<edited to protect the identity of the kids involved>

I currently hold a clearance with a SBI and a CI poly, and have a great performance record and background investigation (as admitted by my adjudicator).  I switched to a position where I was asked to go for an ISSA clearance although I could continue to do some of my job with the clearance I already possessed.  My adjudicator told me that everyone thought highly of me and I was described as "a cut above" by someone on the background investigation.  He was also impressed with my performance record at my previous job.

Though I'm not thrilled with what happened during my two suitability polygraph sessions (canceled and rescheduled for the following day, govt didn't know I was supposed to be there on my rescheduled date, waited for over half an hour before letting me into the main part of the building since all the people responsible for correcting the system were out to lunch, no apologies for any of this, polygrapher dismissed my concerns about some of my smartest and most respected coworkers unable to get through their polygraphs ("You don't know what personal issues they were struggling with, all you have to do is tell the truth if you want to get through this"),  blood pressure cuff so tight that my hand turned purple and I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers, polygrapher insisting that a little bit of pain is normal and I should be able to sit perfectly still through this, obvious lies told to me by polygraphers during exam, etc., etc.),  I am most concerned with the more than two hour "personal interview" given to me by my adjudicator about a week after my second exam.

He told me that the interview would not be audio-taped, would be conducted professionally, and he would talk to me "man to man".   He started out saying that we both knew I was lying, and we could get through this very quickly if I’d just stop withholding relevant information from him.  He also told me that my body was telling him that I was lying and he didn’t even need to hook me up to a polygraph machine to know that.  He spent some time pounding into me the threats to my career if I didn’t give him the information he wanted.  I never saw my polygraph charts, but I am under the impression that I showed too much of a response on pretty much every question I was asked.  This, combined with my clean background investigation left both my polygraphers and adjudicator to go on fishing expeditions.

Neither of my polygraph interrogations centered too much around sex, but I did get inappropriate questions like "Have you ever paid for sex?", and "Have you ever gotten a women drunk so you could have sex with her?" (both paraphrased).  My adjudicator stepped up the level of questioning and believed the more a topic made me nervous the more I was lying about that topic.  Thus when my adjudicator used terms like "shaved tail" and "thingy" (he was fond of slang terms and cursing) early on in the interview, and I had a strongly visible negative reaction, I condemned myself to talking about sex for the rest of the interview.  (Oops maybe I should have insisted it be audio-taped)

My adjudicator spent some talking about women as if they were sexual objects, but eventually decided to add in questions about my relations with the Junior High youth group at my church.  I had foolishly mentioned that I work with Junior High students during my second polygraph examination.  I had (honestly) told my polygrapher that the worst incident I could think of involving them was <deleted to protect kid's identity -- no rational person would have interpreted by comments to mean something inappropriate happened>  My deluded polygrapher interpreted my comments to mean that one of the Junior High girls was interested in me.

My adjudicator decided to pick up on this and questioned me further about my involvement with this kid.  The worst thing I could come up with was <deleted to protect kid's identity -- no rational person would have interpreted my comments to mean something inappropriate happened> .  I thought he would take this at face value and realize that he was making a big deal out of nothing, but I was wrong.  He took this as further evidence that she liked me and told me that I shouldn’t discount my role in it.  I told him I was quite sure she didn’t have any interest in me but he persisted in his demands that she liked me (after all, the other polygrapher thought so too).  Then he proceeded to ask me about her breast size.  I admitted to being familiar with the lettering system, but didn’t really know exactly the size for each letter.  He persisted and eventually I gave him a guess.  Then he asked for a number and I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.  He explained and I still had no idea what to tell him.  Eventually he gave me a list of numbers to choose from, and I gave up and guessed one.  Then he went on to ask about hair color, eye color, height and weight (all of which I am sure are absolutely vital to national security ).  I felt bad afterwards that I answered any of these questions, but was under extreme psychological pressure and humiliation at the time. 

While I responded to his abusive questions, he jotted down notes.  The government may now posses information on her measurements.  I was very uncomfortable throughout the entire interview, and especially through this section.  My polygrapher couldn’t understand why anything he said would make me uncomfortable.  I suggested that the parents would not be happy if they knew what we were saying about their kids.  He indicated that it did not matter since they would not find out.  At one point in the interview (possibly prior to the Junior High discussion), he was mystified about how uncomfortable I was with the sexual questions and said that many people love talking to him about this sort of thing and thought of it as some foreplay – this makes no sense to me so I’ll assume I misheard/misinterpreted these comments.  After the bra size question, he went on to characterize Junior High girls as people who dress for sex with older men, making comments about them knowing what they are doing and showing their thongs.  I was also forced to play what-if scenarios. Here is my attempt to reconstruct part of our dialogue.

Adjudicator: "If she slapped you in the cheek one day, what would you do?  Now I don’t mean this cheek. (slaps himself on the cheek)  I mean the other kind of cheek."  (again, he was quite fond of slang)

Me:  "She would never do that."

Adjudicator: "Now you know her better than I do, but lets just suppose she did give you a little pat on the butt."

<more failed protests by me>

Me: "I suppose I would ignore it and try to pretend like it didn’t happen."

Adjudicator: "Ok, well suppose she slapped you on the cheek a second time..."

etc.

None of that is meant to be an exact quote, but I think it conveys the situation pretty well.  The whole interrogation was about two hours and 15 minutes and I think the inappropriate remarks about Junior High students lasted over an hour.  Eventually he gave up the interrogation, made a few parting remarks, and I drove back to work.  I was so distressed that I had to think about which side of the yellow line to drive on at one point.  A week or two later I submitted a statement to my company to be forwarded to the government. 

