Continue reading ‘Marisa Taylor on FBI Pre-Employment Polygraph Screening’ »]]> Marisa Taylor reports for McClatchy on the high failure rate of the FBI’s pre-employment polygraph screening program using, among other sources, a 198-page document containing complaints of discrimination associated with the Bureau’s polygraph program. Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — Thousands of job applicants come to FBI offices all across the country every year, eager to work for the top law enforcement agency in the U.S.

But many of them have their hopes dashed, and it’s not because of their work experience or education or criminal records. They’re turned down because they’ve failed their polygraph tests.

The FBI’s policy of barring job candidates who fail their polygraph tests clashes with the view of many scientists that government agencies shouldn’t be relying on polygraph testing to decide whether to hire or fire someone. Experts say polygraph testing isn’t a reliable indicator of whether someone is lying – especially in employment screening.

Further, a little-known technical glitch in one of the leading polygraphs that the bureau and many other government agencies have used could give applicants who fail polygraphs even more reason to assert that they were inaccurately and unfairly labeled liars.

“I was called a lazy, lying, drug dealing junkie by a man who doesn’t know me , my stellar background or my societal contributions,” wrote one black applicant in Baltimore, who said he was told he qualified for a job except for his polygraph test failure. “Just because I am young and black does not automatically denote that I have ever used any illegal drugs.”

Government agencies use polygraph testing not only to weed out job applicants but also to question criminal suspects and to determine whether sex offenders are complying with psychological treatment or probation.

Although all polygraph testing is controversial, many scientists are highly critical of its use in job screening, saying it’s especially prone to inaccuracies because the questions are often more vague than they are in criminal investigations and therefore they’re more likely to provoke reactions from the innocent that might seem like deception.

Adding to the skepticism, polygraphers have documented problems with the measurement of sweat by the LX4000, a polygraph that the FBI and many other federal agencies and police departments across the country have used, McClatchy found. Polygraphers also interpret measurements of respiration and blood pressure for their decisions on whether someone is lying, but many see the sweat measurement as especially indicative of deception. The manufacturer of the LX4000, Lafayette Instrument Co. Inc., describes the problem as rare but it isn’t able to specify what that means. The company also points out that other polygraphs that use the same technology might have the problem as well.

Continue reading ‘Cuban Spy Nicolás Sirgado Passed CIA Polygraph Three Times’ »]]>

Cuban Interior Ministry Officer Nicolas Sirgado (1935-2013)

On 17 April 2013, Cuban intelligence officer Nicolás Alberto Sirgado Ros¹ died at the age of 77 years according to a short notice published on 19 April by Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. Cuban website CubaDebate published a lengthier profile of Sirgado, noting that he worked as a double agent for Cuba against the CIA for ten years beginning in 1966. Miami-based website CafeFuerte also profiles Sirgado, adding that “on three occasions, he was subjected to lie detector testing, without his real mission being discovered.”

Sirgado discussed his experience working against the CIA in an interview transcribed in a document titled “CIA: Cuba Accuses” that was published in English in Cuba in 1978. When asked “Did they ever use a lie detector on you?” Sirgado replied:

Yes, they used a lot of security measures. They used the lie detector three times. Sometimes there were lie detector sessions that were more than two and a half hours long.

Clearly, the CIA’s aim in using this method is not so much to find out whether or not you’re lying as to break you down, humiliate you, impose machine over mind.  Whether or not it’s effective, the method really seeks to humiliate and denigrate.  It’s a reflection of this espionage organization, built upon mistrust and of the lack of moral values to support its activities.

Sirgado is not the only Cuban double agent to fool the polygraph. DIA officer Ana Belen Montes passed the polygraph at least once while spying for Cuba. And former CIA officer Robert David Steele writes, “Two of my classmates got wrapped up in Cuba (and appeared on international television) because the Cuban double-agents all managed to pass the polygraph.”

Make-believe science yields make-believe security.

1. The Granma article provides “Ross” as his maternal family name, but this appears to be a clerical error.

Continue reading ‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection Allegedly Targets Reservists/Guardsmen with Polygraphs’ »]]> In a class action appeal filed with the Merit Systems Protection Board, four military reserve officers allege that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has engaged in a “continuous” and “wide-ranging pattern of harassment” against members of the U.S. Armed Services and National Guard, including targeting them with pre-employment polygraph screening, in violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (38 U.S.C. § 4301 et seq.). The case is Ferguson, et al. v. Department of Homeland Security, et al., filed 15 February 2013.

One of the appellants, Jason Dutcher, was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve when in June 2010 he applied for employment with CBP’s Office of Air and Marine. His application was rejected “ostensibly because he failed a polygraph examination.”

With regard to CBP’s pre-employment polygraph polygraph practices, the appeal alleges:

78.    On information and belief, Appellant Dutcher and members of the Applicant Subclass were denied initial employment based on their membership in the United States Armed Services or National Guard.

