I agree. In the latest version of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, my co-author and I advise against applying for any federal position with a polygraph screening requirement.

The MythBusters "Beat the Lie Detector" segment was particularly bad, and the producers of the show should be ashamed of it. You'll find a detailed critique here. In peer reviewed research on countermeasures, about half of programmed guilty subjects were able to fool the polygraph after a maximum of 30 minutes of instruction, and experienced polygraph examiners were unable to detect the countermeasures. See the studies by Charles R. Honts and others cited in the bibliography of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

Yes! Thank you.

J. Edgar Hoover actually took a pretty dim view toward polygraphs. When the FBI relied on them for the first time in a counterintelligence investigation, polygraph results led them to relax surveillance of a Nazi spy suspect, who promised to cooperate with the FBI. But after finishing his polygraph, he got on the next ship to Germany and was gone. See Chapter 15 of Nazi Spies in America, a book by the FBI special agent who was in charge of the bungled case.

It is telling, I think, that the only "crimes" that the U.S. government alleges against Williams are those it conceived, funded, and stage-managed. The government has had records of nearly 5,000 of his customers for well over a year, and yet the indictment doesn't refer to a single one of his actual customers. I think this is a clear case of the government abusing its investigatory and prosecutorial powers in order to stifle speech it dislikes. Discovery and witness cross-examination in U.S. v. Doug Williams should prove interesting.

Indeed, the indictment avoids framing the mere teaching of polygraph countermeasures as a crime. But I think it's clear that Williams was targeted for prosecution in order to silence speech that the U.S. government doesn't like. The only "crimes" in the indictment are those that the government cooked up, funded, and stage-managed. This despite the fact that the government has the names of nearly 5,000 of his customers.

A comment by the head of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection polygraph unit last year before an audience of law enforcement polygraph examiners underscores the political nature of this prosecution. Explaining the criminal investigation, dubbed "Operation Lie Busters," Special Agent John R. Schwartz told members of the American Association of Police Polygraphists that those who “protest the loudest and the longest” against polygraph testing “are the ones that I believe we need to focus our attention on.”

" The emperor has no clothes, so instead of clothing the emperor we just make sure everybody's wearing a blindfold."

That's precisely the official thinking about polygraph policy. Ten years ago, a senior instructor at the federal polygraph school floated the idea of criminalizing the public dissemination of information about polygraph countermeasures. I never thought it would come to pass, but it seems a considerable effort is being made.