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By Matt Zapotosky, Published: August 31 E-mail the writer
In the eyes of federal prosecutors in Virginia, Chad Dixon is a brazen criminal whose misdeeds threatened border security, state secrets and young children across America. They say he taught convicted sex offenders and aspiring federal law enforcement officers how to cheat their court- or job-imposed lie detector tests — even when he knew that they planned to use his advice for nefarious purposes.
In the eyes of his supporters, though, Dixon is no more than an electrical worker who did some Internet research on polygraph testing. And for offering instructions sometimes as simple as “relax and breathe normally,” he probably will end up in federal prison.
Dixon, 34, of Indiana, pleaded guilty in December to wire fraud and obstruction of an agency proceeding and is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in federal district court in Alexandria. He is accused of teaching what prosecutors term “polygraph countermeasures” to as many as 100 people across the country — among them convicted sex offenders in the Washington area and undercover agents who told Dixon that they would use his techniques to cheat their tests for Customs and Border Protection jobs.
“While understandably unpopular with law enforcement and other government agencies, polygraph countermeasures training is widely available and unless the person providing the training knows that the countermeasures training will be used to commit a criminal offense . . . it is protected First Amendment speech,” Ginsberg wrote. “Like it or not, providing polygraph countermeasures training, even to the most despicable among us, is not a crime.”
Dixon declined to comment for this article.
The case has reenergized a national debate on the accuracy of polygraph testing and led to some speculation that federal authorities intend to prosecute those spreading information on how to trick lie detectors. The McClatchy news organization reported last month that Dixon’s case was part of a broader federal effort to discourage possible criminals and spies from getting government jobs using polygraph countermeasures.
Although Dixon appears to be the first charged publicly, others offering similar instruction say they fear they might be next.
“I’ve been worried about that, and the more this comes about, the more worried I am,” said Doug Williams, a former police polygraphist in Oklahoma who claims to be able to teach people to beat what he now considers a “scam” test.
In court filings, prosecutors said Dixon developed his polygraph countermeasures largely based on materials he took from Williams’s Web site. Williams — who declined to comment on Dixon’s case specifically — has written books and appeared on national television programs criticizing lie detectors and telling people how to beat them.
Teaching about the flaws of polygraph testing is not inherently illegal. The test monitors a variety of physical responses — such as breathing and heart rate — and Williams and others preach that you can manipulate it by artificially provoking a physical reaction when you’re supposed to and keeping your reactions in check when you’re not.
Whether the measures are effective is a matter of debate. Barry Cushman, president of the American Polygraph Association, said hands-on training, with feedback, on countermeasures has been shown to work sometimes in laboratory settings. But mere instruction, video or written, is unlikely to succeed, he said.
Dixon was charged after he helped undercover agents learn to cheat the test after they told him specifically that they intended to lie as they applied for federal jobs. Nina J. Ginsberg, Dixon’s attorney, wrote in court filings that much of what Dixon did was legal and that prosecutors were using “hyperbole” in describing his crimes.
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