I'm a soldier in the army of a country I won't mention. I'm 18. My work envolves dealing with highly classified material, so by procedure I was required to take a polygraph test. This was today.

I didn't pass.

This would be a good place to mention that I'm not entirely innocent. I have used pot a few times in my past. However, being in the army pervents me from even admitting to this, because by the army law, I can be sent to jail even for this.
I've read the book. However this test was different, and it completely threw me.
First of all, there was no stim test. The test was of a format not mentioned by the book, it consisted of a few rounds, each with 3 sets of 6 questions. The first was:
Is your name x? [yes]
Do you intend to lie in the following questions?
relevent
relevent
relevent
relevent
Is your last name y? [yes]
[the first 2 and the last question are in every round]

After that, he focused on one topic out of the 4 relevent topics he had asked about. As luck would have it, it was drugs. Then he discussed (really discussed, with me!) the control questions he was gonna ask me. "Have you ever lied" turned to "have you told a serious lie when it wasn't necessary in the past year?" and he *typed the question up*- it wasn't ready beforehand. I focused on my breathing and used countermeasures on the control questions. And then he asked me if the lying question was bothering me. WTF!? Isn't he supposed to want a strong response? Anyway, next set he asks me what was bothering me about the drug question. I told him that my cousin recently was charged for dealing (this is true), and that it was bothering me. And he kept on insisting on the lying question! Telling me that something was definitely bothering me about it. And of course, I had a response to the drug question. Last set, I didn't use countermeasures (I was really confused by then), but kept my breathing. That was it. I could see in the print out graph that I had a noticable hill.
At this point he ended the test. There was supposed to be at least one more round. You could see that he wanted to believe me, because behaviourly I was perfect, but there was just no denying that peak.

I have a repeat test on Sunday. Please, please help me.

Really, thank you for answering. I don't have any legal worries, though. I know that they can't do anything to me based on the sole foundation of a polygraph test. I only mentioned going to jail to explain why I couldn't come clean. My concern is that if I fail this test, I may get kicked out of my research team, and I've come to really like the job I'm doing.

I'm not under any sort of investigation, so I doubt it's a peak of tension thing. I've managed to narrow down my questions: The polygrapher told me that the test is to see if I'm a trustworthy person (is this a lie?) . I became confused when he insisted on the control question, so - is there a chance they use it as a relevent question (using only the name and the "answer truthfully" questions as comparison) or should I use countermeasures on every question that is not the drug question (which is what I was thinking of doing)?

Propoly wrote on Mar 28^th, 2002 at 10:45pm:


Yes, but a giant step in which direction??

Quote:


Rather than telling your polygraph interrogator something he can then use to spin your admission into a statement that will contradict your written admissions, thus ruining your life's work and stated goals, I suggest admitting nothing which is not already known by your background investigators or that you know with certainty cannot be discovered by a thorough background check OR is not relavent to your security clearance.

Quote:


Yes, it really is simple.

susan wrote on Mar 31^st, 2002 at 10:25pm:


Perhaps I should clarify what I wrote above. I would only advocate insulating myself from admissions to a polygrapher that I had not made to a BI. The two must jibe if one is to pass a BI, correct?

I know personally how far reaching a background check can go. My best friend was with the US Navy SEALs. During his BI, not only was he thoroughly investigated, his family and circle of friends (including myself) were as well. I personally was interviewed for about 45 minutes about my friend's character and background.

Finally, just as false statements will haunt one an entire career, so will false accusatons.