'Our Goal Is To Get The Truth Before People Have A Chance To Lie': Former FBI Agent Jack Schafer On Book 'The Truth Detector'
(CBS Local)-- Jack Schafer spent over a decade in the FBI and during his time working for the federal law enforcement agency, he became an expert in human psychology and getting the truth out of criminals.
Schafer's new book from Simon & Schuster called "The Truth Detector: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide For Getting People To Reveal The Truth" takes readers through the former FBI agent's experience with domestic and international criminals and the tactics he used to extract the truth. Schafer was a counterintelligence officer and it was his job to identify and turn spies.
"My job was to catch spies and hopefully turn them into agents for the United States to spy on the government that hired them to spy on us," said Schafer, in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "We call that a double agent and what we have to do is gather a lot of intelligence and information about a lot of people. What we rely on is something called elicitation, which is getting them to tell you the truth without realizing that they're revealing sensitive information. What I did was use all those techniques that I was very successful with and turned that into information that normal people can use."
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Schafer says his tips can help people get secret information from others that is not normally available to them. The former FBI agent believes his book can help everyone find out what people really think about something.
"Our goal is to get to the truth before people have a chance to lie," said Schafer. "The number one thing you need to do is to get that person to like you. There are several things you can do. One of them is called the eyebrow flash where you raise your eyebrows up and down for 1/64th of a second. This is a distance friend signal that lets people know that they're not threats to one another. As we approach one another, we are going to eyebrow flash one another. When you approach somebody and you want to get them to like you, you want to make sure to eyebrow flash."
While Schafer had has hands full in dealing with some criminals internationally and domestically, he says one of his toughest challenges while working for the FBI was dealing with skinheads in America.
"I was able to catch a number of spies and I'm proud I was able to make an impact on the country by keeping the country more secure," said Schafer. "The other thing that makes me proud in the FBI is when you go into a neighborhood and make an impact on that neighborhood. I dealt with a lot of skinheads and I arrested quite a few of them that were wreaking havoc. The most rewarding time I had is when a neighbor came out after I arrested all the skinheads and the neighbor walked out and she said thank you very much."
Schafer's book is available now wherever books are sold and watch all of DJ Sixsmith's interviews from "The Sit-Down" series here.
