The Federation of American Scientists has obtained a copy of U.S. Army Regulation 381-10 (U.S. Army Intelligence Activities) dated 22 November 2005 under the Freedom of Information Act. Included in a list of “Commonly Reported Questionable Intelligence Activities” at section 15-4, para. d.3, is the following:

Coaching a source or subject of an investigation prior to an intelligence polygraph examination in an effort to help the individual pass the polygraph.

Perhaps such coaching is commonplace because U.S. Army intelligence personnel increasingly understand that polygraph testing is a pseudoscientific sham, and that continued reliance on it is detrimental to national security. Indeed, it is polygraphy itself that should be considered a “questionable intelligence activity.”

For more on Army Regulation 381-10, see Army Defines Legitimate and Questionable Intel Activities on the Secrecy News blog. For information on how to pass the polygraph, see AntiPolygraph.org’s free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF).

Associated Press writer Michael Gormley reports on the introduction of post-conviction polygraph screening of sex offenders in New York State:

States use polygraphs to monitor paroled sex offenders
By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press Writer

December 11, 2006, 6:43 PM EST

ALBANY, N.Y. — When Andrew McDaniels, a convicted sex offender in upstate N.Y., was interviewed by a parole officer in September, he faced something new. The parole officer had a laptop computer receiving data from skin sensors on McDaniels. When the parole officer noticed a blip, he asked more pointed questions.

Soon, McDaniels acknowledged he had been around boys near Watkins Glen, parole officials said Monday. More officers followed up in the field and the parolee was accused of violating the condition of his release that requires him to stay away from children. He remains in Schuyler County Jail until a hearing this week, Parole Division spokesman Scott Steinhardt said.

New York is the latest state to require paroled sex offenders to answer questions while hooked to a lie-detecting computer.

It should be noted that as of December 2006, there is no such thing as a lie-detecting computer. Continue reading ‘Operation Truth or Consequences: Polygraphing for Prevaricating Pedophiles in New York State’ »

Paul Bedard of U.S. News & World Report comments in his Washington Whispers column:

“Oh, no you won’t” is the reaction of cops and other first responders to an almost rude FBI decision to ask its Joint Terrorism Task Force members to take a lie detector test. To the FBI, it’s a smart move: Since 9/11, the task force of federal and local officials has expanded to some 1,500 in over a hundred offices nationwide. But to some members it’s a slap, and something that could hurt their careers if the polygraph–whose accuracy is widely questioned by scientists–burps out an error. Joining local cops in opposition are agents with the Homeland Security Department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

For related commentary on the AntiPolygraph.org message board, see  FBI Testing Local Cops….

Bridget Murphy reports for the Jacksonville, Florida Times-Union in “Lie-detector tests don’t help find truth.” Excerpt:

After 28 lie-detector tests, 50 interviews and tests using DNA, fingerprints and palm prints, investigators don’t know who put two hangman’s nooses on the gear of two black Jacksonville firefighters.

But a Sheriff’s Office report released Tuesday on the Feb. 17 incident revealed more about what authorities do know, even if they said it’s not enough to arrest anyone.

Fire Engineer Rufus Smith, who found a noose on his bunker coat and another on a coat belonging to Fire Engineer Roderick Laws, failed a polygraph test and wouldn’t take another.

Laws wouldn’t take a polygraph test at all. And Fire Lt. Matt Cipriani, a white supervisor who was working on the shift before the nooses appeared, failed two polygraph tests.

All three of those Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department employees, along with their colleagues, denied any involvement in the incident during police interviews.

It should come as no surprise that a polygraph dragnet failed to identify the culprit in this investigation. Such mass-polygraphings have an abysmally poor track record. Recent examples include a 2003 polygraph jihad at the Irondale, Alabama city hall and a 2006 polygraph inquisition at the Greensboro, North Carolina city council.

Long Island, New York Newsday staff writer Chau Lam reports in “Bill eyes polygraphs for some jobs”:

Lie-detector tests could be required of applicants for civilian jobs in Suffolk law enforcement agencies under a proposal now before the county legislature.

Sponsored by Legis. Daniel Losquadro (R-Shoreham), the bill would authorize the police department, the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office to conduct polygraph tests on prospective employees.

Police officers currently submit to polygraph tests before they join the force, Losquadro said.

Advocates for the tests say the exams are needed for law enforcement agencies to gauge the honesty of potential civilian employees.

Civilian employees working in those departments have access to sensitive information, such as police officers’ names and addresses, he said – and one took such a list home. Police found it while searching the employee’s residence during a narcotics investigation involving one of his sons.

Tim Motz, a police department spokesman, said the incident occurred in 1999 and the employee, described as a messenger-driver, no longer works for the department.

“It’s very important that we hold these individuals to the same standard as sworn officers,” Losquadro said.

But Chief of Department Robert Moore said the resulting workload could prove overwhelming for police staffers who conduct lie detector tests. Moore cited as an example the 700 school crossing guards who work for the department.

“The volume would be taxing for the police department,” Moore told lawmakers.

Losquadro replied that his bill would give the departments only the ability to conduct the lie detector tests, not require them to do so.

The measure, which has bipartisan support, was approved in the Public Safety and Public Information Committee yesterday and is expected to be discussed Tuesday when the full legislature meets in Riverhead.

“We are still reviewing the bill and will reserve a final decision pending a public hearing,” Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said through a spokesman.

The Nassau Police Department conducts polygraph tests only for those seeking to be sworn in as officers.

