Quote:If you are a recent or frequent user of illegal drugs, including marijuana, you need to know that CIA is a drug-free workplace. Drug abuse is one of the common reasons a security clearance is denied to applicants.
This person is writing that while they have a checkered drug usage history, they have not taken drugs for 6 years.
Quote:The Agency uses the polygraph to check the veracity of information which bears upon the areas listed above. CIA's polygraph examiners are highly trained security professionals, among the world's best in their field. They work closely and carefully with applicants to ensure that the information upon which clearance decisions are based is as accurate as it can be and is guarded with the strictest confidence.
'They work closely and carefully with applicants' is a gross mischaracterization of the polygraph interrogation process, in my opinion.
Being the world's best polygrapher is akin to being the world's best refuse collector. At the end of the day, no matter how well you did, it's still just garbage in, garbage out.
Quote:Make no mistake about it; clearance processing can be lengthy. Depending on your specific circumstances, the process may take as little as two months or over a year. Since the Agency actively recruits people who have expert knowledge of foreign languages and cultures, it is not unusual for our applicants to have numerous foreign contacts. In these cases the investigation must cover more ground, which usually takes more time. Candor is critical to the timely completion of this process.
The statements by others on this board would indicate candor has little if anything to do with how quickly one is accepted or rejected, and has little to do with whether or not one is deemed non-deceptive. Please note I am NOT advising people to be less than candid, I am merely making an observation as to what I have read about the application process and the uses & abuses of the polygraph in that process.
Rather than entrusting a candidate's career to the scribblings of a box, why not interview an applicant's peer group to help determine if said applicant is being forthright about his current drug usage? A urine and hair sample would also check the veracity of an applicant's assertion he hasn't recently used drugs to a point at least 3 years in the past.
The United States would not be in the HUMINT deficit in which it now wallows if the CIA did not rely on the pseudo-science of polygraphy.