WEBVTT - Do lie detector tests actually work? 0:00:12.180 --> 0:00:12.560 I'm Manny. 0:00:12.780 --> 0:00:13.980 I'm Noah. This is Devin. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:15.930 And this is No Such Thing, the show where we 0:00:15.950 --> 0:00:19.090 settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. 0:00:19.770 --> 0:00:24.489 This week, do lie detector tests actually detect lies? 0:00:27.500 --> 0:00:28.780 There's no such thing. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:30.500 No such thing. 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:33.520 No such thing. 0:00:34.820 --> 0:00:36.500 No such thing. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.490 No such thing. 0:00:43.540 --> 0:00:45.500 I've got a question, and I need you guys to 0:00:45.580 --> 0:00:49.019 answer honestly. Are you guys good liars? 0:00:51.150 --> 0:00:54.710 Mia is currently watching The Traitors. And she says I 0:00:54.730 --> 0:00:56.080 would be bad at that Oh yeah you would be 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.860 horrible at trading I think I'd sacrifice myself. 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.180 Your issue in traders though would be like You look 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.540 like you're lying sometimes when you're telling the truth I 0:01:03.580 --> 0:01:06.820 think you have the opposite problem Of like you'll laugh 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:07.860 or something And I'm like I. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.630 Know he's not lying I get nervous or something Like. 0:01:11.060 --> 0:01:15.270 Your reaction to nerves Makes you seem like you're lying. 0:01:14.850 --> 0:01:17.810 I think I'd want people to believe me so bad 0:01:18.330 --> 0:01:20.350 Even though I am telling the truth Yeah That it 0:01:20.390 --> 0:01:21.450 would feel like a lie. 0:01:21.510 --> 0:01:23.030 Yeah, it would feel like you're... How do you think 0:01:23.069 --> 0:01:23.370 you'd do? 0:01:23.670 --> 0:01:25.750 I think you'd be the best of us three on traitors. 0:01:26.350 --> 0:01:30.899 I don't think I'm a great liar by, like, if 0:01:30.940 --> 0:01:32.380 someone asks me something straight up. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:32.880 Yeah. 0:01:32.980 --> 0:01:34.320 I think I'm a good liar by omission. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.600 Yeah, so you could, you know, hide a little bit. 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:39.560 Yes, I think I could talk around things. 0:01:39.580 --> 0:01:42.370 But if you're getting grilled, it's... Yeah, if you're. 0:01:42.230 --> 0:01:46.350 Asking me something straight up, it's hard because I'm bad at, like, 0:01:47.350 --> 0:01:49.070 thinking of what the lie would be ahead of time. 0:01:49.590 --> 0:01:52.230 Yeah. Which I think good liars do, you know? 0:01:52.610 --> 0:01:54.230 The premeditated is crazy. 0:01:54.290 --> 0:01:56.330 You can't show up and lie. I can't lie on 0:01:56.350 --> 0:01:57.660 the spot. That's the issue. Yeah. 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:58.220 I'll say this. 0:01:58.380 --> 0:02:02.200 I don't think I could do the premeditated story and. 0:02:02.340 --> 0:02:04.000 Stick to it. Some people are really good at that. 0:02:04.020 --> 0:02:05.540 But I think I could get out of a situation 0:02:05.580 --> 0:02:08.660 by lying, probably. Something was sprung up on me. 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.380 I thought, you know, you'd probably actually be a good liar. 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.000 I think it depends. I don't think, again, under kind 0:02:15.030 --> 0:02:18.930 of interrogation, no. I think if it's simple, hey- Do 0:02:18.940 --> 0:02:19.540 you do this thing? 0:02:20.530 --> 0:02:20.750 No. 0:02:21.350 --> 0:02:24.070 I think I could get through that first round, but 0:02:24.110 --> 0:02:26.030 I can't do the two-factor sort of thing. 0:02:26.090 --> 0:02:27.690 No follow-ups. 0:02:28.210 --> 0:02:31.130 Exactly. Then I have to leave, which is then more suspicious. 0:02:32.010 --> 0:02:33.910 So anyway, I was thinking about a recent headline from 0:02:33.930 --> 0:02:36.130 a few weeks ago. Manny, why don't you read this aloud? 0:02:36.450 --> 0:02:41.340 In Major League Hunt, Pentagon gives polygraph tests to joint 0:02:41.470 --> 0:02:42.280 staff members. 0:02:43.500 --> 0:02:43.720 Okay. 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.900 So a polygraph is well-known as a lie detector test. 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:48.059 Mm-hmm. 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:49.940 What do we know about polygraphs? 0:02:50.380 --> 0:02:50.540 Go. 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.850 Well, my introduction to the polygraph, I think with a 0:02:54.870 --> 0:02:59.269 lot of millennials, was thanks to Maury, the daytime TV 0:02:59.290 --> 0:03:00.109 show gods. 0:03:00.130 --> 0:03:01.650 Maury Povich. 0:03:01.669 --> 0:03:06.609 Where they would give lie detector tests to cheating husbands, mostly, 0:03:06.630 --> 0:03:07.350 or spouses. 0:03:07.470 --> 0:03:07.740 Yeah. 0:03:08.380 --> 0:03:13.519 And that was riveting as a child, seeing people being caught, 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:15.620 quote unquote, And a lie. 0:03:15.940 --> 0:03:18.160 During your relationship with Elizabeth, how many times have you 0:03:18.180 --> 0:03:20.820 had sexual intercourse with another woman she does not know about? 0:03:21.540 --> 0:03:25.410 You said none. The lie detector test determined that was 0:03:25.470 --> 0:03:34.109 a lie more than five times. We asked you, did 0:03:34.130 --> 0:03:36.210 you have sexual intercourse with a woman you. 0:03:36.170 --> 0:03:37.370 Admitted to showering with? 0:03:37.410 --> 0:03:39.890 You said no. The lie detector test determined that was 0:03:40.050 --> 0:03:40.570 a lie. 0:03:40.590 --> 0:03:40.650 Oh! 0:03:45.460 --> 0:03:48.040 Yeah, and what was funny about the Maury lie detector 0:03:48.060 --> 0:03:50.300 test is, to the best of my recollection, I don't 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.000 think they rarely ever showed the test being administered. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:55.640 No, just like B-roll. Right. 0:03:55.660 --> 0:03:59.300 Yeah, and then you'd just get the results. But in 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.300 pop culture movies and TV shows, the image I'm thinking 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.680 of is you connect someone's finger to the wire. the 0:04:07.740 --> 0:04:11.180 test itself, it's like a machine that is, that has 0:04:11.340 --> 0:04:11.740 ink in it. 0:04:11.820 --> 0:04:12.500 And it's like. 0:04:12.620 --> 0:04:15.820 Drawing these kind of heartbeat looking lines on a piece 0:04:15.860 --> 0:04:20.409 of paper. And I think when the needle, so to speak, 0:04:20.450 --> 0:04:23.609 goes crazy, that's supposed to indicate that the person is lying. 0:04:23.790 --> 0:04:26.170 So yeah. What do you think it's actually measuring? 0:04:26.350 --> 0:04:28.990 Maybe like your heart rate or something. I imagine your 0:04:29.010 --> 0:04:32.750 heart rate increases when you're telling a lie. It can't 0:04:32.770 --> 0:04:35.720 just be that because you wouldn't, you could, measure that 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:39.160 without all that equipment so i actually don't know. 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.390 But think about the stuff that you're talking about the 0:04:41.450 --> 0:04:45.710 images are older maybe the newer ones don't have that 0:04:45.790 --> 0:04:47.570 but i think about the was it meet the parents 0:04:47.990 --> 0:04:49.870 yeah yeah yeah where they where they do the lie 0:04:49.890 --> 0:04:52.070 detector and it's a similar setup now. 0:04:51.930 --> 0:04:55.670 These aren't 100 accurate right there well you'd be surprised 0:04:55.730 --> 0:04:56.730 how accurate they are. 0:04:56.890 --> 0:04:59.330 I would imagine it's a change in heart rate everyone 0:04:59.350 --> 0:05:03.840 has their baseline and then If you're lying, I'm imagining 0:05:03.860 --> 0:05:07.200 in anticipation of the lie, your body would maybe do 0:05:07.260 --> 0:05:08.480 something different. 0:05:09.020 --> 0:05:12.560 But as a kid, you're like, the lie detector is... Foolproof. Yes. 0:05:12.620 --> 0:05:12.900 Yeah. 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:14.859 It's like the Wonder Woman lasso of truth. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:15.200 Yes. 0:05:15.540 --> 0:05:18.220 You cannot lie once they get the lie detector. 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:18.620 Yes. 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:20.800 As an adult, I feel like that's not true. Yeah. 0:05:20.820 --> 0:05:22.640 So how reliable do you think they are? 0:05:23.700 --> 0:05:26.640 Similar to what Devin's saying, as we've gotten older, I've 0:05:26.730 --> 0:05:32.220 learned that they're not so reliable. Not that they... couldn't 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.840 catch someone in a lie, but that, you know, that's 0:05:34.900 --> 0:05:39.740 just not a fair piece of equipment to really pin 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.440 everything on someone in like a court case, for example. 