George W. Maschke wrote on Mar 13^th, 2009 at 3:08pm:


George is correct as usual. Any government employee or applicant for such a positions can be polygraphed legally. 

This means that barring a local union contract with a stipulation prohibiting the practice of polygraphy, even the public works guys who fix holes in the street and plumb leaky faucets can be put "on the box" for any reason at the whim of management.

nopolycop wrote on Mar 13^th, 2009 at 2:23pm:


The federal Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 incudes a blanket exemption for federal, state, and local governments. So any state, county, or municipal agency can require polygraph screening of any and all employees, unless otherwise restricted by law (for example, under Minnesota law, state and local agencies are prohibited from polygraph screening of applicants and employees).

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I thought the poly was allowed for only law enforcement and national security purposes, not firefighters.

jkf1007,

It seems highly inappropriate to me for a civil service commission to publicly brand job applicants as liars in this manner. (Whether it's legal is another question, the answer to which I do not know.) Of course, it's inappropriate to begin with that applicants for any job should be required to "pass" such a thoroughly discredited and invalid "test" as the polygraph to begin with. This is an issue that you might want to take up with your city representatives and the local news desks of newspapers, radio, and television stations in your city.

Poly was part of the pre-employment testing.  the minutes listed applicants that were to be removed from the eligible list due to "deception on the polygraph."  minutes were posted on-line

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How did this come about? Did you have an appeal hearing before the commission?

took a polygraph for an opening with a local fire department.  the results showed a deception which was not true!  this info was included in the Civil Service Commission's meeting minutes which were posted on-line.  are they allowed to do this?

Off topic replies have been moved to This Thread

No no guys... I am no examiner... I am trying to learn as much about the poly as possible because after reading georges story and many others I decided to support the movement toward the obliteration of these terrible devices!!!! 

All three polys I have taken... 2 serious... once practice with no consequences I have beat... but only barely. I want to learn more. I could swear that on my first (administered by a state LE agency for a sworn position) I heard him tell me to lie to the color in the room to see how my lies look on paper.... you guys are telling me the opposite... please explain

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"Is the room blue?" - Is an Irrelevant Question (IQ) aka a 'Known Truth'
question. IE - you are obviously sitting in the room, so you know whether its
blue or whatever colour. Your answer to that Q will be a known truth to both
you and the examiner. 

However, it sounds more like a VSA IQ than a P/G IQ.
VSA IQ's and CQ's (as practised by VSA only examiners)
are generally bordering on the ridiculous.

Lastly, I think you are simply having a bit of fun here.
Methinks you are an examiner.

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That's an example of an irrelevant question, and a truthful answer is expected. See Chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector for a detailed explanation of polygraph procedure.

the alien people were very welcoming... 

so then what are questions such as is the room blue... and are examinees always supposed to lie to these???

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Good Day PL,

A decent question today !!
Sounds like you're out of your chemical haze.
How was the trip to planet Roche then ?

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Yes, and it's standard procedure in the "Control Question Test" (CQT), the most commonly employed polygraph technique.

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Probable-lie "control" question.

can a test have control, relevent, and irrelevent all in one???   also, what type of question is "have you ever lied to get out of touble"

Lethe wrote on Jul 9^th, 2007 at 6:35am:


From work undertaken by my firm. In that period we processed some 1400 candidates.
The process involved p/g, personal interview, pen/paper tests, personal background check,
employment history check, crim records check, civil debt bureau check, IRS check.

Happy ?

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1904, where are you getting that information?  Can you cite your source(s) for us?

I concur that the first place the polygraph should be banned is in employment screening.  Somehow it's not good enough for the private sector but it's good enough for government work.

Lethe wrote on Jun 24^th, 2007 at 10:38pm:


Good Question. I guess some of the RQ's to use would include:
"Have you ever stolen a fire truck?"
"Do you know how to hotwire a REO Speedwagon?"
"Does your brother own a REO Speedwagon?"
"Have you ever smoked weed through 100 yards of fire hose?"
"Does your brother own a very long canvass garden hose?"
"If you were dousing a marijuana fire, would you inhale?"

The obsession with p/g pre-employment examinations is as absurd
as the people who advocate its continued use. 

Used in that arena, between the years of 1994 - 2000, I found that
55% of pre-employment subjects failed - according to their charts;
but passed according to actual and detailed background checks.
So, despite the p/g result, approx 90% of the 55% 'failures' were
passed for honesty and background screening.

If there is only ONE area where polygraph should be banned, it is
in the arena of pre-employment screening.

Why do you need to take a polygraph exam to become a firefighter anyway?  Sure, look at the person's references and do a basic background check.  But if that comes up clean, why spend all that money on polygraphing applicants?  Are there that many qualified people willing to put their health and lives on the line that we can afford to winnow them down like this?

Does anyone have an answer for this?  That is, an answer besides "the polygraph lobby thought it'd be a good idea since it's more money for them"?

decisions wrote on Jun 20^th, 2007 at 7:13pm:



Hmmm. The Cute Putz has a twin.

Yes tell the truth I agree. But let's hope the polygrapher tell's the true.  we need polygraphs to screen out the bad but you need to be very honest and just relax. It is true what is so hard about the truth everyone makes mistake in life just be honest no matter what we are not perfect

someoneunimportant wrote on Jun 19^th, 2007 at 9:31am:


Hmm. Cute and a putz.

Listen to George, he knows what he's talking about!!

Don't listen to what anyone has to say. just tell the truth. that's all they want. an honest person. is that so hard???

I'm not sure precisely what at p. 145 led you to believe that perhaps you should also produce reactions to relevant questions, but no, you should not. The key to passing the CQT is to exhibit stronger reactions to the "control"/comparison questions than to the relevant questions. Thus, augmenting reactions to the "control" relevant questions would be counterproductive.