Continue reading ‘An Attempted Entrapment’ »]]> In May 2013, I was the target of an attempted entrapment.¹ Whether it was a federal agent attempting to entrap me on a contrived material support for terrorism charge or simply an individual’s attempt to embarrass me and discredit AntiPolygraph.org remains unclear. In this post, I will provide a full public accounting of the attempt, including the raw source of communications received and the IP addresses involved.

As background, it should be borne in mind that a federal criminal investigation into providers of information on polygraph countermeasures, dubbed “Operation Lie Busters,” has been underway since at least November 2011, when an undercover U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, posing as a job applicant, contacted Chad Dixon of Marion, Indiana for help on passing the polygraph. In December, 2012, Dixon pleaded guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and obstruction of an agency proceeding, for which he has been sentenced to 8 months in federal prison.

Doug Williams of Norman, Oklahoma, a former police polygrapher who has been teaching people how to pass polygraph examinations for some three decades and operates the website Polygraph.com, was also the target of a sting operation and in February 2013, U.S. Customs and Border Protection executed search warrants on his home and office, seizing business records. He has been threatened with prosecution but to date has not been charged with any crime.

With this in mind, I received a most curious unsolicited communication on Saturday, 18 May 2013 from <mohammadali201333@yahoo.com>. The message was sent to my AntiPolygraph.org e-mail address <maschke@antipolygraph.org> and was titled “help help help please” (155 kb EML file.) The message body was blank, but there was a PDF attachment with a short message written in Persian, the language of Iran:

I know Persian, a fact of which the writer was evidently cognizant. Here is a translation:

Greetings and respect to you, Mr. George Maschke,

I am Mohammad Aghazadeh and have been living in Iraq for five years. I am 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. I ask that you send me a copy of your book about the lie behind the lie so that I can use it, or that you help me in any other way. I am very grateful to you.

The book to which the message refers is The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF), AntiPolygraph.org’s free e-book that, among other things, explains how to pass (or beat) a polygraph “test.” Factors that made me highly suspicious about this message include:

• Why would someone who supposedly fears the police send an unencrypted e-mail acknowledging that he’s a member of an Islamic group that is trying to change the government of Iraq?
• Why would such a person also provide his full name and how long he’s been in the country?
• To my knowledge, there aren’t any Iranian-backed Islamic groups seeking to “restore freedom to Iraq.” In fact, Iran and Iraq have good diplomatic relations.
• Why did this person ask me to send a book that is freely available on-line? Note that this message didn’t ask for a “Persian edition” of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

I suspected the message was a likely attempt to set me up for prosecution on charges of material support for terrorism (or something similar).² It seemed highly unlikely that the message could be genuine. Nonetheless, about half an hour after receiving the message, I provided “Mohammad Aghazadeh” the same advice I would give to anyone accused of a crime who has been asked to take a polygraph test:

Dear Mr. Mohammad Aghazadeh,

Our advice to everyone under such circumstances is not to submit to the so-called “test” and to consult with a lawyer and comply with applicable laws.

George Maschke

Evidently, that response was not satisfactory, for the following day, Sunday, 19 May, about 24 hours after receipt of the first message, I received the following reply (11 kb EML file):

It reads:

Greetings and great respect, Mr. Maschke,
I am very grateful to you for your reply about the lie detector test.
I am not in circumstances where I can refrain from taking the test.
I saw your book on the Internet, but because I don’t know English, I wasn’t able to use it.
I will be very grateful to you if you would send me the Persian edition of it.
I don’t know how I will pass the test.
They have frightened me greatly. What am I to do????

I replied, “Unfortunately, said book has not been translated to Persian.” I have received no further communication from this person.

I Googled the e-mail address <mohammadali201333@yahoo.com> and found no mentions. Both e-mail messages originated from the same IP address: 159.255.160.115.
This address traces to Arbil (also spelled Erbil), Iraq, where the United States has a consulate.

I checked AntiPolygraph.org’s server access log for the IP address 159.255.160.155, and here is what I found:

9 May 2013

08:24:48 (GMT), someone at this IP address landed on AntiPolygraph.org’s publications page after a search on Google.iq (search terms unknown) using Google Chrome under Windows NT 6.1 (Windows 7).

08:24:59 lands on home page after searching Google.iq for: george maschke antipolygraph.

08:25:37 downloads The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

10:09:15 fetches The Lie Behind the Lie Detector a second time after searching “george counter polygraph” but this time with Firefox 2.0.0.12 under Windows NT 5.1 en-US (Windows XP 32-bit).

18 May 2013

07:04:18 Lands on home page after unknown search on Google.iq using Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 under Windows NT 6.1 (Windows 7).

07:04:41 Fetches Federal Psychophysiological Detection of Deception Examiner’s Handbook.

