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WHAT ABOUT DECEPTION?
THE INTERVIEW starts calmly enough. The subject, a woman, answers the agent’s opening questions in a forthright manner. As the interview progresses, however, she begins to exhibit a certain restlessness that should not be there, since the main topic—her involvement in government fraud—has not even come up yet. Still, throughout these first forty minutes of building rapport she is increasingly tense, unsettled, and somewhat distant—all “alerting” behaviors suggesting that she has guilty knowledge. These behaviors, to an agent, are like blood to a shark. Finally, the agent confronts her: “You look like you have something major to get off your chest, so just do it; get it over with, and I’ll be the first to say you were ...