0:05:42.460 --> 0:05:46.000 I used to watch on Netflix the confession tapes, and 0:05:46.580 --> 0:05:49.219 you get people lying on there all the time, supposedly, 0:05:49.500 --> 0:05:53.440 and then it turns out, no, the evidence dictates that 0:05:53.460 --> 0:05:56.510 they could not have been the place that they were. 0:05:57.250 --> 0:05:59.950 And so it's like, well, damn, that lie detector test 0:06:00.529 --> 0:06:01.849 What is it actually measuring? 0:06:01.950 --> 0:06:04.789 Yeah, the examiner should be taking a damn test. 0:06:05.070 --> 0:06:06.930 Is it a nerve detector test? 0:06:07.110 --> 0:06:07.410 Yes. 0:06:07.990 --> 0:06:09.710 Yeah. Great question. 0:06:11.210 --> 0:06:12.730 So this week, we're going to learn the history of 0:06:12.750 --> 0:06:15.570 the polygraph, find out how reliable it is or isn't, 0:06:16.270 --> 0:06:19.420 and finally, test one out ourselves. After the break, we 0:06:19.460 --> 0:06:21.760 take a visit to the early days of lie detection. 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.099 My name is Amit Katwala. I'm a science and technology 0:06:40.140 --> 0:06:42.820 journalist and the author of Tremors in the Blood, Murder, 0:06:42.900 --> 0:06:44.970 Obsession and the Birth of the Lie Detector. 0:06:45.589 --> 0:06:49.490 Before the polygraph was invented, what were the methods used 0:06:49.550 --> 0:06:52.109 for lie detection or what were the kind of the 0:06:52.150 --> 0:06:53.970 theories going around before we got to the point of 0:06:54.010 --> 0:06:55.660 anyone actually trying to build this machine? 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.900 There had been folk theories for thousands of years, you know, 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.200 in like ancient China, people would say that if you 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.000 got someone you thought was lying to chew rice, it 0:07:04.339 --> 0:07:06.600 would sort of turn sticky in their mouth if they 0:07:06.620 --> 0:07:08.880 were lying because of the adrenaline. And there was like 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.940 all these sort of like folk ideas of what liars 0:07:13.770 --> 0:07:16.410 would do. And the book title Tremors in the Blood 0:07:16.450 --> 0:07:18.610 comes from this quote from Daniel Defoe, who was writing 0:07:18.670 --> 0:07:20.990 about how there is a tremor in the blood of 0:07:21.030 --> 0:07:23.150 a thief, this idea that you can kind of tell 0:07:23.190 --> 0:07:25.550 when someone's lying because they'll be tense, their heart will 0:07:25.570 --> 0:07:29.050 be racing and things like that. But it didn't really 0:07:29.070 --> 0:07:32.450 get formalised until much, much later, until the 1910s, 1920s. 0:07:33.250 --> 0:07:36.030 And it was actually this guy called William Marston who 0:07:36.090 --> 0:07:39.150 came up with this first insight that, oh, hey, maybe 0:07:39.190 --> 0:07:43.270 blood pressure, heart rate is linked to lying. He did 0:07:43.290 --> 0:07:45.770 a bunch of experiments on his peers at Harvard and 0:07:46.050 --> 0:07:49.960 at other colleges and basically got them to tell made 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.260 up stories while measuring their blood pressure, and this was 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.080 the first sort of insight that maybe there was a 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.810 link between telling lies and what the body was doing. 0:07:58.450 --> 0:08:01.290 William Marston, incidentally, then went on to create Wonder Woman, 0:08:01.710 --> 0:08:04.290 the comic book character who had a lasso of truth, 0:08:04.830 --> 0:08:06.290 so there was like a weird link there too. 0:08:12.380 --> 0:08:14.640 The thing about how in ancient China they would give 0:08:14.660 --> 0:08:15.220 people rice. 0:08:16.990 --> 0:08:18.870 How many people have been fucked over by the most 0:08:19.010 --> 0:08:23.770 bullshit tests? That guy probably spent the rest of his 0:08:23.810 --> 0:08:24.630 life in jail. 0:08:24.890 --> 0:08:26.010 Oh, worse. 0:08:26.060 --> 0:08:27.260 Because he's like, this is good. 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.360 Yeah. Certainly too much. 0:08:31.300 --> 0:08:31.620 Oops. 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:33.960 So here's how we got to the invention of the 0:08:34.059 --> 0:08:35.000 polygraph device. 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:41.080 In the 1910s, policing was quite a brutal affair. So 0:08:41.140 --> 0:08:44.170 if the police wanted to find information out from the suspect, 0:08:44.190 --> 0:08:47.800 they would generally... beat out of them with sticks and 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:52.339 policing was quite a corrupt profession often staffed by sort 0:08:52.380 --> 0:08:55.000 of you know fairly uneducated people often run in this 0:08:55.020 --> 0:08:58.730 sort of like mafia-esque kind of like it's who you 0:08:58.780 --> 0:09:02.010 know and that kind of thing and in Berkeley in 0:09:02.030 --> 0:09:04.489 the 1910s and 1920s there was this police chief called 0:09:04.590 --> 0:09:06.589 August Vollmer who was the sort of visionary guy and 0:09:06.630 --> 0:09:08.650 he wanted to really like professionalize policing. 0:09:09.010 --> 0:09:11.689 Vollmer had read about William Marston's theory about a potential 0:09:11.730 --> 0:09:14.610 link between blood pressure and lies. So he asked one 0:09:14.630 --> 0:09:16.810 of his rookie cops, a guy named John Larson, who 0:09:16.850 --> 0:09:19.730 had studied physiology at Berkeley, to make a machine to 0:09:19.770 --> 0:09:20.209 measure this. 0:09:20.830 --> 0:09:25.390 Larson went away and he built this machine that basically 0:09:25.790 --> 0:09:29.740 connected a blood pressure cuff and some pneumatic tubes to 0:09:29.780 --> 0:09:33.160 measure how someone was breathing to this pen that would 0:09:33.220 --> 0:09:35.360 scratch up and down on a roll of paper as 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.000 someone breathed in and out and as the blood pressure 0:09:37.020 --> 0:09:39.280 went up and down. And that really was the basis 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:40.340 of the first polygraph machine. 0:09:40.610 --> 0:09:43.330 So like we described earlier, it's that cuff, it's measuring 0:09:43.350 --> 0:09:45.339 blood pressure, and it's attached to a pen on the 0:09:45.380 --> 0:09:48.540 paper that's making the lines, you know, corresponding to that. 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.319 The polygraph is basically measuring three things. So your blood 0:09:51.420 --> 0:09:55.350 pressure and heart rate, your breathing, and then neuro devices 0:09:55.429 --> 0:09:58.070 also measure your galvanic skin response, which is basically how 0:09:58.090 --> 0:10:02.660 much you're sweating, and taken together polygraph examiners will say 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:04.720 that this is giving you like a sense of like 0:10:04.740 --> 0:10:09.920 someone's overall physiological arousal how stressed they are basically and 0:10:09.940 --> 0:10:12.699 the idea is that if you're lying and more likely 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.059 more stressed your blood pressure might be different to how 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:17.520 it is if you're telling the truth and that's what 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:19.680 polygraph examiners look for when they're conducting a test. 0:10:25.179 --> 0:10:27.989 Can you walk us through what a polygraph exam looks like? 0:10:28.610 --> 0:10:31.110 A polygraph exam doesn't really look like the way they 0:10:31.150 --> 0:10:33.670 portray it in the movies and on TV. It's much 0:10:33.750 --> 0:10:37.449 slower and much more boring than that. So basically, if 0:10:37.470 --> 0:10:39.309 you're doing a polygraph test properly, what you want to 0:10:39.330 --> 0:10:41.429 do is you want to collect a lot of baseline 0:10:41.460 --> 0:10:44.980 data about how someone's body reacts when they're telling the truth. 0:10:45.020 --> 0:10:47.439 So you might start by asking them questions like, is 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.600 your name Noah? Or is your birthday in June? And 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.260 questions to which you know the answer is yes, or 0:10:53.460 --> 0:10:54.860 that you know they're going to be telling the truth. 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.040 And then you use that data as a baseline. And 0:10:58.059 --> 0:11:01.280 then when you drop in target questions like, did you 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.280 do the crime or did you steal the car? The 0:11:04.340 --> 0:11:05.800 idea is that you can then look for a difference 0:11:05.820 --> 0:11:09.219 between that baseline question and the target question. And if 0:11:09.260 --> 0:11:12.380 there's a difference, it means that they're likely to be lying. 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.489 And you repeat this several times over the course of 0:11:15.530 --> 0:11:17.330 several hours. And eventually you end up with a sort 0:11:17.350 --> 0:11:20.570 of body of evidence that suggests that, hey, this person's 0:11:20.590 --> 0:11:23.469 blood pressure did this thing when they were saying they 0:11:23.490 --> 0:11:26.180 didn't steal the car. So That suggests maybe they were 0:11:26.220 --> 0:11:28.520 lying on that question, whereas it didn't do that thing 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:30.179 when they were telling me that their name was Noah. 0:11:31.330 --> 0:11:34.170 I didn't quite realize that they were testing against the 0:11:34.210 --> 0:11:39.850 control answers. I thought the authorities were saying, in a vacuum, 0:11:39.890 --> 0:11:42.290 we can tell what a lie is, not necessarily that 0:11:42.309 --> 0:11:45.339 they're testing against some preset questions. 