I find it just a little funny and a lot crazy that the Obama Administration is targeting people who teach others to beat the venerable polygraph for prosecution and persecution.
(Fox News) “If someone stabs a voodoo doll in the heart with a pin and the victim they intended to kill drops dead of a heart attack, are they guilty of murder?” Gene Iredale, an attorney who often represents federal defendants, asked the news service. “What if the person who dropped dead believed in voodoo?”
I’ve been polygraphed many times and it works just fine on me because I’m an honest guy with generally judeo-christian feelings of guilt and remorse. The polygraph was built for me. But it doesn’t work on sociopaths (people who can’t tell right from wrong and that means that narcissists and the clinically deranged can lie effectively on a polygraph).
The best way to effectively beat the polygraph is to be precisely who the government hopes to screen out. Aldrich Ames, famous CIA turncoat, beat the polygraph a number of times, and so did Robert Hanssen, HEAD of FBI counterintelligence and Russian spy. How did they manage to beat the polygraph?
The Fox News piece, cited above, details arrests of people who trained others to beat the polygraph through a number of means (that work depending on the person who is ‘lying on the box’). In these cases, I suspect that the arrested were charged as accessories after-the-fact since they were working with accused people who planned to take a polygraph.
To me, relying on the polygraph alone is a lot like the Patriot Act. It’s a shortcut for people who are unable to conduct thorough investigations. If a polygraph is used in conjunction with a thoughtful and thorough investigation, it can be helpful to target certain areas that require answers. In fact, polygraphers (and I’m not one) are trained to conduct investigations as part of the scope of their polygraph examination. Anyone who looked closely at either Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen would have found them to be wholly unsuited for federal service.
But nobody did — and why they didn’t eludes me. A good friend of WoFat’s and mine was one of Aldrich (Rick) Ames classmates at “The Farm” and while he maintained good relations with Ames, he’s always maintained that “Rick had a screw loose”.
Legislators/members of Congress are not required to submit to a polygraph examination and neither is the Commander-in-Chief and Leader of the Free World. Am I the only person that finds that to be just a little bit odd? What might one find out if they polygraphed Barack Obama?
Did you ever claim to be a foreign student to unlawfully obtain student aid?
Do you consider yourself to be a Muslim? (valid because we’re in a war against radical Islam)
Are you now or have you ever been a member of an organization that advocates the violent overthrow of the United States of America?
Would he pass? Likely. He’s a narcissistic sociopath. To a narcissist, lying is simply a part of life.
There must be a reason polygraph information is often inadmissible.
And having a screw loose would seem to go hand in hand with certain types of work. Either as a prerequisite or an after effect, such as post traumatic stress disorder.
What's the point if it only works on the "generally" honest?
That is the point, isn't it?
Polygraph information is ALWAYS inadmissible in a criminal proceeding unless the person who submitted to the test allows the jury to consider it. The way a question is phrased or put to the subject can change the results — which is part of the problem.
Having been examined by some VERY skilled polygraphers, I can tell you that it's effective against people like me. But I can also say that it doesn't work against sociopaths.
Wonder how obama would do on a poly?
I can't fool one either.
"It's not a lie, if YOU believe it…" – George Costanza
He'd pass.
You'd make a lousey politician.
Precisely.
I've never had to take a polygraph, but I've always wanted to learn to beat one. Not because I intend to do evil, mind you. I'd like to master it for the same reasons I learned to pick locks and make all kinds of dangerous stuff from easily obtainable materials.
I'm naturally curious and you never know when a particular skill set will be useful.
Drinking a lot of coffee and 5 hour energy before a test tends to make you jittery and throw off the polygraph…but it's better just to tell the truth and let it ride at that.
I have been asked many times why I teach people how to pass a polygraph test. So I made this video to answer that question.
youtube.com/watch?v=v5lF2XqSHDQ
Thank you.
A smart man once taught me, the machine is just a ruse, a good administrator will get the truth out.
On my last test, I was informed by the administrator that there had been a minor revolt by administrators (the ones operating the machines) regarding "proper procedures." After many a "confrontational" test, I had quite a pleasant experience. Except for that damn thumbtack in my shoe and the mouth full of pennies!
(Just kidding, that doesn't work – refer to George Costanza…)
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