Yes, a little bit of a giggle, a little bit of shame. Not a great deal. On Lawfare Michael Adams comments on the very serious topic of a 2015 data breach:
The Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) data breach involves the greatest theft of sensitive personnel data in history. But, to date, neither the scope nor scale of the breach, nor its significance, nor the inadequate and even self-defeating response has been fully aired.
And it’s filled with good information and opinions, which I’d expect from a Lawfare contributor. So it’s a little jarring to run across this:
Although the theft of fingerprint data has been widely reported, there is still another critical component of the adjudication dataset that has been largely overlooked. Certain types of security clearances require the individual to pass a polygraph examination, which can be extraordinarily intrusive and far exceed the subject matter of an SF-86. One former U.S. official noted that “a polygrapher once asked if he’d ever practiced bestiality.” Another said that “he was asked about what contacts he’d had with journalists, including in a social setting. All of the data collected during a polygraph is part of the adjudication data set. While we do not know where and how the full set of polygraph data is stored, adjudication data does include at least some polygraph information and officials have confirmed some polygraph data is shared with OPM.
I would expect Mr. Adams to be a trifle more sophisticated. Polygraph tests, despite their highly questionable use by government agencies, do not have a history of success. Skeptical Inquirer has published a number of articles on the subject (most are offline, unfortunately), referencing academic studies indicating a failure rate in excess of 50%. They do have a recent press release here:
… Morton E. Tavel of the Indiana University School of Medicine lays out a sobering case for its outright abandonment by law enforcement. He cites studies in which nearly half of subjects are falsely judged to be dishonest and points out the lack of any studies that show lying can be linked to any measurable emotional response.
Considering the impact the perception of having lied to law enforcement can have on a person’s life, be it legal jeopardy or social stigma, Tavel asks, “How can we, as a society, react to such a perversion of science? The logical solution is to completely abandon this method of testing.”
Also weighing heavily on our criminal justice system is its reliance on the human memory, something that cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown is troublingly malleable. In her address to Goldsmiths College at the University of London, reprinted in Skeptical Inquirer, Loftus explains how entire events can be implanted into people’s minds through such pseudoscientific means as “recovered memory therapy,” making them believe they have had experiences that never occurred, such as abuse by relatives or having been in a Satanic cult, “accusations that can cause untold misery for innocent people and their families.”
And there’s this gem from Alan P. Zelicoff (M.D. and Ph.D. in Physics, according to SI’s biography) in the 2001 July / August edition of Skeptical Inquirer:
The secret of the polygraph-the polygraphers’ own shameless deception-is that their machine is no more capable of assessing truth telling than were the priests of ancient Rome standing knee-deep in chicken parts. Nonetheless, the polygrapher tries to persuade the unwitting subject that their measurements indicate when a lie is being told. The subject, nervously strapped in a chair, is often convinced by the aura surrounding this cheap parlor trick, and is then putty in the hands of the polygrapher, who launches into an intrusive, illegal, and wide-ranging inquisition. The subject is told, from time to time, that the machine is indicating “deception” (it isn’t, of course), and he is continuously urged to “clarify” his answers, by providing more and more personal information. At some point (it’s completely arbitrary and up to the judgment of the polygrapher), the test is stopped and the polygrapher renders a subjective assessment of “deceptive response.” Even J. Edgar Hoover knew this was senseless. He banned the polygraph test from within the ranks of the FBI as a waste of time.
Much like the fallacious case for torture: the process does not guarantee true information. Indeed, it discourages it from the most interesting targets, those who know they may be subjected to it. I cannot help but wonder if, in both cases, it’s really about making the users of the process feel like they’re doing something. Alan continues,
The truth is this: The polygraph is a ruse, carefully constructed as a tool of intimidation, and used as an excuse to conduct an illegal inquisition under psychologically and physically unpleasant circumstances. Spies know how to beat it, and no court in the land permits submission of polygraphs, even to exonerate the accused.
So I’m a little ashamed, because Mr. Adams is making great points about an important subject, but I’m laughing because here’s a simple fact of the matter: whoever broke into that database is now dealing with a shitload of polygraph data. Of data of extremely dubious usefulness. Someone or some entity put themselves at risk to suck up data from a technology which never passed an academic analysis and failed many.
And do they even know it?
It’s great schadenfreude. Hell, if they know that some of the data might be bad, then they have to ask if the rest of the data is of similar quality. There’s a qualitative difference between simple data like credit card information, and fuzzy information such as that collected with a polygraph – or means that are similar, such as, say, surveillance, where truth values may not be entirely clear. I know I’d be nervous if I was the project leader. The implication of intellectual lack of discipline on the part of my target would taint all the data, ruining its future usefulness for the circumspect. Only the bold would be willing to use it…