0:11:45.530 --> 0:11:48.800 So the polygraph machine was first used in a theft 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.970 case at a dorm in Berkeley in 1922. And from 0:11:53.010 --> 0:11:55.010 then on, it started being used in murder trials and 0:11:55.110 --> 0:11:57.530 big cases. The media really kind of led the hype 0:11:57.550 --> 0:12:00.429 around it at the time. Newspapers would commission John Larson 0:12:00.470 --> 0:12:03.480 to run tests for them so they could report exclusive 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.400 results about potential murder suspects. So it wasn't in the 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:08.079 court system, but it was just in the press and 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:09.140 media hype around it. 0:12:09.140 --> 0:12:09.520 Right. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.099 Which I feel like, you know, downstream of that is 0:12:12.140 --> 0:12:15.750 where we get kind of the Maury style thing where, yeah, 0:12:15.770 --> 0:12:18.770 that's not a legal proceeding, but we're kind of taking 0:12:18.809 --> 0:12:20.550 it as fact regardless of kind of the. 0:12:22.260 --> 0:12:25.420 The setting, to say the least. Can you talk about 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.090 the issues with the accuracy of these tests? 0:12:28.330 --> 0:12:34.110 Polygraph tests have been shown to be fairly inaccurate, basically, 0:12:34.230 --> 0:12:36.969 ever since they were invented. There are a bunch of 0:12:36.990 --> 0:12:39.720 stats and reports on this, but I think the rough 0:12:39.770 --> 0:12:43.040 level of accuracy is about 60% to 70%, basically, whereas 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.900 the average person can guess when someone's lying about 54% 0:12:45.900 --> 0:12:48.800 of the time. So they're not much better than just 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.160 someone off the street. 0:12:51.020 --> 0:12:51.140 And. 0:12:51.650 --> 0:12:55.929 A lot of the supposed effectiveness of the polygraph comes 0:12:56.150 --> 0:12:59.790 from its use as like a psychological prop. If you've 0:12:59.809 --> 0:13:02.730 been told that the machine in front of you can 0:13:02.790 --> 0:13:05.150 tell if you're lying or not, and the person who's 0:13:05.170 --> 0:13:07.510 operating the machine is a skilled investigator, then you are 0:13:07.530 --> 0:13:11.100 more likely to blurt out the truth or confess to 0:13:11.130 --> 0:13:14.500 something than if that machine didn't exist. There's like a 0:13:14.540 --> 0:13:18.359 famous story from David Simon who wrote The Wire about 0:13:18.980 --> 0:13:22.890 cops in Baltimore using like a Xerox machine pretending it 0:13:22.929 --> 0:13:24.910 was a lie detector and getting a suspect to put 0:13:24.950 --> 0:13:26.510 their hand on it and then it would get spit 0:13:26.530 --> 0:13:28.950 out bits of paper with he's lying written on it 0:13:29.610 --> 0:13:32.810 and they used that to trick someone into confessing and. 0:13:32.750 --> 0:13:35.189 Did you and Mon-El shoot your boy Pookie down on 0:13:35.270 --> 0:13:38.829 Cary Street just like Mon-El said you did nah no. 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.500 Lie machine is never wrong son. 0:13:48.980 --> 0:13:50.949 And the polygraph has often been used in that sort 0:13:50.970 --> 0:13:55.130 of setting as essentially like a prop. And that's not 0:13:55.170 --> 0:13:57.929 to say that it hasn't gotten murderers to confess or 0:13:57.990 --> 0:14:00.450 put dangerous people behind bars, because it obviously has, but 0:14:00.470 --> 0:14:03.960 it's also been used to coerce people into giving false confessions. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.780 And I think one thing that's not appreciated very much 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:09.979 is that the polygraph is not admissible as evidence in 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:11.860 federal court, and it never has been. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.329 I asked him to explain why isn't it admissible in court, 0:14:14.350 --> 0:14:16.650 because that was news to me that it was never allowed. 0:14:17.170 --> 0:14:19.140 So it's never been used in court because of this 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.020 standard called the Frye standard. And the Frye standard basically 0:14:22.060 --> 0:14:24.560 says that you can only admit a new technology or 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.320 a new piece of scientific evidence in court if a 0:14:27.380 --> 0:14:30.680 majority of experts in that field believe that it's effective 0:14:31.060 --> 0:14:34.550 in doing what it says it does. So things like 0:14:34.910 --> 0:14:39.130 DNA testing, fingerprinting clear that bar. Other things maybe don't. 0:14:39.250 --> 0:14:42.650 So the polygraph doesn't clear that bar. Things like blood 0:14:42.670 --> 0:14:45.640 spatter analysis are sort of in the kind of grey 0:14:45.660 --> 0:14:48.420 area where some people accept them, some people don't, but 0:14:48.730 --> 0:14:51.710 there are some problems with evidence types like that. If 0:14:51.730 --> 0:14:54.530 you watch any Netflix true crime series, you'll come across 0:14:54.730 --> 0:14:58.270 a lot of these technologies and they are of varying 0:14:58.310 --> 0:15:01.970 levels of effectiveness, but the polygraph never cleared that standard 0:15:02.010 --> 0:15:04.670 and never has, basically. So where it ends up being 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.060 used is a lot of it is pre-trial or in 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.980 the sort of investigative phase of crimes when police are 0:15:11.020 --> 0:15:14.510 looking into stuff or they want to rule people in 0:15:14.550 --> 0:15:18.150 or out, they'll use it as a means of applying 0:15:18.230 --> 0:15:21.850 pressure to suspects that they think are lying, or they'll 0:15:21.930 --> 0:15:25.960 use it to essentially screen a lot of people in 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.040 a short space of time in the hope, I think, 0:15:28.100 --> 0:15:31.400 that the pressure of the exam will force someone to 0:15:31.420 --> 0:15:33.320 blurt something out that they didn't mean to or something 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.580 like that. So it's used a lot in the pre-trial 0:15:35.620 --> 0:15:37.320 investigative phase of crimes. 0:15:38.260 --> 0:15:39.940 It's fine that you can't use it in court, but 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.220 I think the issue with it is that If the 0:15:43.260 --> 0:15:46.900 police department is using it and then they zero in on, okay, 0:15:46.940 --> 0:15:48.540 we gave Manny a lie detector test. 0:15:48.700 --> 0:15:50.720 He failed it. Okay. 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.680 We have all these other suspects. Let's stop looking into them. 0:15:53.780 --> 0:15:56.060 And now let's just start collecting evidence that points to 0:15:56.100 --> 0:15:58.820 Manny doing the crime. So at the end of the day, 0:15:58.860 --> 0:16:00.040 that test may not be. 0:16:00.300 --> 0:16:01.060 Used in court. 0:16:01.940 --> 0:16:04.180 But it has directed the police in a way to 0:16:04.330 --> 0:16:08.430 ignore other suspects or ignore evidence that doesn't fit this 0:16:08.490 --> 0:16:10.390 narrative that has come from the lie detector. 0:16:10.410 --> 0:16:12.510 Yeah, and that person wouldn't seem so guilty if we 0:16:12.550 --> 0:16:14.530 are just seeing it as a prop wasn't in the room. 0:16:14.750 --> 0:16:15.330 Yep. 0:16:15.470 --> 0:16:17.489 So you're saying it shouldn't be allowed in court and 0:16:17.550 --> 0:16:19.060 the police shouldn't even be allowed to use it. 0:16:19.250 --> 0:16:20.150 No, I don't think that, yeah. 0:16:20.290 --> 0:16:20.510 Yeah. 0:16:21.290 --> 0:16:23.950 Because I think a lot of the, you know, we 0:16:23.970 --> 0:16:26.590 could say whatever about the accuracy of it, but I think... 0:16:27.790 --> 0:16:30.200 When it's used by police departments, they're not saying, well, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:32.980 you know, there's a 30 or 40% chance that this 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:33.780 could be inaccurate. 0:16:33.820 --> 0:16:34.860 They're saying, well, this is the truth. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:40.440 It's like a PED for, you know, getting a conviction, basically. 0:16:41.580 --> 0:16:42.100 It's not fair. 0:16:43.300 --> 0:16:47.100 It's true. There are so many instances where police just 0:16:47.140 --> 0:16:51.980 zero in on someone and forget about everyone else. I've 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.460 seen this happen in many episodes of True Crime TV. 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.860 They let the criminal go for 25, 30 years. Then 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:00.940 they're like, oh, it was that guy? 0:17:01.060 --> 0:17:03.140 Yeah, the guy who was, it was obvious if we 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:04.260 just looked at the accident. 