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Please speak plainly. What point are you trying to make, and on what evidence?
FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
111–120 of 153 posts
Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#112Yes polygraphs are bollocks, but, rules are rules. The issue is, if exceptions are made, what's stopping other breaking the rules? I don't care if he's a dem, rep or maga, rules are rules.
When I was in college they did an audit to see if I could graduate and it was flagged that I had been allowed to skip the Introduction to Computer Science class because I got a 5 on the AP Comp Sci test. The problem was that I took the test while it was administered in C++ and it had later switched to Java. The school decided they were not going to recognize the test results and instead would only credit me with an e…
If you'd passed their Intro CS class when it was C++, and they'd later switch to Java, would you have had to re-take the Intro class? I'd bet "no". Even though there'd be no difference - except that they'd collected your tuition $$$ for the class, and the bad optics.
My general experience with colleges is that "rules" are mostly for the little people. And pretty much all of them become negotiable the moment that serious money, prestige, or scandal avoidance are on the table.
(BTW - University of Michigan? I know several people who got similar crap from their CS Dept.)
Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#113Yes polygraphs are bollocks, but, rules are rules. The issue is, if exceptions are made, what's stopping other breaking the rules? I don't care if he's a dem, rep or maga, rules are rules.
> Yes polygraphs are bollocks, but, rules are rules.
> The issue is, if exceptions are made, ...
Except that "exceptions are made" can also be a stage of phasing out useless or counter-productive rules - as social acceptance grows that Astrology, Polygraphs, and Tarot have no place in security screening.
Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#114The only way polygraphs work is by convincing people its an actual lie detection machine. Cops leveredge this belief and tell you that you "failed miserably" so you ultimately confess because "your caught". They are about as accurate as flipping a coin.
That's not as accurate as flipping a coin. It's a certain success or a probabilistic failure. A random coin flip could get you the wrong answer either way. But here, if someone confesses to something, you can be sure it's true. (unless you pass the threshold where people would rather lie that they did bad things, but that's a different problem... if you're getting the same results as torture, the interviewer is the p…
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Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was in college they did an audit to see if I could graduate and it was flagged that I had been allowed to skip the Introduction to Computer Science class because I got a 5 on the AP Comp Sci test. The problem was that I took the test while it was administered in C++ and it had later switched to Java. The school decided they were not going to recognize the test results and instead would only credit me with an e…
I would have lawyered up. But the experience seems to have turned you into a mindless rule follower.
Quite the contrary, it solidified for me how silly the 'rules are rules' thinking is.
Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would they need a waiver?
Some clearable people simple don’t want to bother with the process, understandably. This discretion exists in part to allow the government to make a risk/benefit judgment for people they deem critical in these cases. Big companies make these kinds of exceptions for important hires all the time. This is no different.
Bull. Ducking. Shit.
Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's ignore that they're crap. 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 mo…
If they were using dowsing rods instead of polygraphs would you still feel the same way? It’s certainly suspicious. But it’s also a huge problem they use them at all when the private sector was banned from doing so since they’re so unreliable decades ago.
I'd absolutely feel the same way if we were talking about dowsing rods or a plastic Harry Potter sorting hat or any bullshit we can think of. I don't want our national security to rely on untested or disproven methods to determine whether people are trustworthy. Even so, as you say, that's also a problem (a big one).
I'd be quite comfortable if I knew that these polygraph tests were being scrapped entirely because they're nonsense and that the FBI is reworking its security procedures to improve all its background checks. As it is, these articles make it sound like they're replacing the polygraph test with nothing, and only for these select few people. I don't like that. It is a human-led interrogation, albeit with a useless (at best) machine. I want to know what's so trustworthy about these people that the FBI doesn't even want to get to know them before giving them jobs high up?
Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#118The only way polygraphs work is by convincing people its an actual lie detection machine. Cops leveredge this belief and tell you that you "failed miserably" so you ultimately confess because "your caught". They are about as accurate as flipping a coin.
That's beside the paint of political appointees getting special treatment. Patel's FBI has been using polygraphs extensively to test political loyalty
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/us/politics/fbi-polygraph...
Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a very peculiar non-sequitur to pick. Plus, finding "clues" could mean anything, including false leads. If the Shin Bet is resorting to interviews under duress, they really must not have much physical evidence to work with.
This is standard procedure for everyone in certain roles. Presumably for the same reasons the FBI does this.
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Re: FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many say the same about remote viewing but results matter.
If remote viewing would be a thing, spy networks would not be necessary and encryption would not matter.
If people believed remote viewing was real, law enforcement would say they had a psychic witness their suspect commit the crime.