Douglas Williams, proprietor of the now defunct polygraph.com, has plead guilty in Federal court to five counts of obstructing justice and a single count of mail fraud on the second day of his trial. Williams had for years dedicated considerable time to the cause of debunking polygraph "lie detection" as a dangerous pseudoscience by coaching applicants for "national security" jobs with the United States Government in ways to pass the tests while providing answers with no connection to actual truth.

The polygraph "lie detector" isn't the only piece of pseudoscience to find itself embraced for government use, though it has clearly found itself to be on of the most embedded. Explosive dowsing rods by comparison have found themselves with a short reign and more limited following in government service. Documents leaked on the eve of the Williams trial cast further doubt on the ability of the United States government to actually detect successful polygraph countermeasures.

The core of the "Justice" Department's investigation into Williams centered around an undercover agent posing as a potential customer who is reported to have captured a record of Williams "bragging" about how many of his alumni have gone into and since retired from high levels of the National Security apparatus of the United States Government.