anon99 wrote on Dec 25
th, 2002 at 2:19am:
Does anyone have suggestions for the pre-employment NSA polygraph (relevant/irelevant format)? Are the questions repeated several times and their order changed? Are there no control questions at all? Should I just breath steadily through the whole thing and make no admissions?
I know George suggests to vary my response, but what if they do not repeat all the questions? Has anyone tried this?
Anon99,
I wish I had better advice to give you. As a person who recently took the NSA polygraph multiple times, I can tell you a few things:
1) The "test" consists of two sets of questions. The first is "counterintelligence" (e.g. "Do you belong to any organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government?" "Have you ever given classified information to an unauthorized person?" -- you get the gist). The second set consists of three questions: "Are you concealing any falsification on your security forms?", "Are you concealing any information regarding illegal involvement with drugs?" and "Are you concealing any information regarding a serious crime?".
2) Each set of test questions is repeated perhaps three times in different order. However, the two sets of questions are not mixed up; IOW, the test is clearly divided into two parts.
3) The test is pure R/I. To the best of my ability to discern, there are no control questions, concealed or otherwise. There are some "general truth" questions (IMHO, probably sacrifice relevant) at the beginning and/or end of a test set, as well as announcements of "the test is about to begin" and "the test is now concluded". Augmenting one's responses through countermeasures on the announcement questions did not seem to do anything for me, although the effort was not detected as countermeasures.
4) You will sit facing the corner of the room in a big, comfy "La-z-boy"-type red chair.
5) The entire purpose of the test is to get you to talk. They will grill you up and down regarding "reactions" to relevant questions, but the real point is to get information. Chances are that if you "react" to a question and they want to know more, they will reschedule you for a second, third or even a fourth polygraph.
6) It is highly likely that, at least for your first polygraph, they will not ask you about polygraph research or countermeasures. Rather, the most they will likely do is ask whether you've heard "horror stories".
7) They will go over all questions before the test. They will falsely identify irrelevant questions as "questions about identity", designed for the serious purpose of keeping those who would lie about their name from getting into the NSA.
8) You may certainly try countermeasures. I did so multiple times with no evidence of detection, and at one point in a "breakdown test" it had clear effect. But straightforward preparedness and behavioral countermeasures along with steady breathing (I did about 15 bpm) will get you much farther, IMHO. This is an R/I "test", the least scientific of all polygraph "tests". They don't use control questions on which you can augment -- they just look for excuses to interrogate. And even if you don't actually react, chances are good they will interrogate, anyway. From what I've heard, most people do get interrogated, and most take multiple polygraphs. Our tax dollars at work.
Skeptic