Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy - Eamon Javers [83]
Polygraph machines work by measuring a person’s physical responses, such as heart rate, that indicate stress. Analysts using the machine need to sit with their subject for a long time. They have to establish a person’s physiological baseline, so they begin with a “control” conversation about neutral topics, before they can begin grilling the subject. Conducting an interview and doing a thorough analysis of polygraph results can take hours.
TBA focuses on the verbal and nonverbal cues that people convey when they aren’t telling the truth.5 Psychologists familiar with the method say it works because human beings just aren’t hardwired to lie well. Holding two opposing ideas in your brain at the same time—as you have to do in order to tell a lie—causes a phenomenon they term “cognitive dissonance,” which creates actual physical discomfort. And when people are uncomfortable, they squirm. They fidget ever so slightly, they pick lint off their clothes, they shift their bodily positions. Without even realizing it, they reach for ways to avoid the physical discomfort. They reach for every way to tell the literal truth while still misleading the questioner.
A CIA veteran trained in the TBA technique will begin any session by getting himself into what BIA calls “L squared mode,” which means “look and listen.” Agents look for the physical indicators of lying. They watch for a person shifting anchor points. If the person is leaning forward on one elbow, does he switch to the other one? If the person is seated, does he shift his center of gravity? Interrogators watch for grooming gestures such as adjusting clothes, hair, or eyeglasses. They look to see if the person picks at his fingernails or scratches himself. They watch for the person to clean his surroundings—does he straighten the paper clips on the table, or line up the pens? If he does, he could be lying.
To obtain verbal clues, agents listen for several kinds of statements. They’ll listen for qualifying answers, phrases that begin with words like “honestly,” “frankly,” or “basically.” Those are generally an indicator that the person is trying too hard to convince his audience of what he’s saying, and they’re a red flag for agents trained in TBA. The agents will be listening for detour phrases like “as I said before…” They’ll want to hear if the person invokes religion—“I swear to God”—or attacks the questioner: “How dare you ask me something like that?” These can be unconscious tactics to avoid actually lying to the questioner.
Other red flags: Complaints—“How long is this going to take?” Selective memory—“To the best of my knowledge.” Overly courteous responses—“Yes, sir.” In each case, analysts trained by the CIA see a pattern. And if they spot enough red flags, they know they’ve caught a liar.
The tricky part of TBA is that any one of these indicators alone doesn’t mean much. Maybe the guy just has an itch and needs to scratch. That’s why agents trained in TBA watch carefully. They’re looking for clusters: indicators that come all at once. If the subject shifts his anchor points, grumbles about how long this is going to take, and then takes off his glasses while scratching his nose, he’s probably a liar. BIA’s trainers teach clients how to take shorthand notes as an interview progresses. They tell trainees to note down a number for each question asked in the interview, and then mark a dot next to that number for every indicator they spot during the answer. The advantage of this note-taking system is that you don’t have