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.070 We wrote him off immediately because he was nice to us. 0:17:07.530 --> 0:17:09.470 Yeah, to me, the biggest thing that jumped out was, 0:17:09.790 --> 0:17:13.090 you know, when Amit said that the rough level of 0:17:13.150 --> 0:17:18.129 accuracy is maybe 70%. And, you know, the average person 0:17:18.150 --> 0:17:22.240 can guess a liar around 54%. And that's an average person, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:26.180 not an investigator who I should hope could get a 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:26.670 little higher. 0:17:26.770 --> 0:17:30.310 But what do you guys think about the average person, 54%, 0:17:30.310 --> 0:17:32.929 is so high to me. I thought it would be 0:17:32.990 --> 0:17:33.410 way lower. 0:17:33.790 --> 0:17:34.830 Yeah, but it's a coin toss. 0:17:35.190 --> 0:17:35.710 True, yeah. 0:17:36.130 --> 0:17:37.580 The answer is a showing coin. 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:39.960 So all you need is one little thing. 0:17:40.060 --> 0:17:42.040 I mean, I don't know. 0:17:42.060 --> 0:17:47.179 Like how often do people lie? 46% of the time. 0:17:47.260 --> 0:17:50.120 That's a great question. 0:17:50.180 --> 0:17:52.639 I think it makes sense. It's like we all know 0:17:52.700 --> 0:17:56.240 what these tells are, even if it's like kids learn 0:17:56.270 --> 0:18:00.810 how to lie from adults, right? So like there's patterns 0:18:00.869 --> 0:18:03.810 that we don't discuss maybe openly of like when someone 0:18:03.830 --> 0:18:06.230 is lying, they do X, Y, and Z, but. 0:18:06.130 --> 0:18:07.830 We all pick up on. Yeah, because think of some 0:18:07.850 --> 0:18:08.590 of the things. 0:18:09.050 --> 0:18:10.330 They don't look you in the eye. 0:18:10.350 --> 0:18:11.070 Fidgeting. 0:18:11.150 --> 0:18:11.970 Yeah, fidgeting. 0:18:12.070 --> 0:18:12.820 Stuttering. 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.340 Yeah, adding– like talking a lot more than they need to. 0:18:16.410 --> 0:18:17.490 I think that's where I would fall. 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.280 If you know the person well, kind of like the 0:18:20.300 --> 0:18:23.300 lie detector test, you have the base standard and you 0:18:23.340 --> 0:18:24.760 know if they're deviating from that behavior. 0:18:24.780 --> 0:18:25.820 It's like, man, he's acting weird. 0:18:26.060 --> 0:18:26.840 Yeah, exactly. 0:18:26.859 --> 0:18:26.929 Why? 0:18:27.900 --> 0:18:30.359 So that's a bit of background on the history of 0:18:30.380 --> 0:18:33.379 the polygraph. And the big takeaway is it's not admissible 0:18:33.420 --> 0:18:35.600 in court because of that Frye standard, which it does 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.200 not pass, meaning a majority of experts in the field 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.320 don't back it up. But the story doesn't end there. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:43.859 Next up, we're going to hear more about how the 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.060 polygraph is being used at high levels in our country. 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:48.520 When we're back, we'll hear from someone who has been 0:18:48.580 --> 0:18:52.060 passionately advocating against the polygraph for over 30 years. 0:18:52.440 --> 0:19:02.690 Wow. 0:19:04.810 --> 0:19:06.580 We're back. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:07.119 Devin. 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.510 So we're talking polygraphs. We heard about the history of 0:19:11.530 --> 0:19:14.520 the polygraph machine. Now I'm going to introduce you guys 0:19:14.540 --> 0:19:17.800 to a fellow I met named George. Here's his story. 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.740 My name is George Mashke, and I'm a co-founder of antipolygraph.org, 0:19:23.460 --> 0:19:29.090 a nonprofit public interest website dedicated to exposing and ending waste, fraud, 0:19:29.130 --> 0:19:33.590 and abuse associated with a polygraph and other purported lie detectors. 0:19:34.350 --> 0:19:37.190 George, a former Army Reserve intelligence officer, told me he 0:19:37.230 --> 0:19:39.520 worked with the FBI on a few sensitive investigations. 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:44.340 So my interest in polygraphy really became keen in 1995 0:19:44.340 --> 0:19:46.850 when I applied for a job with the FBI. They 0:19:46.890 --> 0:19:49.970 had just then started requiring applicants to take polygraph. 0:19:50.060 --> 0:19:50.399 Tests. 0:19:51.380 --> 0:19:56.000 This was after Ulrich Ames was arrested, who ironically had 0:19:56.060 --> 0:19:59.179 beaten the polygraph twice while spying for the Russians. 0:19:59.940 --> 0:20:03.240 Justice Department officials today charged Aldrich Ames and his wife 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:07.219 Rosario with spying on America for the Russians. Ames was 0:20:07.260 --> 0:20:09.960 arrested on his way to his job at the CIA, 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:12.280 where he has worked for 31 years. 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.580 But the FBI got it in their head that using 0:20:15.619 --> 0:20:19.240 polygraph screening for their applicants would somehow be a good idea. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.820 So I was among the first FBI special agent applicants 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:27.909 to be polygraphed, and my polygrapher basically decided decided that 0:20:27.950 --> 0:20:30.470 I'm a spy. He accused me of deception when I 0:20:30.530 --> 0:20:34.780 denied having unauthorized contacts with a representative of a foreign government, 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.780 when I denied having released classified information to unauthorized persons. 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.980 So I didn't have any unauthorized contacts with foreign nationals. 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:48.620 I hadn't divulged any classified information to anyone. So this 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:50.500 made me very curious. How could I have told the 0:20:50.540 --> 0:20:53.500 truth yet fail the polygraph? And of course, if you 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.459 fail an FBI polygraph, it results in your being blacklisted 0:20:56.980 --> 0:21:00.530 for life from FBI employment. There's no appeal. And the 0:21:00.550 --> 0:21:03.250 results of your polygraph will be shared with other federal agencies. 0:21:03.850 --> 0:21:07.990 So it's really quite damaging to one's career prospects, at 0:21:08.030 --> 0:21:11.020 least in government employment, if you fail an FBI polygraph. 0:21:11.580 --> 0:21:15.080 One thing I can't confirm... is whether or not George 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:20.420 is a spy. I asked, he said no, so your 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:21.080 guess is as good as mine. 0:21:21.100 --> 0:21:21.980 A lie detector test. 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.730 How terrifying of a situation where you're being grilled about 0:21:26.770 --> 0:21:29.010 whether you're doing espionage. 0:21:29.570 --> 0:21:32.669 A few years later, as the World Wide Web grew, 0:21:32.890 --> 0:21:35.530 I discovered a website set up by another polygraph victim, 0:21:36.490 --> 0:21:39.520 and I found that the failure rate for the polygraph 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.959 was actually 20% then for the FBI. And It was 0:21:43.980 --> 0:21:48.480 hard for me to imagine that that many applicants who 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:51.959 made it that far in the process were lying about 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:57.400 espionage matters or undisclosed criminal activity. I felt the need 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.780 to speak publicly about my experience and to share what 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.159 I had learned about the unreliability of polygraphs. 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.640 Well, assuming what he's saying is true, it's so insane 0:22:07.740 --> 0:22:10.960 that the FBI looked at their data, saw that 20% 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.900 of the people who were doing the tests were spies 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:19.340 and they just didn't second guess. They're like, oh damn, 0:22:19.780 --> 0:22:20.240 I guess 20%. 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:21.100 Good thing we got them. 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:26.430 It's so crazy that no one was like, this doesn't 0:22:26.470 --> 0:22:26.890 seem right. 0:22:27.270 --> 0:22:30.850 So George failed the FBI polygraph, but we know that 0:22:31.070 --> 0:22:34.850 the polygraph doesn't pass the Fry standard, which allows it 0:22:34.890 --> 0:22:37.280 to be admissible in court evidence. So I asked kind 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.359 of what gives, how does that work? Would you be 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:44.619 able to explain the, what the EPPA of 1988 is? 