I’m still curious, not as to whether Berger removed any other documents than those he was caught with, but why he did it at all – which still has not been made clear, AFAIK.
But a polygraph test would shed no addtional light on that question.
You know, people on this board do a lot of “telling”, as if typing words make them facts. Now, did you read the report? It doesn’t appear so. They were given erroneous information. But I guess that conflicts with your wishful interpretation of the facts. Oh well…
I appreciate your candor, but I do find it quite amazing. A former NSA pilfers documents concerneing national security—repeatedly—and it’s a mere kerfuffle, a tempest in a tea pot. I’ll try to remember that in future threads.
I would still give him the polygraph. While it might/will not shed the light I’d like, I don’t see how it would hurt. Plus, it would be under oath, so if he lied about anything we can give him a piece of the punishment he deserves. But, seriously, if we get a nugget or two of information out of it, it’s worth it. I see no downside, that’s for sure. Especially since it was already part of his plea agreement. If there are any other steps we can take to get a better picture of what exactly happened, or why, I’d take them as well. I do think this is a big deal. If it were’nt, do you think a former NSA would have did we he did? His actions are absolutely astounding.
The one in your OP? Circular reasoning. Of course it supports itself. :rolleyes:
According to any *other * source besides the smear you linked to? :rolleyes:
Transcript: :rolleyes:
You were saying? :rolleyes:
Look at the date of Keane’s remark. It’s 2004. This congressional report is weeks old. Now if you wish to prove the the report is erroneous, by all means, go right ahead.
It is not a *Congressional * report, but an *individual * one, even if the individual happens to be in Congress. But that’s been pointed out to you as well, with no more effect than anything else.
How would one go about disproving “We don’t know …?” :rolleyes:
I agree with you, for once. His actions were bewildering and inexplicable. Nevertheless, a polygraph exam is worthless. He could be shown to be lying, or to be telling the truth, and that result combined with a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. It would in no way advance our knowledge of what he really did. Neither would a polygraph test be admissable in court.
The only way to prove that the allegation that he is guilty of more than he is already convicted of is correct is the old-fashioned way, by presenting evidence, not by presenting just-so stories.
First, as was discussed the first time 'round, the report does not say the 911 Commission was not given all the requested documents. It says there can be no assurance that they were. Those are very different statements.
Second, do you have a cite for the proposition that Berger agreed to a lie detector test? I confess to only following the story casually, but I don’t recall seeing that. Agreeing to testify and agreeing to a lie detector test are not the same thing.
Just this from the WSJ article linked to in the OP: (emphasis added)
While new evidence would be wonderful, I don’t think the polygraph would necessarily worthless. Again, from the WSJ article:
The judge believes that this is a reason to use polygraphs, he is wrong. Polygraphs are worthless. They could never “show that he’s lying.” Have you read the cites demonstrating that? Relying on them is worse than useless precisely because they would send investigators off on wild goose chases hunting for document X, Y, Z, wasting valuable resources that should be spent pursuing genuine leads. Saying “it can’t hurt” is like saying that relying on a professional psychic “can’t hurt”. If a psychic tells you that your illness is caused by some particularly disease, and you give any credence to their claims whatsoever, you are worse off than if you had never spoken to the psychic at all. Similarly with polygraphs. Any resources expended to follow “leads” from a polygraph are a waste, a net loss.
Whether or not he is given something agreed to in the plea agreement is up to the people he made the agreement with.
Okay, magellan01, *what * documents X, Y, Z would you have the operator ask about? How would *you * phrase the questions you want him asked?
Anybody got a cite that the polygraph was actually in the plea agreement?
The WSJ article linked in the OP says:
*The Justice Department secured his agreement to take a polygraph on the matter, but never followed through and administered it. *
And then several paragraphs later, it says:
*
Despite all of these unanswered questions, Mr. Berger was allowed to plead guilty last year to only a misdemeanor charge. As part of a plea agreement, the Justice Department asked him to pay a $10,000 fine for the violations, perform 100 hours of community service and lose his security clearance for just three years (meaning that he will be eligible to regain it just about the time the next president takes office). The presiding judge, outraged at the lenient plea bargain, bumped the fine up to $50,000.*
It does not say the polygraph was part of the plea agreement. If it’s not in there, then the question posed in the thread title is misleading, and moot. If it is in there, then it oughta be enforced.
"Andrew Napolitano, a former judge who is a legal analyst for Fox News, notes: “If they ask him, did you take document X, Y, Z, and he says no, and the polygraph shows that he’s lying, that will send them on a hunt for document X, Y, Z.” In addition, Mr. Berger would have to take the test under oath and thus could be prosecuted for perjury if he lied, even though his document-theft case is closed.
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A Polygraph can not and does not show if someone is lying. If “a former judge who is a legal analyst” doesn’t know this, then I am very glad about the "former " part. He’s either ignorant or lying. I admit here than many dudes in the legal system have bought into the whole “polygraph= lie detector” load of crap. Some know it’s crap, but since polygraphs get a lot of confessions, they wink at their usage anyway.
