FBI Citizens Academy: Week 6

By AnnetteDashofy

After a month off to promote my new book, I’m back to share the final weeks of my FBI Citizens Academy experience with you.

The sixth installment covered a lot of ground including International Operations, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Public Corruption, Polygraph/Statement Analysis, and a Tour of the Mobile Cyber Forensics Lab.

Is it any wonder my head was ready to explode? Here are just a few of my takeaways.

International Operations – The FBI has worked abroad since 1940. Those agents are called legal attachés, “legat” for short. The FBI has primary US jurisdiction when a terrorist incident occurs overseas. Those investigations are coordinated with the Department of State and are conducted with local law and ground rules established by the host country.

Weapons of Mass Destruction – This is one of those topics that will keep you awake at night. The FBI works to educate those who work with chemicals or biologicals to get out in front of a threat. They have an early warning network in place with businesses such as Home Depot where someone could purchase large quantities of the materials used in bomb-making.

Public Corruption – The definition of Public Corruption is when a public official abuses his public office for private gain and is among the most sensitive of investigations.

I’m leaving that topic right there.

My favorite part of the evening was the presentation on Detection of Deception. This is the stuff any of us who write crime fiction that involves questioning a witness or suspect needs to know. Here are a few tidbits from my notes:

When interviewing a suspect, you want to build a rapport with them. Therapy techniques are used.

The subject makes reasonable justification for otherwise criminal acts. Example: “I didn’t steal money for drugs. I stole it to help my family.”

Repressed emotion comes to the surface in some sort of body movement.

What’s coming out of their mouths differs from what’s going on in their heads.

A lie is “cognitive tasking.” (Think about it. The truth requires no real brain power, but the creation of a lie, and remembering the lie that’s been created, requires a lot of mental activity.)

The interviewer watches for inadvertent body “leakage,” meaning movement, activity, and expressions that give away the “cognitive tasking” going on.

The subject may use “pacifiers” or soothing mechanisms such as grooming gestures or nose rubs (in men) or playing with the hair (in women and girls).

Yawning is an indicator the subject has checked out, and the interviewer needs to re-engage.

A subject, who intends to lie, goes through a thought process when asked a question: Hearing >>> memory recall >>> judgment >>> fear, anxiety >>> planning (the lie) >>> verbal response.

The best indicators of deception in response to an open-ended question is equivocation, meaning use of words like “probably,” “maybe,” “I assume,” “somewhat,” “I may have,” or “as best I can recall.” And negation, using phrases such as “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure.”

A subject who’s being deceptive will use “text bridges” such as “after that,” “the next thing I knew,” “later on,” or “afterwards.” In these cases, they’re covering up what they don’t want to talk about by skipping over it.

A final note, and something I’d never thought about, pertains to written statements. If a subject is willing, have him write out his statement first. They’re “uncontaminated” and will often contain tidbits the subject volunteers without realizing.

We wrapped up the very long evening with a tour of the Mobile Cyber Forensics Lab, a van with all the gadgets, gizmos, and toys you’d imagine!

 

Photo courtesy of the FBI photographer
That's me on the far right with the red shirttail hanging out

My big takeaways from this talk was you can never truly delete your information from old phones (do you donate or dispose of your old cell phones? BAD IDEA.) And do you have Bluetooth in your vehicle? Or do you connect your phone to your rental cars to use the GPS? The next person to own that car or anyone else who rents it, could potentially access everything (everything) from your phone as a result. Scary, huh?

Next time: CSI Night at the FBI Citizens Academy!