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:45.510 Yes. 0:22:45.700 --> 0:22:48.850 So that's the Employee Polygraph Protection Act. And it was 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:52.470 a law that was passed with bipartisan support, signed by 0:22:52.490 --> 0:22:59.250 then-President Ronald Reagan, that prohibits most private employers from requiring 0:22:59.730 --> 0:23:03.830 applicants or employees to submit to lie detector tests. They 0:23:03.850 --> 0:23:07.470 can only request that they submit to them under very 0:23:07.790 --> 0:23:13.120 specific circumstances when there's, for example, a suspected loss caused 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:18.040 by employee misconduct and the employee they want to polygraph 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:23.100 could possibly have committed the crime. In practice, the law 0:23:23.140 --> 0:23:28.659 is so restrictive that employment-related polygraphs are seldom done in 0:23:28.700 --> 0:23:32.680 the private sector. But the government carved out a large 0:23:32.740 --> 0:23:37.250 exception for itself. federal, state, and local government agencies are 0:23:37.310 --> 0:23:40.149 all excluded from this act, and they can polygraph whoever 0:23:40.190 --> 0:23:43.790 they like for whatever reason without any legal restrictions. 0:23:44.330 --> 0:23:46.270 And do you have a sense of what the kind 0:23:46.290 --> 0:23:48.320 of justification for that carve-out was? 0:23:48.450 --> 0:23:52.300 The CIA lobbied for it. The CIA has, and had 0:23:52.340 --> 0:23:54.899 been then for decades, been a heavy user of polygraphs. 0:23:55.859 --> 0:23:59.200 And they valued the admissions that they sometimes got from applicants. 0:24:00.100 --> 0:24:04.240 So they used their influence with Congress to to get 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:08.580 this exemption added. There's a few instances where applicants have 0:24:08.619 --> 0:24:14.200 made admissions to serious crimes. And so admissions of that 0:24:14.260 --> 0:24:17.359 nature tend to sway policymakers thinking, well, you know, if 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:19.520 we hadn't used the polygraph, maybe we would have hired 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:22.659 that person. But of course they are hiring people who 0:24:22.700 --> 0:24:25.899 have committed serious crimes anyway. They're just the ones who 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:28.020 are clever enough to fool the lie detector. 0:24:28.460 --> 0:24:31.010 George's website has tons of reference materials and other things. 0:24:31.830 --> 0:24:34.689 including tips on how to beat the lie detector, which 0:24:34.710 --> 0:24:39.310 has gotten people like him in some trouble. George told 0:24:39.350 --> 0:24:42.409 me the cases of two men, Chad Dixon, an Indiana 0:24:42.470 --> 0:24:45.530 electrician who shared a polygraph passing course as a side hustle, 0:24:46.070 --> 0:24:49.949 and Doug Williams, a former police polygrapher from Oklahoma who 0:24:49.990 --> 0:24:52.730 published a manual called How to Sting the Polygraph. 0:24:53.380 --> 0:24:56.460 What the government did was sent undercover agents to them 0:24:57.300 --> 0:25:02.580 who purported to be applicants for... government employment or government 0:25:02.619 --> 0:25:06.340 employees who said they needed to lie on the polygraph. 0:25:06.580 --> 0:25:10.679 In Doug Williams' case, he initially declined to train the 0:25:10.740 --> 0:25:13.869 undercover agent, but the undercover agent wouldn't take no for 0:25:13.890 --> 0:25:16.310 an answer. He kept saying, please, I need your help. 0:25:16.869 --> 0:25:20.350 I think he appealed to Doug's religion as a Christian 0:25:20.470 --> 0:25:24.590 to help him. And so eventually both men trained people 0:25:24.630 --> 0:25:28.290 who said they were either seeking federal employment or a 0:25:28.580 --> 0:25:32.960 federal employee under investigation. the legal theory on which these 0:25:33.020 --> 0:25:36.960 cases were based was not that teaching countermeasures is itself illegal, 0:25:37.450 --> 0:25:40.609 but that it was part of a conspiracy to defraud 0:25:40.630 --> 0:25:44.410 the government by helping these people gain employment to which 0:25:44.430 --> 0:25:45.370 they were not entitled. 0:25:48.450 --> 0:25:50.359 The main gist of it there is that last bit of, 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:54.139 you know, it's kind of a way of looking at 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:56.600 it where these people aren't entitled to have these jobs. 0:25:56.640 --> 0:26:00.129 So if you're helping them, do that that's illegal and 0:26:00.170 --> 0:26:01.929 it's it's fraud in some sense if. 0:26:01.910 --> 0:26:05.989 You're helping them defraud yeah knowing that they know they 0:26:06.010 --> 0:26:09.190 came saying basically hey i've done stuff that i can't 0:26:09.230 --> 0:26:10.510 do to get this job. 0:26:10.250 --> 0:26:12.980 Yeah help me i need to beat this help me. 0:26:12.890 --> 0:26:15.520 Beat this test which is gonna question me about these 0:26:15.560 --> 0:26:19.020 things should i can't get the job versus them just 0:26:19.060 --> 0:26:21.540 coming and saying hey, I just want to know how 0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:23.840 to beat this test and you don't know anything about me. 0:26:24.530 --> 0:26:27.649 Right, yeah, just offering the class or sharing the book 0:26:27.970 --> 0:26:31.869 is not illegal and you can find this pretty easily. 0:26:32.490 --> 0:26:34.929 But if I went and said, I'm a criminal and 0:26:34.950 --> 0:26:39.790 I need to be in the CIA next week, help me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:26:39.850 --> 0:26:41.860 It's a different sort of situation. 0:26:42.340 --> 0:26:45.500 What I believe the motivation truly was is to silence 0:26:45.540 --> 0:26:50.219 these people. Criminal investigations were launched against them in the 0:26:50.359 --> 0:26:52.439 absence of any evidence at all that they had committed 0:26:52.880 --> 0:26:56.740 any crime. The government set about to manufacture crimes for 0:26:56.780 --> 0:27:00.290 which to prosecute them. The only crimes to which they 0:27:00.330 --> 0:27:03.629 pled guilty were the crimes that the government had conceived 0:27:04.070 --> 0:27:09.880 and orchestrated itself. They didn't involve any actual persons that 0:27:09.940 --> 0:27:12.940 these people had trained in how to pass a polygraph test. 0:27:13.760 --> 0:27:17.649 Do you remember the... The Gretchen Whitmer case where the 0:27:17.690 --> 0:27:19.850 guys were like going to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. 0:27:20.190 --> 0:27:20.650 Yeah. 0:27:21.070 --> 0:27:24.429 And, you know, it was such an insane news at 0:27:24.470 --> 0:27:26.450 the time. And then you read the art, this kind 0:27:26.470 --> 0:27:27.970 of like expose came out, I think it was in 0:27:27.990 --> 0:27:33.530 the Times, about just how much the FBI egged them 0:27:33.630 --> 0:27:35.470 on to do it. They were like, we really don't 0:27:35.510 --> 0:27:36.110 want to do this. 0:27:36.230 --> 0:27:36.679 Are you sure, bro? 0:27:36.770 --> 0:27:38.850 And it just kept going. Yeah. 0:27:39.570 --> 0:27:42.490 They're like, fine, after like three years. 0:27:42.490 --> 0:27:43.010 Of doing it. 0:27:43.369 --> 0:27:45.770 Yeah, it's like, I'll do anything too. Just leave me alone. 0:27:46.190 --> 0:27:49.530 But I'll say one more thing about making teaching the 0:27:49.550 --> 0:27:54.160 countermeasures illegal, even though it's pretty narrowly about helping people 0:27:54.220 --> 0:27:57.880 beat the system, not really beat the test. There's probably, 0:27:57.900 --> 0:28:03.359 I think, no greater indictment about these tests in general 0:28:04.100 --> 0:28:06.600 than the idea that, hey, we got to make sure 0:28:07.020 --> 0:28:09.040 that people don't teach people how to beat them. 0:28:09.060 --> 0:28:09.399 Right. 0:28:09.460 --> 0:28:09.660 Right. 0:28:10.100 --> 0:28:13.180 Because if we could just say lie or not, then 0:28:13.200 --> 0:28:14.280 what do you have to worry about? 0:28:14.580 --> 0:28:19.040 Especially your high-level examiner. It's not like you're someone off 0:28:19.060 --> 0:28:20.080 the street just doing a test. 0:28:20.300 --> 0:28:24.420 If your device is so foolproof, you should encourage people 0:28:24.440 --> 0:28:26.560 to try to beat it if you feel that strongly 0:28:26.600 --> 0:28:26.879 about it. 0:28:26.900 --> 0:28:31.120 Yep. Clearly you don't. Good point, Manny. 0:28:31.300 --> 0:28:33.220 That's a great point. Anyways, like and subscribe. Yeah, well, 0:28:33.260 --> 0:28:39.590 we go on a break now. On that note, we 0:28:39.630 --> 0:28:42.130 have learned about the history of the polygraph. We've seen 0:28:42.170 --> 0:28:46.050 the controversies surrounding the device and its use. So lastly, 0:28:47.290 --> 0:28:49.870 let's strap ourselves up to one of these things after 0:28:49.890 --> 0:28:50.130 the break. 0:29:04.770 --> 0:29:05.270 I'm Manny. 0:29:05.650 --> 0:29:06.450 Noah. Devin. 0:29:07.090 --> 0:29:10.580 And we are back. So, boys, we took a little 0:29:10.600 --> 0:29:13.400 field trip, a rare field trip, to the city of 0:29:13.440 --> 0:29:14.060 brotherly love. 0:29:14.380 --> 0:29:14.719 Yes, we did. 0:29:14.740 --> 0:29:17.200 We were visiting our new friend, Nate Gordon. 0:29:17.380 --> 0:29:20.760 My name is Nathan Gordon, and I'm director of the 0:29:20.820 --> 0:29:24.800 Academy for Scientific and Investigative Training, which is the American 0:29:24.840 --> 0:29:29.320 Polygraph Association and International Society of Polygraph Examiner Accredited School 0:29:29.850 --> 0:29:31.220 since 1980. 