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| True Lies: Some Truths About Lie Detectors |
| By : Flynn Remedios | Previous | Next |
| Posted on : 18 Jun, 2007 | Total Views : 163 |
The Al-Qaida has it and so does the CBI, the FBI and the erstwhile KGB – all of them have comprehensive manuals for their agents on beating the polygraph, better known as the lie-detector test. Such manuals also list methods to hoodwink interrogators and create a false perception in the event of capture. Unfortunately, thanks to the internet, these manuals are now available to the local rascal who can well proclaim – knowledge is power.
With the advance of scientific knowledge and modern equipment as well as developments in the field of psychological and brain wave research new methods have evolved like the P300 brain mapping test which is a widely accepted non-invasive lie detector test used by police departments all over the world.
As the tests become more widely used and acceptable by courts so does the know-how on how to beat them. A simple search on google reveals that there are several books and web sites devoted to "beating the polygraph". For obvious reasons I have not mentioned the names of these books, but a little googling would reveal all.
According to documented expert opinion, "the machine cannot read a person's mind, but can only give indications and readings on certain physical parameters like rate of heart beat, perspiration rate, brain wave pattern, eye movement or eyelid dilation and blood pressure. These characteristics and parameters can be easily faked if you know simple tricks to beat them."
To quote one of the online manuals, "the idea of the device is based on measuring the body's physiological changes. Thus, if the subject is able to control these changes, it will enable him to fool the device. The important principle for passing the test is for physiological reactions while answering "control questions" to be stronger than reactions while answering the real questions, so that the interrogator cannot distinguish between true and false answers."
"Control questions", are questions with known answers that establish the body's natural physiological level, and that is for comparison with the result obtained by the interrogator when answering the real question," says the manual.
Biting the tongue is another simple and common method used by subjects to fool the polygraph - something that the lie-detector cannot detect. "The subject may partially control his involuntary physiological changes by many methods, among them, doing mental arithmetic, thinking about moving things, contracting the muscle of the posterior, or biting the side of the tongue and if possible pinching himself. It may sometimes be useful to take sedatives and sleep-inducing drugs or to rub antiperspirant on the fingertips, and to cough, but these aforementioned things are not the ideal way to pass the test," says another treatise on the subject.
Taking cough syrups in larger doses is the common criminal's way of bluffing the polygraph. Another method recently perfected by local goons in Mumbai is to pop a few pills of Restyl or Peace or any other such prepartion of alprazolam - an anti-anxiety pill about two hours before the scheduled test. A few pills of Restyl would casue disorientation and induced sleep by manipulation of the central nervous system - which would give conflicting results.
Narco Analysis involves the administration of certain mind-state-altering drugs. The subject is pumped with "truth potions". Unfortunately for the subject the 'quantity' of truth potion administered to him is not speicifed by the courts which have to permit such intrusive testing and the subject is at the mercy of the cops and the doctors 'drugging' him without his express permission. Do you expect a subject to be able to give correct and unopposed consent went he is in police custody. However, even the impact of narco analysis can be doctored by consuming neutralising drugs. Some such drugs easily available on prescription from the neighbourhood chemists can be taken almost 4-6 hours before the test.
Medical experts sometimes keep the subject quarantined for 2-3 days to ensure that he/she is completely detoxified of any such neutralising agents..
No matter what.. the cops and robbers game continues..
(A part of this article was fist published in The Free Press Journal, Mumbai Edition)
Written By : Flynn Remedios