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No Court in the USA could support a conviction for Perjury based only upon polygraph results. If he passed the Bar, he *must *know otherwise, thus he’s lying.
Thus, we have three things that prove that Andrew Napolitano is either a moron or a liar. ( The third is " for Fox News". 
)
I’ve finally had time to read all the links. Let’s start with what the lie detector test is supposed to accomplish here. (I agree with Oakminster that the WSJ editorial is not clear on the point, but will assume for the sake of discussion that Berger agreed to a lie detector test; if not, the whole discussion is moot.) As I read it, Napolitano is wrong. The purpose is not to prove that Berger took more than he admits. Rather, it is to assure everyone that the Commission actually got everything. In other words, the hope and expectation is that he will pass.
Notice that this is the primary use of lie detectors in police work. They don’t use them to catch guilty people; they use them to clear innocent people. Why? See the first cite in Tyrrell McAllister’s post (here it is again). As against a particular suspect, the false negative rate is only about 10%, while the false positive rate can be in excess of 40%. Now, for good reasons cogently argued in both cites, this makes the lie detector nearly useless as a broad screening tool. And nearly as useless for those like the OP who want to string up Berger (or at least see him more severely punished). But, if the purpose of the exercise is as I infer, the lie detector test probably would be a very useful thing. Assuming, of course, that Berger passes.
From that cite (good cite Tyrrell 
):
"Sometimes people “crack” and confess; again this does not validate the process; many people give confessions, and even false confessions, under duress. John A. Larson, a pioneer of polygraphic lie detection stated, “The lie detector, as used in many places, is nothing more than a psychological third-degree aimed at extorting confessions as the old physical beatings were.”
One important fact to consider is that polygraphers interpret results. This means that their findings can be influenced by their preconceptions; if they believe a person to be guilty before testing, they could be more likely to interpret the test results to reflect that belief.
In 1986, the US television programme 60 minutes did an exposé on private polygraph companies. Three different companies were told that a camera and lens had been stolen from the offices of a magazine publisher. There were four employees who were all suspects. Each polygrapher was asked to test the employees and in each case they were told, “It might have been ___,” with a different employee being weakly accused in each case.
The three different companies each found that the person who had been accused by the magazine was indeed the guilty party, and they were all very confident in their findings. The fact that there never was a crime, that no theft really took place, and that no one was guilty of anything, shows just how strongly the polygraphers’ preconceptions can influence the way that they interpret the results of their tests… Ironically, the more truthful a person is, the more likely it is that they will fail the polygraph test. The reason being that they are very comfortable answering the control questions and so do not produce a marked physiological response to them. When they are questioned about a crime, for example, they can become very nervous about facing such questions and produce a physiological response that is more pronounced than they did to the unthreatening control questions: this may be interpreted as lying…
The polygraph is a device which is fundamentally based on deception. The polygrapher will intentionally deceive the examinee, particularly in the pre-test phase, into believing that the device can detect the smallest lie that is told. …
Never trust a polygrapher. They may come across as friendly, helpful and sympathetic but they are not there to help examinees; they are there to interrogate them. …
The most famous case in which the polygraph was fooled is the Aldrich Ames case. Ames was a CIA agent who was spying for the Soviet Union. The CIA knew there was a mole in its ranks and so decided to polygraph everyone. Ames passed the test in 1986, and a subsequent one in 1991, which not only allowed him to continue to spy, but suspicion was moved from him and onto other agents who had difficulty in passing their polygraph tests…
Polygraph testing is a pseudoscience: it is based upon deception - the polygrapher needs to lie and deceive; its effectiveness is based on fear and intimidation; it is biased against the truthful; and it is easily defeated with countermeasures. As such, polygraphy has absolutely no scientific validity."
So, to explain again- the polygraph does not pass the normal scientific tests. The test 60 Minutes did was quite good, it showed conclusively that the examiner simply makes shit up.
I hate to admit this, but I did a similar thing. In one place I worked they had a Polygraph test. To start the test, they showed everyone a card trick, everyone was allowed to choose a card, everyone was suppoed to tell the truth except the person who got the Queen of Spades, who was supposed to lie. The examiner, easily picked out the person who had the Queen. However, it was a simple card trick- one that I, who had a stage magician friend, had seen. I asked my friend about it, who wouldn’t reveal the trick, but admitted it was in a book, which he named. I read the book, and mastered the very easy trick (I don’t have very nimble fingers, but I can do a good patter, so I have done a little magic for kids at parties. Not good enough to get paid. 
) So anyway, three years later, some company, same trick. But I finangled the deck so that the person who was suppoed to get the Queen didn’t, it was someone else. Sure enough, the “polygraph operator” id’ed the wrong card holder.
Oh sure, the test has a tiny bit of validity, but the "results’ are so open to interpretation, that for this purpose it’d be worthless. The operator would simply claim whatever the dudes were paying him wanted to hear.
Oh, and to put a final nail- dudes who claim to be abducted by aliens are commonly able to “pass” a polygraph test. True, I guess some of them *believe *they were abducted, but that certainly shows that the polygraph does not detect “truth” or “lies”.