Dear Opp,

Here's the deal:

After you have failed the polygraph twice or maybe three times your SCI access is suspended. At that point, you will no longer be able to do your job if this clearance level is required. If you are a contractor for the agency, like I was, the agency leaves it up to the company that you work for. The waiting period for the next polygraph can take months, so the company will decide if they have any other contracts and type of work that you can do, if they don't they will most likely terminate your contract. 

 If you are an agency employee the agency could get a temporary waiver until your next polygraph, or find another position for you that doesn't require SCI access.

 I hope this helps,
 
 LOD

Gentlemen,

My question has to do with the routine polygraphs after you have been hired by the agency. I understand that the CIA, NASA and FBI will administer routine polygraphs to ensure that you stay clean. If I have worked for one of these organizations for the past ten year and you failed a polygraph half way into your retirement, does that mean that they will kick you out? This sounds like a very unjust policy. I am considering leaving my job with the DoD to go to the CIA but my concern is that if I am hired and then a year later they give me a follow up polygraph and I end up failing it, I will be in real trouble and ruined. Can they be so unjust?

Opp    

Quote:


George 
I highly doubt that the mighty polygraphers of the NSA are anything even close to giving a crap about anyone. They will never risk their jobs, when told to destroy someones career. Its the same way when they hire or disqualify applicants initially. They know who they want to hire and who they are going to fail. Great way to skirt the fair hiring labor laws. 

LOD, My condolences on your job loss, if you go to the link on this web site and contact: 

http://antipolygraph.org/cgi-bin/forums/YaBB.pl?board=lawsuit;action=display;num...

Mark S. Zaid, Esq  email: ZaidMS@aol.com

Then contact the lawyer mentioned. I am quite sure that he will be able to help you. What these cockroaches fear most is the light of day and the scrutiny of a court trial. And the hand of juctice that will squash them and their BS polygraph testing into the ground. I too say to the polygraphers reading this, It will be a great day when they can your sorry butts for being totally worthless !!! 

LOD,

Your anger at losing your job for "failing" a "test" that, as the National Academy of Sciences confirms, is completely invalid, is entirely justified. Stay angry, but put that anger to positive use. Your sharing your experience here is a good start.

Other things you can do include:

Share the information you've found here with others, especially your friends and former colleagues whose jobs may also be at risk because of our government's misplaced reliance on polygraphy;

Consider helping with our Campus Poster Initiative;

Write to your senators and congressperson asking them to sponsor a Comprehensive Employee Polygraph Protection Act to ban lie detector "testing" entirely from the American workplace.

Lastly, a word to you NSA polygraphers who read this: how can you justify what you and your colleagues have done to LOD? I'm sure you didn't become polygraph examiners because you enjoy branding truthful people as liars, or because you find pleasure in wrongly causing people to lose their jobs. But these are the entirely foreseeable results of reliance on a procedure that has no scientific basis. By giving invalid polygraph screening exams, you and your colleagues are unavoidably falsely accusing many truthful persons of deception, and, in many cases, causing them serious career harm, as you did to LOD. What you did to her is immoral, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

It's going to take you a while to feel better about this. Your statement about it being their loss, not yours, is a very positive sign that you are going to make it through just fine.

How one rises from a fall is a great test of character. You may feel as though they have robbed you of your honor. Just remember - they cannot. Only you can tarnish your honor. Official records and the opinions of other people cannot change the truth.

Continue to hold your head high and get ready for something better! Some of the most successful people in history have experienced spectacular failures in their careers. This can be a fantastic opportunity for you.

LOD wrote on Sep 25^th, 2005 at 5:46am:

What a tragic story.  I hope your situation improves -- sounds like you are now in the job search market.  Good luck with that.  Have you considered any legal action against your previous employer and/or NSA?  There is an appeals process, but if you were never actually "denied" there may be nothing to appeal.   

I'm confident you'll find a good job soon and when you do -- count your blessings.  A job where you are not subject to random polygrphs at the whim of some beurocratic securty officer would be a good thing.

Sometimes doing the right thing for your country may conflict with doing the right thing for NSA (or any other agency using polygraphics).  There are many high-level outspoken critics against the polygraph.  You could add your voice to the flames against this despicable process.

Does anybody know statistics in this category -- people not actually denied, but otherwise have been constructively denied due to continuous "processing" resulting in withdrawing (or being withdrawn) from the process?

Hopefully somebody can advise if you can get your records from NSA via a Privacy Act request.

 I'm not as angry today, considering the fact that just last week I lost my job after failing my third Lifestyle Polygraph...  

 Do you know how that feels? Well, as you can imagine, not good at all. If the polygraph machine can detect the feeling of deception today is a great day for the machine to notice the difference! 
 
 1st polygraph
 When it was time for me to take the first one, I went in there confident, knowing that I did not have anything to hide. I was as honest as I could have been and said everything that was on my mind, thinking that they were looking for honest people and that was all I needed to do: Say the Truth. I left thinking "I am so glad that was over", but little did I know... About two months later I got the news: You have to retest.

 2nd polygraph  
 The second time I went in there thinking "They just want to make sure I did not lie", so I follow the steps of the first thinking and reasuring myself after every question "No, I haven't falsified any documents. No, I'm not hiding any information about drug use. No, I don't have any connections of any kind with foreign personnel or government. And so on..." At one point the polygrapher stopped and pointed out that I was reacting to the question regarding criminal activity. Knowing that there was nothing I was thinking about I searched my memory looking for anything that I had done that could be considered a crime. So I came up with my speeding tickets, arguments with my ex-boyfriend and stuff that I had done since I was a little kid... "No, I'm looking for serious stuff, something that you could go to jail for" she replied. Not having anything else to say I ask for a few minutes and wrote down everything I remembered, from taking a dollar from my mom's purse to, again, the 3 speeding tickets I've gotten... That obviously wasn't good enough. 

 3rd polygraph  
 Same story. Same problem with the same question. We talked about everything. I said everything I know about what I have done and haven't done. Everything! But not enough... 

 I'm very sorry to say that today I am unemployed because I could not pass the polygraph and the company I worked for do not see the need to process their employees for a fourth polygraph. And do you want to know what's worst? Knowing that I was honest and that I did everything I could and that wasn't good enough to save my job, which I loved, I was really good at and I enjoyed! 

 Comforting is to know that it was not my loss. That I honestly can say that I am an honest person who not only was dedicated to her job but, also, I would do everything I can to do what's right and protect the interest of NSA and the U.S. 

    L.O.D.