Doug Williams polygraph critic
Polygraph critic Doug Williams. Photo courtesy of Jacob McCleland/KGOU

 

Doug Gene Williams, the former Oklahoma City police officer who is best known for his crusade against the polygraph industry, died on March 19. He was 75. 

 

After years of administering polygraph tests, Williams quit law enforcement and dedicated his life to abolishing the lie detector test in both the public and private sector. 

 

In 1985, he testified before the U.S. House of Representatives. Those hearings eventually led to the passage of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988.

 

Williams created polygraph.com, a website offering a manual with instructions on how to beat the polygraph along with one-on-one training. This caught the attention of federal law enforcement. In 2012, he was arrested in an undercover operation conducted by the US Customs Border Patrol called Operation Lie Busters. He was convicted on multiple counts of mail fraud and witness tampering and sentenced to two years in prison.

 

The cause of death has not been made public. However, in his last interview for this podcast, Doug Williams told me he suffered from COPD from a lifetime of smoking. 

 

Listen to The Lie Detector part 1.