07:05:46 Fetches The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

07:06:27 Fetches DoDPI  Law Enforcement Pre-Employment Test Examiner’s Guide.

07:06:55 Fetches DoDPI Interview and Interrogation Handbook.

07:07:29 Fetches DoDPI Numerical Evaluation Scoring System.

11:07:04 Returns to home page using Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 under Windows NT 6.1.

11:07:08 Views recent message board posts. (Note: this action suggests the visitor is familiar with the site.)

11:08:10 Does a message board search (search terms not logged by server).

11:08:25 Searches message board again.

11:08:36 Searches message board again.

11:08:48 Searches message board again.

11:09:27 Searches Google (terms unknown) and lands on message board thread, Al-Qaeda Has Read The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

11:10:02 Gets message board thread, Al-Qaeda Documentation on Lie Detection (which is linked early in the previous thread).

Note that both of the foregoing message threads include accusations against me of disloyalty to the United States.

11:10:34 Gets document Al-Qaeda Documentation on Lie Detection.

11:10:41 Returns to message board thread, Al-Qaeda Documentation on Lie Detection.

11:30:20 Last load of any page.

The browsing behavior documented in the server log does not suggest to me an individual who doesn’t know English. Also, the use of different web browsers and operating systems suggests to me that the IP address might belong to an organization rather than an individual.

I also found a few other visits from other nearby IP addresses (first three numerical blocks of the IP addresses are the same):

On 3 May 2013 at 10:51:20, IP 159.255.160.5 landed on an image of Tyler Buttle after searching Google.iq with an iPhone for “photo+sebel+can+sex”.

On 7 May 2013 at 18:08:25, IP 159.255.160.80 searched Google.iq for unknown terms and landed on the blog post Is Patrick T. Coffey Fit to Be Screening Police Applicants? using Firefox 20 under Windows NT 5.1 (Windows XP).

Twenty-six seconds later, at 18:08:51, the same IP moved on to the blog post Polygrapher Patrick T. Coffey Threatens Lawsuit, Demands Retraction.

I can well understand why someone in Iraq might search for sexy pictures of Sibel Can, a Turkish singer. (The searcher, who misspelled “Sibel,” must have been disappointed to find a picture of Tyler Buttle instead.) But why would anyone in Iraq be interested in Patrick T. Coffey, a private polygraph examiner based in Burlingame, California?

Photograph posted by Patrick T. Coffey to Facebook on 1 May 2013. The Arabic caption under the American and Iraqi flags reads: “Together We Achieve Success”

Coffey has done contract work in the Middle East before, and I wondered whether he might have been on contract in Iraq during the relevant period. Coffey lost his contract for pre-employment polygraphs with the San Francisco Police Department in the aftermath of S.F. Weekly’s reporting about bigoted and intemperate remarks he made on AntiPolygraph.org. Coffey clearly despises me, as you’ll observe from comments he posted under the nom de guerre TheNoLieGuy4U in the message thread Al-Qaeda Has Read The Lie Behind the Lie Detector. Those comments begin at page 2 and include a demand to know whether I have “personally ever translated or assisted any person in the translation of anti-polygraph materials or literature into Arabic, Farsi [Persian], or any other language?” (As if that were some sort of a crime. In fact, I haven’t.)

I was able to confirm that Coffey was indeed in Iraq for three weeks, including the relevant period when the visits to AntiPolygraph.org were made and the e-mails were sent. I called him on the morning of 26 May to ask whether he might have enlisted the aid of a Persian-speaking colleague while in Iraq in a personal effort to test and perhaps discredit me. Coffey denied any involvement with, or indeed, any knowledge of, the e-mails. He even refused to confirm that he had been in Iraq.

Coffey did volunteer that he understands from hearsay that the Department of Defense has an “open case” about me with respect to “the countermeasure question.” His implication was that it’s a criminal case. However, I have been out of the Army reserve for nine years and am not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

So was this attempted entrapment part of the U.S. government’s Operation Lie Busters, or the intrigue of a polygraph examiner with an axe to grind, or possibly a combination of both? I don’t know, but I welcome comment from any readers who might.

1. McClatchy newspaper group investigative reporter Marisa Taylor first reported on this matter on 16 August 2013 in “Seeing threats, feds target instructors of polygraph-beating methods.” The present article explains this incident in fuller detail.
2. I should note that an “Islamic” group is not necessarily a terrorist group, or even a militant one, though I suspect that in the sender’s mind, they are the same thing.