0:29:31.220 --> 0:29:34.100 Nate's Academy has trained thousands of law enforcement, intelligence, and 0:29:34.140 --> 0:29:36.930 private security officers all around the world. His office also 0:29:36.970 --> 0:29:40.740 administers tests themselves, like examining applicants for the Philly Police Department, 0:29:40.900 --> 0:29:43.540 as well as private sector uses. So he was kind 0:29:43.560 --> 0:29:46.200 enough to show us how the polygraph works, and Manny, 0:29:46.580 --> 0:29:49.030 you got strapped in and kind. 0:29:48.910 --> 0:29:49.630 Of put to the test. 0:29:49.810 --> 0:29:50.090 Yeah. 0:29:50.350 --> 0:29:50.870 Immediately. 0:29:50.890 --> 0:29:56.490 Arms up in the air like it's a holdup. 0:29:56.870 --> 0:29:58.570 I can already tell by this handle here. 0:29:59.340 --> 0:30:00.820 Some perspiration is happening. 0:30:03.520 --> 0:30:06.840 They strapped me to a chair by my torso. 0:30:07.720 --> 0:30:10.260 The top thing on his chest and the silver thing 0:30:10.300 --> 0:30:13.420 on his stomach is picking up body movements, which actually 0:30:13.440 --> 0:30:14.500 equates to respiration. 0:30:14.780 --> 0:30:17.420 Then they put these devices on my fingers. 0:30:18.100 --> 0:30:21.120 On his right hand, on his index finger and his 0:30:21.220 --> 0:30:25.510 ring finger. He's picking up electroderma activity, which is basically 0:30:25.530 --> 0:30:27.950 sweating of the fingertips. The one on his middle finger 0:30:28.150 --> 0:30:30.930 is a plethysmograph, which is picking up blood volume changes. 0:30:31.150 --> 0:30:36.010 The chair is recording my movement. And then the final 0:30:36.050 --> 0:30:38.850 thing was one of those cuffs that go on your 0:30:39.150 --> 0:30:41.430 arm when they're testing your blood pressure at the doctor, 0:30:41.470 --> 0:30:44.190 for example. So, like, I was really just kind of, 0:30:44.650 --> 0:30:46.990 I felt almost like RoboCop or something. 0:30:47.170 --> 0:30:48.970 Now, can you walk us through the actual demo? 0:30:49.150 --> 0:30:51.590 So, Nate showed me three index cards. 0:30:52.520 --> 0:30:55.220 And all three cards, regardless of the color, you'll say yes. 0:30:55.540 --> 0:30:57.220 And so he showed me the first card. 0:30:57.240 --> 0:30:58.070 It was yellow. 0:30:58.110 --> 0:30:59.050 He said, is this yellow? 0:30:59.070 --> 0:31:00.110 I said yes. 0:31:00.750 --> 0:31:03.310 He showed me the second card. It wasn't yellow, but 0:31:03.330 --> 0:31:05.810 I said yes, it was yellow. Then he showed me 0:31:05.850 --> 0:31:09.070 the third card, and it was yellow with a little 0:31:09.170 --> 0:31:15.480 red dot on it. And I said yes, it is yellow. Basically, 0:31:15.520 --> 0:31:17.180 he was asking me to lie about what I was 0:31:17.220 --> 0:31:18.260 seeing on the card. 0:31:18.500 --> 0:31:21.020 Yeah, he was trying to get a baseline... For you 0:31:21.040 --> 0:31:23.200 telling a truth and then you telling a lie. Yeah. 0:31:23.220 --> 0:31:23.600 Yeah. 0:31:23.660 --> 0:31:25.180 And Devon and I were able to watch kind of 0:31:25.200 --> 0:31:27.300 from the other side and we saw the wavelengths coming 0:31:27.380 --> 0:31:31.060 in and we could see you were, you were pretty shook. And, 0:31:31.080 --> 0:31:33.080 you know, Nate would be kind of pointing out as 0:31:33.120 --> 0:31:35.640 you did things and you could actually really see the 0:31:35.680 --> 0:31:39.410 difference between the control and then the lies. Can you 0:31:39.450 --> 0:31:41.210 describe what it was like to be set up as 0:31:41.310 --> 0:31:43.370 a demo subject for the polygraph? 0:31:43.650 --> 0:31:49.520 Yeah, it was extremely nerve wracking. even though we were 0:31:49.920 --> 0:31:53.600 in a demo environment. And so if I was nervous 0:31:54.080 --> 0:31:57.800 just sitting there to see how it worked, imagine how 0:31:57.880 --> 0:32:01.550 nervous people are who are being accused of crimes or 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:04.590 leaking information to the press or whatever the case may be. 0:32:05.350 --> 0:32:08.510 So yeah, man, I was like immediately sweating bullets. Like 0:32:08.550 --> 0:32:09.890 I could feel myself sweating. 0:32:10.610 --> 0:32:11.150 I think my. 0:32:11.130 --> 0:32:13.790 Knee was kind of jumping a little bit. And I 0:32:13.860 --> 0:32:16.260 just felt like a shortness of breath almost. Like I 0:32:16.280 --> 0:32:18.590 was like, whew. Got to lock in for this. 0:32:18.850 --> 0:32:19.150 Yeah. 0:32:19.230 --> 0:32:19.870 It was kind of nuts. 0:32:20.250 --> 0:32:23.490 Generally, the biggest question we have from people is, how 0:32:23.520 --> 0:32:26.720 does nervousness affect the test? So I say, taking a 0:32:26.760 --> 0:32:28.900 polygraph test is like we're in a strange city late 0:32:28.920 --> 0:32:30.200 at night. I say, get out of my car and 0:32:30.220 --> 0:32:32.260 meet two blocks from here. So you get out of 0:32:32.280 --> 0:32:33.840 the car. You have no idea where you are. It's 0:32:33.880 --> 0:32:36.020 not well lit. But you can sense it's not a 0:32:36.020 --> 0:32:37.780 real safe neighborhood to be walking in, but you have 0:32:37.820 --> 0:32:40.020 to walk. As you're walking down the street, you're going 0:32:40.040 --> 0:32:42.340 to be a little bit nervous and anxious. Even if 0:32:42.360 --> 0:32:44.820 you're nervous walking down the street, you walk by an alleyway. 0:32:45.220 --> 0:32:46.260 Someone comes out of the shadows. 0:32:46.300 --> 0:32:46.540 Hey, you! 0:32:47.540 --> 0:32:49.560 Now, adrenaline starts to flow, your heart really starts to 0:32:49.600 --> 0:32:51.920 pound fast, hands sweat, air in your back, and that 0:32:51.940 --> 0:32:54.400 goes up. So even though you're nervous, there's a dramatic 0:32:54.440 --> 0:33:00.270 change that takes place. Now, any time there's a change, stress, 0:33:01.150 --> 0:33:04.230 any emotional change, is going to cause physiological change. And 0:33:04.250 --> 0:33:11.520 that's what we're looking at, physiological change. 0:33:11.560 --> 0:33:15.080 Obviously, you're strapped into this thing. You're probably, in most cases, 0:33:15.120 --> 0:33:16.380 not taking a polygraph. 0:33:16.040 --> 0:33:18.540 For a good reason. You're on the Maury show. 0:33:19.160 --> 0:33:22.040 Yeah, you're on Maury. So you're going to be, you're 0:33:22.060 --> 0:33:25.380 in an unnatural kind of environment. Now that we're adding 0:33:25.420 --> 0:33:28.940 more variables, it doesn't necessarily make me trust the reliability 0:33:28.980 --> 0:33:32.350 of the results anymore. And necessarily if I'm trying to 0:33:32.390 --> 0:33:34.350 look at it totally evenly. 0:33:34.410 --> 0:33:36.370 What struck me when he showed me that third card 0:33:36.410 --> 0:33:40.860 that was yellow with a little red dot was the 0:33:41.100 --> 0:33:44.280 split second of thinking I had to do. Even though 0:33:44.300 --> 0:33:46.120 I was supposed to say yes, no matter what. 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:46.320 Yep. 0:33:46.650 --> 0:33:49.270 That red dot popped up. I had a split second 0:33:49.310 --> 0:33:54.770 of like, what's going on here? And that registered as 0:33:54.810 --> 0:33:56.890 a lie. Of course he was asking me to lie, 0:33:56.930 --> 0:34:01.240 but like, I think in that moment, the thinking that 0:34:01.280 --> 0:34:04.020 I had to do is what was being registered. Not 0:34:04.060 --> 0:34:06.840 necessarily that I was lying. So I wonder if in 0:34:06.920 --> 0:34:11.660 some cases, you know, you get in some real life situations, 0:34:11.780 --> 0:34:14.450 someone gets a question wrong. They have to think about, 0:34:14.650 --> 0:34:16.390 they might be telling the truth, but if they had 0:34:16.430 --> 0:34:19.069 to be like, wait a second, blah, blah, blah. Was 0:34:19.110 --> 0:34:20.160 it like this? Was it like that? 0:34:20.180 --> 0:34:22.520 Listen, Pete Higgs asked you that? Your ass is out 0:34:22.540 --> 0:34:24.040 of here. Out of the Pentagon. 0:34:24.880 --> 0:34:27.040 Well, I think, yeah, I think the counter argument would be, 0:34:27.739 --> 0:34:30.320 you only need to think about something if you are lying, 0:34:30.500 --> 0:34:34.130 because if it's the truth, then you wouldn't have to consider, 0:34:34.650 --> 0:34:36.090 you know, but I agree. 0:34:36.110 --> 0:34:38.750 I don't, there's sometimes where you're like, you know, memory's 0:34:38.810 --> 0:34:39.370 not perfect. 0:34:39.410 --> 0:34:40.910 You may be like, oh, I don't know if I'll, 0:34:41.570 --> 0:34:43.950 you know, if that happened or if I was exactly 0:34:43.989 --> 0:34:46.180 there or what time I was at this thing. So 0:34:46.200 --> 0:34:49.560 there may be, when things aren't so black and white, 0:34:49.880 --> 0:34:52.150 I could see it registering. But it was interesting that 0:34:52.190 --> 0:34:53.310 with the three cards. 0:34:53.690 --> 0:34:53.850 Yeah. 0:34:54.180 --> 0:34:56.240 It was sort of like a gradient. Your lie had 0:34:56.280 --> 0:34:58.900 the biggest reaction. Your straight lie had the biggest reaction 0:34:58.920 --> 0:35:01.120 when the card was just red. And when it was 0:35:01.180 --> 0:35:03.759 yellow with the red dot, it was a smaller reaction 0:35:03.780 --> 0:35:07.480 than the big lie, but it was more than the truth. 0:35:07.700 --> 0:35:09.860 Yeah, it was like right between them, which is interesting. 0:35:09.880 --> 0:35:11.600 So it was like kind of like a gradient based 0:35:11.660 --> 0:35:12.900 on how much you were lying. 