I had an interesting conversation last night.

[TZ]

With a former colleague of Dr. Bruce Ivins. An ex coworker whom I knew worked at Detrick.
Apparantly she was a suspect in the anthrax case for awhile (number TWO on the list) and came within days of having the FBI publicize her name in order to get her to agree to a polygraph.
Her take is Ivins was actually much less strange than a bunch of other people there..the things she rattled off about people..icky! Including one colleague who accidently injected her with what would normally be a lethal dose of Rift Valley Fever (she had the vaccine and other protective treatments and after isolation was okay). Oh she also told them a possible method that Ivins could have dried out the anthrax..and apparantly they found the kind of stuff on him that she mentioned.
Anyway apparantly the big reason it sounds like the FBI screwed this up so badly is that the politicians at the top wanted so badly to have a suspect they focussed in on Hatfill to the exclusion of all else...The reason they suspected Hatfill? The polygraph profile they gave him..he answered all the questions wrong..My friend had the same profile polygraph done and they actually, after a few false starts..TOLD HER WHAT TO SAY TO GIVE THE CORRECT ANSWERS. Yoiks!
So it seems like to me it was idiocy at the top that screwed up this investigation from the beginning. But it was fascinating to hear this stuff! I can now confidently say, I have a UNIQUE perspective on this case.
Thought I'd share this with you guys, since I thought you guys would value an inside perspective on this...:yoiks:

[uriel1972]

1. Never trusted Lie Detectors

Always felt they were just a new method of dunking the witch in the pond. It frustrates me that they are paraded around like the bee's-knee's when a pathological liar can breeze through one. hmmmm sounds like woo.

[TZ]

2. Yeah.

This womans husband is a lawyer he was telling her NOT to do the lie detector but they definitely threatened her with public exposure--apparantly the head of the FBI was pushing for it.

[varkam]

3. Told her what to say to get the correct answers? I don't get it.

Questions that are asked on a polygraph are typically yes/no type questions. It's generally not too hard to figure out what you *would like* the answer to be, but the polygraph measures physiological arousal. IIRC, it measures respiration, pressure, and galvanic skin response (sweating). Those are things that you really can't control. I don't understand how even if someone gives you the answers that they want you to say it would change much on it.

[TZ]

4. They apparantly were trying to fit her to a profile

Asking questions like have you ever lied to a coworker...have you ever arranged your day so you could leave early etc..That kind of behavioral profile..I guess they were looking for tendencies...It was truly bizarre. But it does fit with what I heard happened with Hatfill..he was a suspect because he worked there and because he had the right "profile".

[varkam]

5. Hmm, I'm really not sure about the utility of using a polygraphy as a personality test.

That to me sounds to be fairly fishy. I'd like to see the science on that.

[TZ]

6. I'm sure this is not scientifically sound

From what I heard the people she was dealing with were kind of illiterate when it comes to science..This was a case of getting a suspect, damn the actual evidence it seems.

[varkam]

7. I think that polygraphs have their uses...

but I think that this sort of thing is stretching them beyond what they are intended for.

[Orrex]

8. Sure!

They're great at testing blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and GSR. But these have not been empirically or consistently well-correlated with deception.

So polygraphs are great at measuring physiological responses; the leap of faith comes in interpreting those responses as evidence (or proof) of a lie.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Yes. They really measure being under stress.

A concerted attempt at deception will normally increase a person's stress levels; but many other things will do this.

And a polygraph won't work at all with a true psychopath, as they do not have the usual emotional responses to deception or other situations that usually provoke guilt or anxiety.

[onager]

10. Aha! (My usual dumb pop-culture references).

I remember this from reading about Aldrich Ames, the high-level CIA employee who spent many years spying for the Russians.

At one point, Ames learned he was under suspicion. Since part of his job involved interrogation of suspects, he knew the standard procedures: the CIA would soon be giving him a polygraph.

Ames called his Russian "handler" and asked for advice. Did the KGB have any top-secret, esoteric ways of beating a polygraph?

Yes, they did: "Get a good night's sleep." Ames asked if that was all they had. The handler said: "Yep." The polygraph simply measured stress. So the more relaxed Ames was, the more confident he would be when he spouted outrageous lies during the polygraph.

Ames did beat that polygraph test, and went on to spy for many more years. IIRC, he finally got caught by a team consisting of a few female CIA secretarial staff and a very junior employee with accounting experience. They checked his financial records and noted a huge discrepancy between income and outgo. (A new Jaguar, a million-dollar house, etc.)

That discrepancy had been obvious for years, but the CIA runs on the same fossilized principle of the Old Boy Network as British intelligence. And the British experts managed to ignore the Cambridge Spies for years because those spies Had Been To The Right Schools and Knew All The Right People.

(In the great BBC miniseries The Cambridge Spies,, Guy Burgess is caught red...er, handed trying to pick up a cop in a public toilet. He gets off scot-free as the judge indignantly notes, "No Cambridge man would ever behave in such a manner!")

[lizerdbits]

11. The one person I know who knew him

who worked in the safety area at USAMRIID flat out said he doesn't think Ivins did it though did say he was strange. Just one person's opinion. He was only there a couple years before retiring from the military so wasn't there for the Hatfill stuff.