Continue reading ‘George Maschke on Likely NSA Monitoring, Operation Lie Busters, and Federal Polygraph Policy’ »]]> On Friday, 25 October 2013, AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke was a guest on the Scott Horton Show. Topics covered during the half-hour interview include indications that AntiPolygraph.org has been targeted by the NSA for monitoring, the federal criminal investigation into individuals who provide instruction in how to pass a polygraph “test” (Operation Lie Busters), and why reliance on polygraphy for purposes of national security and public safety is misguided. The interview may be listened to on-line or downloaded as an MP3 file here.

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 ‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs Documentation’ »]]> AntiPolygraph.org has obtained a copy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Assistant Commissioner for Internal Affairs James F. Tomsheck’s “CBP-IA Five Year Report” (4.4 mb) showcasing his office’s performance from Fiscal Years 2008 to 2012. CBP-IA is the office behind Operation Lie Busters, an effort to criminalize the teaching of polygraph countermeasures. Assistant Commissioner Tomsheck concludes in his 29-page report that he’s doing a good job. Excerpt:

I am pleased to present this five-year report which details the successes the employees of the Office of Internal Affairs (IA) have achieved during fiscal years 2008 through 2012. The accomplishments described in this report highlight the dedication and commitment of every IA employee who performs his or her duties in an exemplary manner in support of CBP’s mission to secure our nation’s borders while fostering legitimate travel and trade.

Tomsheck fails to note Department of Homeland Security Privacy Officer Mary Ellen Callahan’s 18 July 2012 report of investigation documenting his gross violations of DHS privacy policy.

CBP-IA’s polygraph unit, called the “Credibility Assessment Division,” is reviewed at pp. 19-20. Operation Lie Busters is not mentioned. Excerpt:

Five years ago, the Credibility Assessment Diivision (CAD) existed only as a vision in the minds of CBP leadership. Faced with unprecedented hiring surges designed to secure our nation’s borders, and the knowledge that rapid expansion of law enforcement agencies had historically caused a dramatic increase in corruption within those agencies, IA requested authority to establish a polygraph program within CBP-IA. With support from the Commissioner, IA obtained the required authority from OPM to begin a polygraph pre-employment screening program for applicants for CBP law enforcement positions.

In January 2008, the first 12 newly-hired certified polygraph examiners arrived at the National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA) to train on the LEPET polygraph format, which was designed for law enforcement screening. In February 2008, CAD deployed its first operational mission to Dallas, in collaboration with PSD, several HRM components, and Border Patrol.

The results of the polygraph examinations were profound and revealing. Many applicants successfully completed the polygraph process and were quickly sent to Basic Agent Training at Artesia, NM. However, 58% of the applicants failed to successfully complete the polygraph and were found unsuitable. Their admissions confirmed the reliability of the polygraph process.

The first independent inspection of CBP’s polygraph program by NCCA’s Quality Assurance Program provided an in-depth look at 118 functional and operational CAD criteria. The inspection team concluded their review with no derogatory findings, and affirmed the strong foundation upon which the CBP polygraph program had been established.

The biennial inspection by NCCA’s Quality Assurance Program again identified no derogatory findings of weaknesses or flaws in the CAD polygraph program. To the contrary, three areas of “strength” were identified (two quality control program management areas and polygraph program statistics regarding admission/confession rate). This was an unprecedented finding that established CBP as the leader among the 26 federal agencies with a polygraph capability.

AntiPolygraph.org is interested in hearing from federal polygraph examiners regarding CBP-IA’s status as “the leader among the 26 federal agencies with a polygraph capability.” Comments may be posted below, anonymously if you prefer.

The five-year report also provides budgetary information regarding CBP-IA as a whole and the Credibility Assessment Division (CAD) in particular. A chart at p. 9 shows that the CAD’s budget was $5,627,583 in FY 2009 (its first year), $5,627,583 in FY 2010, $7,959,893 in FY 2011, and $11,414,174 in FY 2012. The chart shows that  as CAD’s budget was doubling from 2009 to 2012, the budget of the Personnel Security Division, which conducts background investigations, fell from $113,436,602 in FY 2009 to $81,156,746 in FY 2012, suggesting that background investigations are being shortchanged in favor of lie detector tests.

In addition to CBP-IA’s five-year report, AntiPolygraph.org has also obtained a CBP-IA organizational chart (160 kb PDF) current as of circa 5 December 2012 and a 23 May 2013 CBP-IA memorandum by Chris Pignone, Acting Director, Investigative Operations Division and Jeffrey Matta, Acting Director, Integrity Programs Division, titled “Reminder on IPD reporting structure” (156 kb PDF). The memo notes that “the Integrity Programs Division (IPD) is the research, analysis and education component of CBP/IA.” The memo describes the director of IPD as being “joined at the hip” with IOD (Investigative Operations Division) and CAD (the polygraph unit).

Update: A newer CBP-IA organizational chart (209 kb), current as of June 2013, is now available.

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

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.

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 ‘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.