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Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

antipolygraph.org

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Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#141

Post by lazide »

awakeasleep wrote: post #126
delichon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The polygraph doesn't have to emit any useful data at all to be very useful in interrogations. Like a bomb doesn't have to have any explosive in it to clear a building. Interrogation is a head game and a complicated box with knobs and buttons and maybe even blinking lights makes a fine prop. And there's enough ambiguity in it that it's easy for the operator to believe it helps. Like a dowser with their rods, a clergy…

Everyone repeats this old canard but no one has any evidence even anecdotes to show that a polygraph machine is better than any other way to head fake someone in an interrogation

Why would it have to be better to still be used?

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#142

Post by lazide »

DANmode wrote: post #135
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know nothing about the situation. It's entirely possible that the person took $50 from their parent's purse as a child. My parents used to love to tease me about the time I stole candy from the grocery store as a child. Is that a red flag?

Since you asked: How old of a child?

37. (/s)

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#143

Post by keepamovin »

DANmode wrote: post #136
keepamovin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At lesat now the IC has dirt on you should you ever step out of line.

Yeah, “help us into Yahoo Mail for a few years - or we’ll anonymously report to your mother the truth about where the coins came from”.

Why stop there? They can just make up whatever they want. Then say it as loaded questions to everyone they contact for your “vetting.”

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#144

Post by bizzletk »

prewett wrote: post #133
Stevvo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like religion; it only works if people believe in it.

Maybe Reformation religions require belief, but the paganism was a set of rituals known to work (by virtue of having worked before), sort of a like a spiritual experimental science. Belief was not required. Religions don't necessarily work because people believe in it, either. There are a number of religious sects that started with end of the world prophecies. I think that religions work the opposite way: people beli…

Would you mind expanding on the scientific-ness of paganism? That sounds really interesting!

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#145

Post by Hikikomori »

post-it wrote: post #91
Hikikomori wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was drugging random Americans with LSD also a valid experiment? Parts of the CIA was just insane back then, maybe still is.

Yeah absolutely. Figuring out which, if any, drugs can be used to control people is extremely valuable for defence, not to mention offence. Same with the fascist Japanese frostbite experiments. Let me be clear: these were all wrong and unethical , and I would not have approved or conducted them. But if you're a government agency tasked with doing wrong and unethical things in the name of national security, they were…

So you have no idea what they actually did.

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#146

Post by knallfrosch »

apical_dendrite wrote: post #41
sonofhans wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do work. Their purpose is intimidation. They’re not truth machines, they’re pressure cookers.

There's an old interview on C-SPAN's BookTV with a CIA polygrapher. He seems to genuinely believe in the validity of the polygraph, but watching the interview, I was convinced that the only value comes from intimidation and stress. (all-caps bad transcription) > THE ESSENCE OF A POLYGRAPH TEST IS IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO LOSE BY FAILING A POLYGRAPH TEST IF YOU WILL, OR SOMETHING TO GAIN BY PASSING IT, THAT IS WHAT MA…

That's the point though. The testers wouldn't actually abuse their victims without the conviction of doing something righteous. Or they would, accidentally or intentionally, spill the secrets.

But if you make even the instruction material lie, then there is nothing that could be leaked and "expose" the system.

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#147

Post by knallfrosch »

rconti wrote: post #15
stego-tech wrote: post #7

Adding my POV from a former National Security perspective: Author is 100% on point. The point of a polygraph is three-fold: weeding out the dipshits; exerting power over the powerless; and identifying the valuable assets (typically sociopaths). It does not - cannot - identify liars, deceit, or bad actors on its face (that comes from the manual the author linked). It's not scientific assessment, it's psychological tor…

This was all so weird to read about. I guess I just assumed the polygraph was of marginal utility, and you either passed, or you didn't. I didn't realize it was part of a combative interrogation process, even for regular employees.

From the viewpoint of a security clearance, the employee is the enemy.

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#148

Post by BlobberSnobber »

ElProlactin wrote: post #118
BlobberSnobber wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It made me cringe at how boot-licking the author, and apparently a lot of people at the CIA, are (like defending the “petty thief” not getting the job). People will work for one of the most evil organizations in the world and expect pity for being interrogated, while that same organization has torture sites.

And they were the happiest years of her life!

Fond memories of planning the assassination of a politician in South America and creating popular unrest through a disinformation campaign in China :,)

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#149

Post by altmanaltman »

halJordan wrote: post #103
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #48

I'm always surprised to hear that a government agency administers polygraph tests in something as serious as hiring but then I remember the CIA also spent millions of dollars trying to develop telekinetic assassins and train clairvoyants to spy on the Kremlin.

If you ever get the opportunity to read what people admit, unprompted, during these "conversations" then you'll know why they'll never go away. Stuff like, "yeah i stepped on a kitten's head once, but i was young... No i don't see why anyone would have a problem with that." No one wants that guy working at the cia.

yeah CIA never has a history of doing terrible things and causing harm to people. Why would they hire pyschopaths?

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#150

Post by Der_Einzige »

mmooss wrote: post #130
masfuerte wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? Post 9/11 the CIA decided they needed to be in the business of kidnapping and torturing. They didn't seem to have any trouble finding employees to do it.

Soldiers need to kill people, but you don't want sociopathic soldiers - you want the opposite: Someone who can handle their emotions, not someone who hides from them, runs from them, or tries to bury or ignore them. The latter are not stable or reliable under stress.

Than how do you explain the marine corps? The average enlisted marine is a sociopath. You have to be to get through the crucible.
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