Suffolk Sheriff Vincent DeMarco and a representative of District Attorney Thomas Spota support the measure, saying it would give them an additional tool for deciding whether to hire an applicant.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If polygraph screening is to be expanded in Suffolk County, New York, why not expand it to include the legislature, the county executive, the district attorney himself, etc.?

Former Naval Investigative Service agent Ron Olive, to whom convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard provided a confession, writes about the circumstances leading up to the confession in an article titled, “Detecting a lie: Agent recalls role in catching a spy” that was published 18 November 2006 by the Arizona Republic:

I was the assistant special agent in charge of counterintelligence for the Naval Investigative Service on Nov. 19, 1985, when the Pollard case broke wide open.

The night before, we recovered several top-secret and secret documents from Pollard’s apartment. We had him on illegal possession of classified material, but no one thought he was a spy.

I asked him to come in for a polygraph at 10:30 the next morning. He called, telling me he didn’t sleep much and was too tired to come in.
advertisement

It was critical he take the polygraph. I tried to make light of the investigation. Without threatening, I informed him that none of us had slept well the night before.

“It’s in your best interest to take this stupid polygraph test, Jay. Let’s get this over with once and for all,” I said, adding that once he had passed the test, he could go back to work with a clean slate.

That was a white lie. On account of the documents we’d found in his residence, he would never go back to work in the Anti Terrorist Alert Center or anywhere else in the government.

Then Pollard made a comment that set off alarm bells in my head:

“Ron, I don’t mind taking a polygraph if they only ask me about the Soviet Union or the Soviet bloc countries.”

For the first time, I had a gut feeling that something was very wrong. Gathering my thoughts, I said in a lighthearted voice, “Jay, you’re absolutely right. There’s no way you can’t pass this polygraph when they ask you about the Soviets and the bloc countries.”

“I’m really too tired to drive in,” Pollard said, digging in his heels.

It was time to get firm with him or lose him forever.

“Look, Jay, if you’re so tired, I don’t want you driving down here anyway. Stay right where you are. I’ll have agents from the office pick you up and drive you back home.”

Then I raised my voice: “This mess can’t be put off any longer.”

At last, he agreed to come in and take the polygraph.

When my two agents came through the door with Pollard, the analyst stopped in his tracks.

“Ron,” he said in an urgent voice, “I need to talk to you before I take this polygraph.”

“Sure, Jay,” I said, taken aback.

I escorted him into the office spaces at the far end of the hallway that had been set aside for polygraph testing. I had no clue what he wanted to talk to me about.

Trying to throw me off, Pollard began talking about arms sales to Afghanistan, but I stopped him in his tracks.

Then, for three hours, he confessed to selling highly classified national defense documents and explained how he went about stealing them – the beginning of the end for this spy.

The Pollard case illustrates the potential utility of the polygraph: it seems that fear of the lie detector facilitated Pollard’s confession. It should be noted, however, at the time of his confession, Pollard had already been caught on videotape stuffing his briefcase with classified documents, and as Ron Olive indicates, classified documents had been recovered from his residence. It is also worth noting that at the time of Pollard’s confession, Cuban double agent Ana Belen Montes, who passed the polygraph while spying against the United States, had recently penetrated the Department of Defense.

The Associated Press reports in “Convicted sex offenders will take polygraph tests” published 18 November 2006 by the Anchorage Daily News:

FAIRBANKS — Convicted sex offenders in Fairbanks will have to take lie detector tests as a term of their parole or probation.

Plans are under way to expand a polygraph test pilot program started last spring in Anchorage, said Portia Parker, deputy commissioner for the Alaska Department of Corrections.

“We have to know what’s going on in their heads in order to treat them better,” Parker said Thursday in remarks before a local civic organization.

Studies have found lie detector tests to be an effective tool in monitoring and treating sex offenders, Parker said.

Parker said almost 40 other states already require rapists and pedophiles to undergo polygraph testing upon release from prison. The practice has been challenged in court, but a federal appeals court upheld the use of polygraph testing on a convicted sex offender in May after a New York man sued, saying it violated his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.

Results of polygraph tests are rarely admitted as evidence in court. “This has nothing to do with prosecuting people,” Parker said. “It has nothing to do with court. This is a treatment tool.

“It has a proven positive effect. It puts responsibility on the offender to change their behavior.”

Between 100 and 120 sex offenders are released from prison in Alaska every year, Parker said.

She said the challenge is having a large enough pool of polygraph examiners trained to work with the offenders. The pilot program in Anchorage relies on a contractor who travels here from Washington state.

“We’re not getting resistance from sex offenders to taking the polygraph, but they are being deceptive because they have been for years,” Parker said.

The National Academy of Sciences reportedly rates the median accuracy of polygraph testing on parolees at nearly 90 percent, provided the examiner is properly trained.

Alaska tops the nation for its prevalence of sexual assault and sexual abuse of minors per capita, according to Parker.

It is unclear on what basis it is claimed that the National Academy of Sciences “rates the median accuracy of polygraph testing on parolees at nearly 90 percent, provided the examiner is properly trained.” The NAS’s report, The Polygraph and Lie Detection makes no such claim. On the contrary, the Committee to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph found (at p. 2) that “Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy.”

On Friday, 10 November 2006, National Public Radio’s On the Media program included a segment on lie detectors titled “Something Like Truth” during which host Brooke Gladstone spoke with UCLA law professor Jennifer L. Mnookin. The 8-minute, 41-second segment may be downloaded as a 3.5 mb MP3 file here.