction in polygraph countermeasures to CBP applicants?
• The paragraph characterizes this investigation as precedent setting; what is the precedent that is being set here?
• How were the applicants in question identified as having received polygraph countermeasure training?
• Why was the name of the operation redacted? Can you now disclose it?
• Who provided the polygraph countermeasures training, and has this individual(s) been criminally charged?
• Does CBP allege that these 10 individuals were in all in cahoots with one another?
  

This article will be updated upon receipt of a response.

Update: Laura R. Cylke of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs has informed AntiPolygraph.org that CBP is unwilling to answer any of the above questions. Instead, CBP offered the following (entirely unresponsive) statement:

Statement:

CBP recognizes that public service is a public trust.  It is critical that our employees conduct themselves with the highest standards of integrity as they carry out the critical mission of protecting America’s borders.  Our commitment to integrity begins at the time of application for employment with CBP and continues throughout the careers of our employees.

Each applicant is subject to a rigorous pre-employment process, which includes improved initial screening of applicants, an exhaustive background investigation that begins upon the initial selection of a prospective employee, and pre-employment polygraph examinations of law enforcement candidates.   Each tool is capable of identifying vulnerabilities that the other cannot, and in combination allow for a thorough vetting of the men and women seeking employment with CBP.

Falsification of application forms; cheating on any written exams, drug screening tests, or polygraph exams; and deliberate attempts to mislead background investigators are inconsistent with the highest standards of individual integrity that CBP requires of our employees.  Applicants who engage in these practices will be disqualified from further consideration for employment.

In addition to the extensive pre-employment vetting process, CBP conducts recurring checks of law enforcement officers throughout their careers and upon assignment to sensitive positions to ensure continued suitability for employment with CBP.

Update 2: A discussion thread on this topic has been opened on the AntiPolygraph.org message board. See “Is It a Crime to Provide or Receive Polygraph Countermeasure Training?” We have been freely providing information on polygraph countermeasures for more than a decade, most notably in our free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF).

Update 3: The criminal investigation into polygraph countermeasure training is named Operation Lie Busters.

Continue reading ‘Facebook Claimant Who Passed Polygraph Arrested for Fraud’ »]]>

Paul Ceglia, polygraph beater

In 2010, Paul Ceglia of Wellsville, New York filed a lawsuit against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that a 2003 contract entitled him to half of Zuckerberg’s interest in the company. Ceglia passed a polygraph “test” administered on 11 June 2010 by Michael Pliszka, a retired law enforcement officer and member of the American Polygraph Association, who stated in a court filing:

The questions asked during the polygraph examination were designed to determine whether Mr. Ceglia had fraudulently forged or doctored the Agreement. After conducting three polygraph charts utilizing a Zone Comparison Technique, and review of the examination utilizing accepted criteria for analysis, it is my opinion that the examination results are classified as “No Deception Indicated.” No Deception Indicated is indicative of an individual telling the truth.

Pliszka’s statement, which includes a copy of the alleged contract between Ceglia and Zuckerberg, may be downloaded here. In a separate court filing, Ceglia quipped, “I respectfully suggest that Mark Zuckerberg undergo the same polygraph examination I have in order to expose who is really telling the truth.”

But despite passing the polygraph, on Friday, 26 October 2012, Ceglia was arrested and charged by federal authorities with attempting to defraud Facebook:

In 2010, a New York entrepreneur made an explosive legal claim: An agreement that he had with Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, entitled him to a major stake in the social-networking giant.

Mr. Zuckerberg staunchly denied the allegation, and his lawyers insisted that the entrepreneur, Paul Ceglia, was a scam artist.

On Friday, federal authorities sided with Mr. Zuckerberg, arresting Mr. Ceglia and charging him with a multibillion dollar scheme to defraud Facebook.

Prosecutors say that Mr. Ceglia, 39, of Wellsville, N.Y., filed a sham federal lawsuit claiming to have been promised a 50 percent share of Facebook in 2003, and then doctored, fabricated and destroyed evidence to support his allegations.

“Ceglia’s alleged conduct not only constitutes a massive fraud attempt, but also an attempted corruption of our legal system through the manufacture of false evidence,” said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. “Dressing up a fraud as a lawsuit does not immunize you from prosecution.”

It certainly looks  like Paul Ceglia beat the box. Which is not surprising. Polygraph “testing” has no scientific basis and is easily circumvented using simple countermeasures. Moreover, in situations such as this, a lawyer can shop his client to any number of polygraph operators under terms of attorney-client privilege, keeping any failed polygraphs secret while trumpeting any passed one as evidence of the client’s truthfulness to a gullible press and public.