21–30 of 153 posts
It'd matter more if polygraphs weren't completely bogus pseudoscience in the first place
Sure, but don't you find it a little curious that these tests are being waived so selectively? If the FBI believes polygraphs serve some purpose, why would it choose to waive them?
the FBI’s employment eligibility guidelines say all employees must obtain a “Top Secret” clearance in order to work at the agency following a background check. The furor here is about Dan Bongino, and Nicole Rucker, Kash Patel's assitant The article goes on to say that FBI employees at the level Bongino and Rucker are working at have "SCI" clearance on top of Top Secret. Back in the 1990s, it was exceptionally diffic…
I think you are exaggerating this as the other poster points out. Every US military cryptolinguist gets a TS-SCI clearance. So, while every student at Defense Language Institute was doing his/her language course, a background check was done, and the rejection rate in the 1990s was presumably tiny. And ditto for other military intelligence roles. A certain amount of military personnel getting the clearance were semi-native speakers of a language in demand who still had foreign ties (family or land owned in the old country) but they passed nonetheless, which must speak to a certain laxness.
Good writeup of what happens in an FBI pre-employment polygraph: https://www.andrewwatters.com/hall-of-shame/FBI-SACU/FSL/pol...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but don't you find it a little curious that these tests are being waived so selectively? If the FBI believes polygraphs serve some purpose, why would it choose to waive them?
Does it bother me? Yes. But the real solution is to not have polygraphs at all, not to get upset that a few people didn't get them.
Person A believes they work.
Person A says "we shouldn't use this on Persons B, C, D".
Pretty major implications about the integrity and suitability of Persons B, C, and D, and about how Person A suspects they have stuff to hide.
(In some ways this is a good reason to keep them around. Even if some people know they're crap, the existence and popular mythology causes people to reveal more than they otherwise would through actions like this.)
Polygraphs must not be used as they are completely unreliable and subject to many issues. The government does a lot of security theater and campaigns to make you believe that they are competent.
They are perfectly fine as detectors of areas of interest for investigators to probe deeper.
They are about as accurate as flipping a coin.
Polygraphs must not be used as they are completely unreliable and subject to many issues. The government does a lot of security theater and campaigns to make you believe that they are competent.
Polygraphs must not be used as they are completely unreliable and subject to many issues. The government does a lot of security theater and campaigns to make you believe that they are competent.
"A routine Shin Bet polygraph test of a senior officer close to Military Advocate General reportedly exposed new clues about video leak, prompting Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to order a full criminal investigation"
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkbichbjbe
While polygraphs are not perfect they are widely used as part of a broader set of measures. I'm not sure "must not be used" is really the right way to approach this. This person would not have been caught if it wasn't for this polygraphs screening.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Back in the 1990s, it was exceptionally difficult to get TS clearance. SCI on top of that must have been even harder. Not really. I know a litany of people who had TS/SCI clearances in the 90s. It was literally a job requirement for entire divisions of the US govt.
Even for the 15 page "short form", required to get a "Secret" clearance, you had to list everywhere you'd lived for the past N years, N >= 10 as I recall and give a non-family person who could testify you lived there. You had to list all the organizations you belonged to. Some fed contacted every single reference I gave, my old scoutmaster, and the minister of the church I was a janitor for during college. Top Secret…
I've been a reference interviewed in the processes before. It was not exactly rigorous. (It would have been hard to be, frankly... I had no knowledge of them doing anything shady, and they had no specific prior area of concern to try to grill me specifically on.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really mean it's not worth getting upset that employees are put through stupid and sometimes even quite invasive or degrading questioning in a humiliating and fear-driven process that bosses don't?
I'd prefer they just get rid of them altogether. They're stupid.
"For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law" — Óscar Benavides.