PCASS FAILS MILITARY

The reports are in from the field and they are not very good.  In fact, they are very bad…

A new device, known by the acronym PCASS, which stands for “Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System,” was released by the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment (DACA) to much fanfare in early 2008. Both the proponents and critics of the PCASS agree on one thing: This new device is less accurate than the old polygraph, because it gathers less physiological information.  In fact, the PCASS has turned out to be a multi-million dollar “smoke screen” perpetrated on the military by DACA, formerly known as the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute (DODPI), and it has become a major failure since being deployed.  PCASS failures have been so overwhelming that the individuals trained to use the device have chosen to either suspend its use entirely or use it as an interrogation “prop.”  Few are willing to gamble with their lives or the lives of other with this “junk-science” system.

Statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences that found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security stated, “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.”

Accuracy during field use is “less than the flip of a coin” – worse than even the 60% accuracy rate the PCASS demonstrated during testing prior to deployment.  In an April 2008 article by MSNBC, the head of DACA’s PCASS project admitted the system was little better than the flip of a coin when he stated, "Let's take a worst-case scenario here, and let's say PCASS really is 60 percent accurate…"   Such comments do little to engender the confidence of military members in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fueling the debate further over the PCASS is the fact that pre-deployment testing of the PCASS, which resulted in an unacceptable 60% accuracy rate, was only conducted on Americans, in English, far from a battlefield, where verifiable accuracy levels have proven to be much lower.

Further complicating this matter is the fact that PCASS was released to the US military without ever 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 and on-line training courses.  The PCASS, a “watered-down” and simplistic version of the polygraph, is even more susceptible to countermeasures.  The refusal to utilize this device by military professionals is almost universal.

 However, this is not the case with the CVSA® II, which has repeatedly demonstrated a validated 98% accuracy rate while being employed by US Special Operations and Intelligence professionals in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Much to the dismay of DACA, military and law enforcement professionals have overwhelmingly chosen the CVSA II over the old polygraph and the easily defeated PCASS.  In fact, when the Defense Intelligence Agency had Iraqi prisoners tested on the CVSA by Chief Bill Endler, the NITV’s Director of Law Enforcement and Training – the results were dramatically different.  A number of Iraq’s top detainees, who were among the US Military’s “Most-Wanted,” were given CVSA examinations.  All failed the CVSA, and based upon the results Chief Endler obtained confessions of critical value to the war effort.  These results have been repeated by military CVSA examiners time-and-time again since 2003 – by the US Army, US Marine Corps and US Navy.

The CVSA II is the PROVEN ALTERNATIVE to the failed polygraph and PCASS.  Contact NITV for additional information about the CVSA II.