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Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

antipolygraph.org

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Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#41

Post by apical_dendrite »

sonofhans wrote: post #14
FergusArgyll wrote: post #11

I don't get it, I thought it's settled science that polygraphs don't work. Why are these agencies still using them?

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 MAKES THE POLYGRAPH EFFECTIVE. WITHOUT THE FEAR OF DETECTION IT IN A SIMPLE WAY AS I CAN PUT IT THAT IS WHAT MAKES IT WORK. YOU HAVE TO BE AFRAID. IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BY TAKING THE POLYGRAPH TEST THAN THE PRESSURE IS NOT ON YOU. BUT AS I SAID THAT IS WHAT MAKES YOU WORK. IT HAS TO BE PROTECTION MORE THAN GILTS. NOW YOU MAY FEEL GUILTY, BUT FEAR OF DETECTION IS THE OVERRIDING CONCERN IN IN A POLYGRAPH TEST

https://www.c-span.org/program/book-tv/gatekeeper/180053

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#42

Post by tptacek »

marxisttemp wrote: post #25

The guy trying to work for the psychological torture club got psychologically tortured a little? My heart bleeds for him

What do the people writing these kinds of comments think the CIA is? There are mustache-twirling villains there, in greater proportion than in other government organizations, but the median CIA employee sits at a desk and translates cables from Farsi to English and back again, or keeps track of the rainfall in Azerbaijan. A very small fraction of the agency does anything more "interesting" than that, and the majority of people there perform functions that every government in the world also performs.

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#44

Post by Paracompact »

stego-tech wrote: post #6
Paracompact wrote: post #3

Am I a bad person if the picture of someone in the CIA crying is funny to me? Not out of malice or anything. It's just something I didn't know they did. Do they also have little "Hang in there!" posters on the wall, too?

Not bad, just as misinformed as most folks out there about the process and requirements. National Security is a PITA, full of cutthroat sociopaths who would eat the SV VC-types for breakfast. That is a compliment , because the work they do is broadly dark and grimly necessary, at least at the levels of global geopolitics a lot of them are expected to operate at. I washed out in contracting for much the same reason th…

It would seem there's a spectrum of beliefs regarding the people in the CIA, the FBI, in politics, etc. ranging from "They're just like us!" to "They're lizard people (for better or for worse)." In other words, is it the situation or is it the person/self-selection? I self-identify as uninformed about the bigger picture, but my experience working in a federally adjacent sector where all my colleagues are perfectly normal, and yet there is always above us the stench of lizardry in the decisions being made, has me believing in the hypothesis that every bureaucracy is largely staffed with normal people doing the legwork (sometimes very high level, high paying, and highly consequential legwork), and lizards controlling the brain at the management and director levels.

> I washed out in contracting for much the same reason this person kept "failing" polygraphs: honesty to the point of external perceptions of naivety.

I'm curious if you're willing to elaborate on this story. So far in my career I've yet been forced to bend my knee to a lizard, nor become one, but it sounds like you have some experience.

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#45

Post by Paracompact »

SpaceL10n wrote: post #10
Paracompact wrote: post #3

Am I a bad person if the picture of someone in the CIA crying is funny to me? Not out of malice or anything. It's just something I didn't know they did. Do they also have little "Hang in there!" posters on the wall, too?

I would use this information to reflect.

How do you mean? I don't look down on anyone.

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#46

Post by Paracompact »

bitwize wrote: post #27
Paracompact wrote: post #3

Am I a bad person if the picture of someone in the CIA crying is funny to me? Not out of malice or anything. It's just something I didn't know they did. Do they also have little "Hang in there!" posters on the wall, too?

The movie Spy (2015) is probably the most accurate, realistic version of the CIA in cinema, replete with celebratory cakes for supervisors' birthdays and crumbling infrastructure due to insufficient funding.

How do you know it's realistic?

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#47

Post by delichon »

I was a security guard at a big ritzy condo with access to all of the keys when one of the apartments was burgled. Two local detectives showed up and questioned me with a polygraph. I failed to suspend my disbelief. It seemed like bullshit from the start. I lied about smoking weed.

Then they told me to wait. An hour later one of them came back and told me I had passed. I had the impression he was watching me very carefully for some kind of relief, and that moment was the actual test. I laughed at him, which seems to have been the right answer.

I still think it's an interrogation manipulation prop, and the courts that don't admit polygraph results have it right.

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#49

Post by Stevvo »

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…

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

Re: Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst

#50

Post by influx »

sonofhans wrote: post #14
FergusArgyll wrote: post #11

I don't get it, I thought it's settled science that polygraphs don't work. Why are these agencies still using them?

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

Exactly, the whole point is to put someone into an interrogation scenario for hours or days, where you control whether nor not they "passed". Unfortunately, it probably has zero effect on psychopaths.
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