0:35:13.260 --> 0:35:15.480 Manny, you actually had brushed up on some of the 0:35:15.520 --> 0:35:18.460 countermeasures prior to our trip to Philadelphia. 0:35:18.739 --> 0:35:19.000 Yeah. 0:35:19.460 --> 0:35:22.040 When you were strapped in there, did you try to 0:35:22.480 --> 0:35:22.940 use any of them? 0:35:23.700 --> 0:35:24.560 Yes, I did. 0:35:24.580 --> 0:35:26.600 And you failed. 0:35:28.320 --> 0:35:31.420 When I was strapped up and he was asking me 0:35:31.480 --> 0:35:35.379 to lie about whether the card was yellow, I was 0:35:35.460 --> 0:35:39.160 trying to make the test appear as if I was 0:35:39.300 --> 0:35:42.780 telling the truth. But one thing I was thinking was 0:35:43.820 --> 0:35:47.100 just like being on a beach, like being in a 0:35:47.180 --> 0:35:51.020 really calm environment. something that's kind of serene, but I 0:35:51.219 --> 0:35:55.700 just couldn't do it. Like I tried and he asks 0:35:55.739 --> 0:36:00.180 you a question. At some point it's, you know, it's 0:36:00.270 --> 0:36:02.549 socially awkward to not be saying anything. So I'm like, 0:36:02.969 --> 0:36:06.549 I can't even picture the damn beach before it's time 0:36:06.590 --> 0:36:09.150 for me to respond. And so all that to say 0:36:09.190 --> 0:36:13.230 is just like these countermeasure, like people who try to 0:36:13.270 --> 0:36:15.830 teach you how to beat a lie detector test or 0:36:15.880 --> 0:36:18.969 polygraph test, God, I feel like it's got to be 0:36:19.030 --> 0:36:20.650 so much harder than they're making it out to be. 0:36:20.670 --> 0:36:23.130 It depends on the sophistication. It depends on what a 0:36:23.150 --> 0:36:26.469 person knows. So, for example, if you know nothing about polygraph, 0:36:27.390 --> 0:36:30.750 countermeasures are usually very obvious. If I was testing a 0:36:30.790 --> 0:36:33.630 polygraph examiner who knows everything about polygraph, they're not going 0:36:33.650 --> 0:36:36.089 to be as obvious. So there's other things you would do. 0:36:36.850 --> 0:36:40.529 There's countermeasure tests that look at the mental aspect of 0:36:40.570 --> 0:36:44.060 countermeasures and try to identify it that way. Obviously, there's 0:36:44.100 --> 0:36:46.779 physiological things you could look for. You want to see 0:36:46.800 --> 0:36:48.550 what countermeasures look like? We can pass them again. 0:36:48.960 --> 0:36:52.060 Yeah, we'd love to. Let's get them back in there. 0:36:52.480 --> 0:36:56.000 Then Nate walked us through some of the more common countermeasures. Manny, 0:36:56.360 --> 0:36:57.920 care to share what those were? 0:36:57.960 --> 0:37:01.460 The first countermeasure I can remember is clenching my butt. 0:37:02.239 --> 0:37:03.200 Tighten your butt muscle. 0:37:03.860 --> 0:37:07.759 Which was much harder to sustain than I thought it 0:37:07.800 --> 0:37:11.419 was going to be. It's actually a physical activity that 0:37:11.860 --> 0:37:12.680 can tire you out. 0:37:14.500 --> 0:37:16.060 You did ask at one point, it's like, can I 0:37:16.080 --> 0:37:18.420 stop now? Can I stop now? 0:37:19.620 --> 0:37:19.940 Sniff. 0:37:21.969 --> 0:37:24.009 Flex your muscle on the other side. Press down on 0:37:24.050 --> 0:37:29.089 your toes. Bite your tongue. On your right hand, press 0:37:29.110 --> 0:37:32.010 down on those things. Press on your toes. 0:37:32.050 --> 0:37:32.450 Swallow. 0:37:34.660 --> 0:37:34.950 Swallow. 0:37:36.989 --> 0:37:38.669 Yeah, and then as he did those, he was pointing 0:37:38.710 --> 0:37:41.430 out to us on the chart the differences of seeing 0:37:41.510 --> 0:37:43.279 how this affects it. And those are the things that 0:37:44.219 --> 0:37:46.720 he looks for if he suspects someone is trying to 0:37:47.060 --> 0:37:48.060 use these countermeasures. 0:37:48.300 --> 0:37:51.339 We have processes to identify what normal baselines should look like. 0:37:53.000 --> 0:37:56.160 And we record what normal baselines should look like. And 0:37:56.260 --> 0:38:00.200 I could have five minutes of normal physiology. And now 0:38:00.300 --> 0:38:01.840 I say we're about to begin the test, and now 0:38:01.880 --> 0:38:05.120 I see this gross change. Then I know that's deliberate. 0:38:06.010 --> 0:38:07.950 So I would probably first give you a warning that 0:38:07.989 --> 0:38:12.590 some people try to control things in their body because 0:38:12.610 --> 0:38:14.940 they want to help me. They're telling the truth and 0:38:14.960 --> 0:38:17.299 they want to help me find that. Some people do 0:38:17.360 --> 0:38:19.540 it because they're trying to beat me because they're guilty. 0:38:20.620 --> 0:38:22.480 I can't tell if a person's doing it to help 0:38:22.520 --> 0:38:23.700 me or beat me, but I can tell you I'm 0:38:23.719 --> 0:38:25.200 good at what I do, so I don't need your help. 0:38:25.730 --> 0:38:27.270 If you continue to do what you're doing, you're going 0:38:27.290 --> 0:38:29.810 to fail the test. That would be my first warning. 0:38:30.190 --> 0:38:33.109 So, of course, we had to ask, how reliable are 0:38:33.150 --> 0:38:35.069 the polygraph tests, according to Nate? 0:38:35.500 --> 0:38:36.880 So first of all, it depends on what kind of 0:38:36.900 --> 0:38:38.820 test you're doing. So we have different kinds of tests. 0:38:42.350 --> 0:38:46.370 Nate broke down three types of tests. Single issue, multifaceted, 0:38:46.510 --> 0:38:50.150 and multi-issue. The first, single issue, looks at one question 0:38:50.310 --> 0:38:51.229 asked in different ways. 0:38:51.750 --> 0:38:53.770 Did you shoot John? Regarding John, did you shoot him? 0:38:53.810 --> 0:38:54.930 Were you the person who shot John? 0:38:55.450 --> 0:38:57.430 And for each test, he'll ask the same questions in 0:38:57.480 --> 0:38:59.160 different order to gather more data. 0:38:59.500 --> 0:39:01.680 So now I run three charts of that, and I'm 0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:05.680 making an evaluation based on nine views. I've seen it 0:39:05.719 --> 0:39:07.660 nine times. So a single issue is going to give 0:39:07.680 --> 0:39:10.529 you the most accurate test. That's the only test that 0:39:10.550 --> 0:39:12.470 will give you above 90% accuracy. 0:39:13.150 --> 0:39:17.330 Type 2 is multifaceted. Multifaceted tests look at different aspects 0:39:17.390 --> 0:39:18.150 of the same crime. 0:39:18.290 --> 0:39:20.410 Did you plan with anyone to shoot John? Did you 0:39:20.450 --> 0:39:23.690 shoot John? Do you know for sure who shot John? Well, 0:39:23.730 --> 0:39:25.529 now if I run three tries, I'm only getting to 0:39:25.570 --> 0:39:31.900 see each relevant question three times. Multifaceted. maybe mid-80s. 0:39:32.660 --> 0:39:35.500 And lastly, a mixed-issue test is like a screening test, 0:39:35.980 --> 0:39:37.780 asking about a bunch of unrelated things. 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:44.239 Drugs, theft, undetected crime, physical altercations. 0:39:44.719 --> 0:39:47.970 Overall, according to Nate, it's really dependent on the examiner 0:39:48.120 --> 0:39:48.969 knowing what they're looking at. 0:39:49.410 --> 0:39:52.109 When you look at polygraph, we say it's an art 0:39:52.150 --> 0:39:56.029 based on the sciences of psychology and physiology, psychophysiology. But 0:39:56.050 --> 0:39:59.839 the art is the examiner. So it's like anything else. 0:40:00.260 --> 0:40:02.380 You have to plug that into the formula. How good 0:40:02.420 --> 0:40:04.980 is the examiner? When I was growing up, I used 0:40:05.000 --> 0:40:09.020 to believe that there was an 80-20 rule in life. 80% 0:40:09.020 --> 0:40:11.319 of any profession was fair to poor, and 20% was 0:40:11.380 --> 0:40:14.200 good to excellent. As I grew older, I realized that's 0:40:14.239 --> 0:40:16.130 probably not true. It's probably like 90-10. 0:40:21.230 --> 0:40:23.290 And, of course, this led to the big question about 0:40:23.550 --> 0:40:28.009 why polygraphs aren't admissible in court. And Nate brought up 0:40:28.070 --> 0:40:30.800 our old friend Fry of the Fry Standard. 0:40:31.739 --> 0:40:36.839 So in 1923, a very prominent doctor gets murdered in Washington, D.C. 0:40:37.580 --> 0:40:40.860 They offer a reward. Someone comes forward and tells the 0:40:40.880 --> 0:40:43.840 police he knows the shooter. His name is Alfonso Fry. 0:40:45.020 --> 0:40:48.950 Police arrest Fry. They interrogate, and he confesses. He hires 0:40:49.010 --> 0:40:52.690 a defense attorney. and they hire a doctor by the 0:40:52.710 --> 0:40:55.330 name of William Marston. And all he would do is 0:40:55.430 --> 0:40:57.540 he would put a cuff on a person, have their 0:40:57.660 --> 0:41:00.460 arm through a curtain while someone interviewed them, and every 0:41:00.500 --> 0:41:01.779 now and then he'd put air on the cuff and 0:41:01.800 --> 0:41:04.620 take a systolic blood pressure reading. And based on that, 0:41:04.680 --> 0:41:09.609 he reported 90-something percent accuracy, determining deception. So they hire Marston, 0:41:09.840 --> 0:41:12.850 and he does a discontinuous blood pressure test and says, 0:41:12.910 --> 0:41:15.690 in fact, Fry was telling the truth when he said 0:41:15.710 --> 0:41:21.130 he didn't shoot him. Unfortunately, two years before that, 1921, Berkeley, 0:41:21.170 --> 0:41:25.250 California Police Department came out with the first polygraph, which 0:41:25.450 --> 0:41:30.780 monitored constant changes in cardio, vascular activity, as well as respiration. 