Matt,

The U.S. Secret Service may well have the most boorish polygraphers and the most abusive pre-employment polygraph program within the federal government. See AntiPolygraph.org's Personal Statements page to read about the experiences of other USSS applicants. (If you would be interested in making a statement of your own, please contact info@antipolygraph.org.)

My first advice to you would be to educate yourself about polygraphy. The "test" is a fraud that actually depends on the polygrapher lying to and otherwise deceiving the person being "tested." It has no scientific basis whatsoever and results in many innocent people being wrongly branded as liars. Download The Lie Behind the Lie Detector and read through it. You'll find it to be a real eye opener.

Next, with regard to the LAPD polygraph program, you should be aware that about half of all applicants are being accused of deception and/or countermeasures and disqualified. It's clear that many innocent applicants are being falsely accused of deception. (Again, see the statements of LAPD applicants on the Personal Statements page.)

Whether you should bother continuing with your application to the LAPD is a judgment call that you'll have to make. But if you do go ahead with it, see Chapter 4 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector for measures you can take to protect yourself against a second false positive outcome.

Last year, i applied for a position with the USSS Uniformed Division. I passed the written test, security interview and the physical. When I went for my polygraph, I wasn't very worried about it. However, things soon turned for the worse. The polygrapher told me that i was being deceptive on the drug question. That was the one question that i KNEW id PASS since i had never even touched a drug, let alone actually do a drug. He sat there for an hour and tried to get me to just tell him what i did. I didnt know what to say. I just kept telling him that i was being 100% honest about it and that i had never done anything with drugs. Well, he refused to run the testing again and said that the results would be sent to HQ but that once they saw the test they'd prolly not keep me going ahead in the process...i was SOOO furious about the whole process and lost all faith i had in the polygraph test. NOW, I am scheduled to fly out to L.A in May to test for the LAPD. Should i really even bother flying all the way across the country to just be called a liar again? is there any way i could pass the drug question since i failed it once already, even though i was telling the truth before? Im so frustrated about the whole thing so if any of you have any advice or suggestions please let me know..thanks

Note: This message has been edited to protect your privacy. The time frame of your USSS application has been made more general, and your reference to your state of residence has been removed. -- AntiPolygraph.org Administrator