79.    On information and belief, and thereon alleged, polygraph examinations are or were administered to applicants with military service obligations at an unreasonably higher and inexplicably rate [sic] than to those applicants without military service obligations.

80.    On information and belief, and thereon alleged, applicants with military service obligations fail the polygraph examinations at an unreasonably and inexplicably higher rate than do those applicants without military service obligations.

81.    The Class’ obligations and membership in the uniformed services was and is a motivating factor in all discriminatory, harassing and hostile actions Appellees have taken against the Appellants.

The class that Dutcher seeks to represent includes “all those individuals who applied for employment at DHS, CBP and/or OAM between January 1, 1994 and the present who were not hired due to their military service obligations” (para. 101).

The appellants’ allegations also include:

129. Upon information and belief, Appellees have repeatedly made comments to members of the Applicant Subclass during the application process indicating that the applicant’s affiliation with the military made it difficult for Appellees to hire the applicant because the individual may have future military commitments.

130. Upon information and belief, Appellees have repeatedly refused to hire members of the Applicant Subclass because they may have future military obligations.

131. Upon information and belief, Appellees administer polygraph tests during the application process randomly, arbitrarily and at an unreasonably higher rate to members of the Applicant Subclass than to applicants with no military service affiliation.

132. Upon information and belief, an unreasonably and inexplicably higher percentage of applicants with military service affiliations fail the polygraph tests than do applicants with no military service affiliation.

133. USERRA requires employers to treat all applicants for employment similarly regardless of their military service affiliation and obligations.

134. By repeatedly discriminating against Appellant Dutcher and the Applicant Subclass through their refusal to hire members of the Applicant Subclass, Appellees have violated §4311 of USERRA.

135. Appellant’ Dutcher’s and the Applicant Subclass’ service obligations were a motivating factor in the discriminatory actions Appellees have taken against Appellant and the Applicant Subclass.

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 ‘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 ‘Director of National Intelligence Orders Polygraph Question on Media Contacts’ »]]>

On 25 June 2012, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced (PDF) that he is “mandating that a question related to unauthorized disclosure of classified information be added to the counterintelligence polygraph used by all intelligence agencies that administer the examination (CIA, DIA, DOE, FBI, NGA, NRO, and NSA).”

Although Clapper’s announcement does not specify what the mandated question will be, his spokesman, Shawn Turner, told Jeremy Herb of The Hill that “officials will be asked during the lie-detector tests whether they have disclosed classified information to members of the media.”

Herb reports that both Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) voiced support for Clapper’s announced polygraph expansion.

However, the National Research Council in 2002 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.”

The polygraph has a dismal track record when it comes to plugging leaks. In a 1982 leak investigation, members of the National Security Council (which is not covered by DNI Clapper’s recent announcement) were instructed to submit to polygraph interrogations in the course of an investigation into who leaked classified information to the New York Times. A Marine lieutenant colonel on the NSC staff, Robert McFarlane, failed the polygraph. Twice. And it nearly destroyed his career. It was only when the Times’ publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger, himself a former marine, confirmed to President Reagan that McFarlane was not the Times’ source, that McFarlane was exonerated. The leaker was never identified, and the polygraph served only to misdirect investigators.

It should be noted that polygraph accuracy has not improved in the 30 years since that botched leak investigation. However, knowledge of how to fool the lie detector is much more widespread nowadays. See AntiPolygraph.org’s free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF) for details. If anything, polygraph dragnets for leakers are less likely to succeed today than they were during the botched Reagan era investigation that nearly destroyed Colonel McFarlane’s career.

Continue reading ‘Secret Service Wants to Polygraph Agents Implicated in Colombia Prostitution Scandal’ »]]> Norah O’Donnell reports for CBS News that the U.S. Secret Service “wants to polygraph a number of agents and officers involved” in a scandal wherein they allegedly hired prostitutes while in Cartagena, Colombia as part of President Obama’s security detail. It should be noted, however, that the unscientific polygraph is in part responsible for the selection of personnel with such poor judgment: all Secret Service agents and uniformed officers are required to undergo to pre-employment polygraph screening.

While polygraphy has an inherent bias against truthful persons, liars can easily beat the polygraph using simple countermeasures that polygraph operators cannot detect. The Secret Service would do well to terminate its reliance on this unreliable pseudoscience.

Update: ABC News reports that the Secret Service personnel suspected of consorting with prostitutes will be “forced to submit to lie detector tests.” CBS’s earlier reporting suggested that any such “testing” would be voluntary.

Continue reading ‘Polygraph Screening in Ireland?’ »]]> On Sunday, 12 February 2012, the BBC Radio Ulster program Sunday Sequence aired a segment on polygraphy in the wake of news that “an increasing number of Irish companies are asking potential employees to take lie detector tests.” Host William Crawley spoke with polygraph operator Don Cargill, professor of forensic psychology Don Grubin, and AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke. The segment may be downloaded as a 10.3 MB MP3 file here.