0:41:31.700 --> 0:41:36.160 And the prosecutors showed that discontinuous blood pressure was not 0:41:36.200 --> 0:41:39.550 state of the art. So the Supreme Court rolled against it. 0:41:40.320 --> 0:41:44.560 That 1923 decision of a discontinuous blood pressure test is 0:41:44.600 --> 0:41:47.220 what keeps polygraph out of most courts in the United States. 0:41:48.710 --> 0:41:50.770 So in Nate's view, it's not fair that the Frye 0:41:50.810 --> 0:41:53.770 standard is based on the discontinuous blood pressure reading and 0:41:53.850 --> 0:41:57.190 not the more comprehensive data from the polygraph. And while 0:41:57.210 --> 0:41:59.790 there have been some cases arguing for its use, the 0:41:59.830 --> 0:42:03.120 device is still largely not allowed in federal court. But 0:42:03.540 --> 0:42:06.739 state courts tell a slightly different story. While most states 0:42:06.760 --> 0:42:09.680 have a strict polygraph ban, some others do allow their 0:42:09.739 --> 0:42:13.060 use by stipulation, which means both the prosecution and the 0:42:13.100 --> 0:42:15.940 defense have to agree on admitting the polygraph as evidence. 0:42:16.730 --> 0:42:19.490 And New Mexico is the only state that allows polygraph 0:42:19.530 --> 0:42:22.330 results without the need for both sides to agree. So 0:42:23.010 --> 0:42:29.830 be careful if you're ever over there. Let's talk about 0:42:29.870 --> 0:42:31.549 our overall thoughts on this. 0:42:32.090 --> 0:42:36.150 What I came away with was that these polygraphs are 0:42:36.530 --> 0:42:41.069 incredibly good at testing the specific things that they're trying 0:42:41.090 --> 0:42:46.239 to test. And that, you know, originally I thought, You 0:42:46.340 --> 0:42:50.830 could just appear to be so calm throughout the entire 0:42:51.130 --> 0:42:54.770 interview process that, you know, they would never detect any lying. 0:42:54.830 --> 0:42:59.350 But yes, as we learned, you've got the control questions first. 0:42:59.530 --> 0:43:04.060 If you're super calm during the control questions, you know, 0:43:04.100 --> 0:43:05.960 that's what they're going to use as their baseline. Or 0:43:06.000 --> 0:43:08.520 if you're super erratic during the control questions, that's what 0:43:08.540 --> 0:43:10.820 they're going to use during the baseline. And they're detecting 0:43:10.880 --> 0:43:13.680 a change, not just the behaviors by themselves. 0:43:14.530 --> 0:43:15.450 That said. 0:43:19.340 --> 0:43:23.930 I still feel like I can't necessarily say it's testing 0:43:23.950 --> 0:43:25.050 whether you're lying. 0:43:26.070 --> 0:43:26.770 Well, yeah. 0:43:26.830 --> 0:43:29.489 So this is the thing. And Nate said as much 0:43:29.570 --> 0:43:32.629 where talking about how reliable it is, he says something 0:43:32.670 --> 0:43:38.069 like it's very dependent on the examiner. So you have 0:43:38.090 --> 0:43:40.860 an expert examiner. They're going to be maybe better at 0:43:41.320 --> 0:43:43.580 sussing this out. It ultimately comes down to a judgment 0:43:43.600 --> 0:43:46.520 call of someone who is used to doing these things 0:43:46.580 --> 0:43:49.549 and looking for certain things. The machine itself is only 0:43:49.570 --> 0:43:52.770 going to give you so much data. It's additive to something, 0:43:52.850 --> 0:43:58.410 but ultimately it is just measuring one thing. If there 0:43:58.450 --> 0:44:03.560 actually was a tool that could 100% or 99% say, 0:44:03.580 --> 0:44:09.960 this is a lie, it would be a world-changing event. 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:12.520 And we wouldn't be having this debate about if it 0:44:12.560 --> 0:44:14.540 should be allowed in court or something. It would change 0:44:14.580 --> 0:44:17.950 the entire universe. as we know it. I mean, it 0:44:17.969 --> 0:44:18.510 really would. 0:44:18.650 --> 0:44:22.030 Nate was careful to refer to these as polygraph tests, 0:44:22.110 --> 0:44:26.810 not what we call them in regular society, lie detector tests. 0:44:27.390 --> 0:44:29.670 And he was clear that that's not what it's detecting. 0:44:29.690 --> 0:44:33.390 It's detecting changes in your behavior. And like you said, 0:44:33.430 --> 0:44:35.319 it ends up just being a judgment call based on 0:44:35.360 --> 0:44:39.640 who the examiner is. But, you know, to that point, 0:44:39.820 --> 0:44:42.540 I guess it's kind of always been a judgment call 0:44:42.580 --> 0:44:44.480 to determine whether someone's lying or not. 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:47.670 Do you think there's... a good case for this to 0:44:47.710 --> 0:44:48.950 be admissible in court. 0:44:49.830 --> 0:44:53.219 The big problem for me is even though I think 0:44:53.260 --> 0:44:56.239 a polygraph could tell, can tell when I'm lying, I 0:44:56.280 --> 0:44:57.640 think I'm dead to rights. 0:44:57.840 --> 0:44:58.060 Yeah. 0:44:59.120 --> 0:45:01.759 If one guy in the world can beat a lie 0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:03.759 detector test, then you got to throw the whole shit 0:45:03.780 --> 0:45:07.069 away in terms of like sentencing someone else or like 0:45:07.090 --> 0:45:08.770 convicting someone else based on that. 0:45:09.010 --> 0:45:11.450 And there's clearly people failing it who are telling the truth. 0:45:11.670 --> 0:45:14.170 So it's like, there's something going on with it. And 0:45:14.250 --> 0:45:17.730 it's like, yeah, you know, I'm not saying, I'm not 0:45:17.750 --> 0:45:19.430 going to say it's like a broken clock. I think it's, 0:45:19.570 --> 0:45:23.370 you know, I think it's probably, it's my read of it. It's, 0:45:23.469 --> 0:45:26.109 it's probably more accurate than I was anticipating. 0:45:26.330 --> 0:45:26.590 Yeah. 0:45:26.710 --> 0:45:28.880 After seeing it in action. More useful. Yeah. 0:45:29.180 --> 0:45:29.390 Yes. 0:45:29.469 --> 0:45:33.480 But I, I don't think like any, it seems like 0:45:33.540 --> 0:45:35.720 a thing, you know, like it should stick to like Maury, 0:45:35.920 --> 0:45:38.040 you know, it's like, like, I don't know that we 0:45:38.060 --> 0:45:42.440 should be using this in any sort of high stakes situation. 0:45:42.820 --> 0:45:45.109 It should be like a, oh, we're going to go 0:45:45.310 --> 0:45:48.310 out and have a good time with my work group 0:45:48.330 --> 0:45:51.549 and we're going to get lie detectors. That's the level. 0:45:51.570 --> 0:45:52.770 Party trick. Exactly. 0:45:53.370 --> 0:45:56.090 It shouldn't be something that's determining whether somebody's going to 0:45:56.170 --> 0:45:59.510 jail or whether or not somebody's getting a job. 0:45:59.719 --> 0:46:02.359 It just feels like, what are we doing here? 0:46:03.420 --> 0:46:05.540 And I think we went to one of the best 0:46:05.660 --> 0:46:09.040 people to do this test, too. That's another thing, right? 0:46:09.500 --> 0:46:12.140 It's like all things. There are people who are much 0:46:12.219 --> 0:46:16.020 better With the same title at something than people who 0:46:16.060 --> 0:46:17.940 have the exact same title who are much worse. 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:19.940 So it's like we went to the best guy. Man, 0:46:19.960 --> 0:46:22.300 he's not that great at lying. He caught him lying 0:46:22.320 --> 0:46:25.480 about a card. He's a perfect storm. But to put 0:46:25.520 --> 0:46:28.380 someone in jail over this is crazy. 0:46:28.700 --> 0:46:28.879 Yeah. 0:46:29.060 --> 0:46:32.259 No, I totally agree. It's how I feel about the 0:46:32.300 --> 0:46:34.060 death penalty or something like that where it's like I 0:46:34.820 --> 0:46:37.820 would rather take the risk that a guilty man walk 0:46:37.860 --> 0:46:41.160 free than– The chance that someone's locked up for life 0:46:41.219 --> 0:46:44.660 or loses their job and career or et cetera, et cetera. 0:46:44.880 --> 0:46:45.260 Yeah. 0:46:45.460 --> 0:46:48.220 Based on something that we can't really prove. 0:46:48.400 --> 0:46:48.580 Yeah. 0:46:48.800 --> 0:46:50.200 Based on just this tool. 0:46:50.440 --> 0:46:50.600 Yeah. 0:46:50.620 --> 0:46:54.240 Look at this highly decorated general that just got fired 0:46:54.280 --> 0:46:59.180 by Pete Hegseth for failing, allegedly failing three separate polygraph tests. 0:47:01.390 --> 0:47:04.050 Just kind of crazy that that is what the standard 0:47:04.070 --> 0:47:08.110 of evidence is that got him fired. I do wonder, 0:47:08.510 --> 0:47:11.989 the Maury guys, how many of them must have gone 0:47:12.030 --> 0:47:14.950 to their wives after being caught cheating, being like, babe, 0:47:15.230 --> 0:47:20.330 these are unreliable. You've got to do some research on them. 0:47:20.370 --> 0:47:27.670 Listen to No Such Thing. No Such Thing is a 0:47:27.690 --> 0:47:31.870 production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our executive producer is Mangesh Hatikadur. 0:47:32.070 --> 0:47:34.410 The show is created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and 0:47:34.450 --> 0:47:37.700 Devin Joseph. Theme and credits music by Manny. Mixing is 0:47:37.739 --> 0:47:40.730 by Steve Bone. Our guests this week were Amit Katwala, 0:47:40.910 --> 0:47:43.790 George Mashki, and Nathan Gordon. Thank you all for your time. 0:47:44.310 --> 0:47:46.190 If you have feedback for us or a question, our 0:47:46.290 --> 0:47:49.720 email is mandynoahdevin at gmail.com. Or you can leave us 0:47:49.739 --> 0:47:51.600 a voicemail by calling the number in our show notes. 0:47:52.040 --> 0:47:55.640 Our website is nosuchthing.show. And we'll be back next week 0:47:55.660 --> 0:47:56.380 with a new episode. 0:47:56.739 --> 0:47:57.160 Bye. 0:47:57.700 --> 0:47:59.359 No such thing.