National Association of Computer Voice Stress Analysts: Flawed Vetting Process May Have Contributed to US General's Death

LEWES, Del., Aug. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- A decision by senior US Department of Defense leaders to field an unproven and unreliable portable polygraph system, combined with a flawed vetting program administered by members of the Afghan government, may have contributed to the latest insider attack on US and Coalition forces according to the National Association of Computer Voice Stress Analysts.  This attack resulted in the death of a US Army general and the wounding of at least 17 other US and Coalition members, including a German general.

A handheld polygraph system known by the acronym PCASS, which stands for "Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System," was released by the DoD to much fanfare in early 2008. Both the proponents and critics of the PCASS have agreed on one point: This device is far less accurate than the old polygraph.  Internal DoD testing shows this ill-conceived device has an error rate of approximately 50%, thus rendering it useless and no better than the "flip of a coin."

Statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed the National Academy of Sciences study of the polygraph, found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security applications. Fienberg stated about PCASS "I don't understand how anybody could think that this is ready for deployment. Sending these instruments into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan without serious scientific assessment, and for use by untrained personnel, is a mockery of what we advocated in our report."  Further complicating this matter, PCASS was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan without being tested for countermeasures. It is well know that countermeasures for the old polygraph are numerous and available worldwide on a multitude of Internet sites, making both the old polygraph and its modern counterpart, the PCASS, easy to defeat.

Serious flaws in the process used to vet Afghan military and police members, as well as the unreliability of polygraph, were highlighted in "The Clapper Memo" a book by author and investigative journalist Bob McCarty.  McCarty chronicled the poor decisions made by bureaucrats in Washington DC, to ensure the flawed polygraph and the PCASS were used exclusively within DoD, despite scientific proof of a better technology was successfully used both in Iraq and Afghanistan until the Federal Polygraph establishment had it banished.  The US technology, known as the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer or CVSA, is now used by approximately 2,000 police, military, security, and intelligence agencies worldwide – but remains banned by the US DoD because of a memorandum signed by James Clapper, the controversial Director of National Intelligence. 

For further information on the NACVSA, contact Diana Montoya at 888-358-5025 or Email.

For further information on the CVSA visit CVSA1.com or call 888-266-7263.

SOURCE National Association of Computer Voice Stress Analysts

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