I try to ignore the issue, but know I cannot.  I still get infuriated thinking about it and have wasted a lot of time on the issue.  I remember more things about my polygraph investigation and comments made about Junior High students than I have recorded here.   This information is just a summary

I assume it is the opinion of the government and the deluded polygraphers who post on this site that what I went through is somehow my fault.  But I tell you that I am what my background investigation says about me and more – they will never find anything to use against me because there is nothing out there that can be used against me.  The government has picked the wrong person to harass.

I still have not decided which other actions I will take to rectify this injustice, but since the government is ignoring me, I have decided to make my next step posting on this site.

I did write some of the major points down afterwards, especially about the Junior High kids.  I mean its bad enough to harass me, but to bring innocent kids into it?  -- lets just say I'd never let him near a minor.  The coolness with which he was able to talk about women as if they were pieces of meat amazes me.  At least he toned it down quite a bit when he got to the kids.

Overall, I can't remember enough details to fill up on the two hours and 15 minutes we talked.  Perhaps its because I was so fixated on the comments he made about the Junior High kids.  I mean, I had to see them again after the interview, how was I supposed to forget all the things he said and made me say about them?  Plus he spent a lot of time on some points like trying to impress upon me how much danger my career was in and trying to convince me that the Junior High kid was interested in me

I'm still plotting strategy on this one and think I have many cards in the deck to play with.  Right now, I'm working on a couple of my lower cards.

2 of diamonds -- Insist that all future sessions be audio-taped.

2 of clubs -- I think I should insist that the government give me a signed statement with an admission about some of the things they said to me before I say anything else to them.  This would include comments about the Junior High students, and my adjudicator's claim that we both knew I was lying.  This seems like a reasonable request given they didn’t audio-tape it, but I cannot imagine that they will agree to it.  That's ok, more fuel for my fire.

2 of hearts --I have relatively good access to thousands who have taken polygraphs, mostly at the CI level.  I’m trying to figure out how to best exercise my right to free speech.   

2 of spades -- How about a "don’t work for government agencies, the door is blocked by delusional perverts" effort for the college kids?  I would have said "no" out of college if I understood what I was getting into.

3 of diamonds -- Perhaps I should click on that link "Contact ABC" on abcnews.com.

And I’ll of course save the higher playing cards and trump cards for later.

Any thoughts?  Or should I not reveal my hand so publicly?  These are just the low cards though.

I assume the government will decide to step up the background investigation and try to pin something on me?  They must not like where they are – good performance record, educational background, background investigation, no damaging admissions, lousy polygraph results.  You think they’ll try and deny what happened in the interview?  I’m guessing they’ll neither confirm nor deny.

---  random thoughts on exercising my free speech to other polygraphees --

I think most people are afraid to speak up.  Nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them.  One person I knew at my old job gave up trying to get the ISSA after more than a year of trying.  I don’t know what happened to that person, but they weren’t willing to talk to me about it.  Another person gave up and went to another job.  Still another lost the clearances they already possessed.  I think there might have been another that lost their clearances.  This is from a room of less than 60 people.  In general I find the more I respect a person, the more difficulty they have with the polygraph.  (According to polygraphers, I’m just not aware of the personal issues they’re struggling with, sometimes you don’t know a person as well as you think...)  Its a one-size-fits-all test that probably works better on your average Joe than the people that pull the weight around at the top.  Needless to say, I was a little scared to take a job that required the ISSA, but I figured I’d survive.

--
Here are some G-rated snippets paraphrased from my "personal interview"

Adjudicator:

"I'm not a dog, I don't need you to throw things out at me"
"This is a simple yes or no question"
"You're making me work hard today"

More to say, but I need to do some other stuff tonight.

Onesimus,

I think you should notify the parents of the youth group that this pervert is probably obsessed with their daughter's sexual "interest". I, also, think your congressmen in Wasjington D.C. should receive a letter exposing this corruption. I doubt that you now have a future in LE with any federal agency anyway.

Onesimus,

The polygrapher conduct you've described with regard to your counterintelligence-scope polygraph examination is not unusual. It seems to be standard operating procedure for polygraphers to brag about their experience and qualifications; I believe they are actually taught to do this in polygraph school.

The questions, "Have you ever broken a law just because you thought it was stupid?" and "Have you ever lied to anyone?" are both probable-lie "control" questions. When you answered these questions with a "No," your denial was assumed to be less than completely truthful. If your reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you ever commit an act of espionage against the United States?" had been greater than your reactions to the "control" questions, you would have "failed" the "test." Of course, none of this has any grounding in the scientific method. It is merely the codified conjecture of the polygraph priesthood. You'll find the ritual explained in detail in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

The spiel about the criminality of writing checks drawn on funds soon-to-be but not yet deposted was intended to sensitize you to the "control" question about ever breaking a law.

Similarly, the game of rating your honesty on a 1 to 10 scale, and the polygrapher's insistence that "professionals are 10s" was bluster intended to sensitize you to the "control" question about having ever lied to anyone.

Your remark about none of your favorite liars at work having any trouble passing the polygraph is quite germane: the polygraph procedure actually rewards dishonesty with regard to the probable-lie "control" questions. Perversely, the more candidly one answers the "control" questions, and as a consequence experiences less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail.

I found a few sites that let you buy your own customized bumper stickers.  I was thinking about "Polygraphs hurt National Security" on the left side of my license plate and "www.AntiPolygraph.org" on the other.   Any more ideas?

Onesimus,
If you get a discount for buying in quantity, I'll take 5.

Onesimus,

A PDF file with the AntiPolygraph.org logo may be downloaded here:

http://antipolygraph.org/antipolygraph-dot-org.pdf

I guess Amused forgot to pay attention during english class when he was in school, or is he just a drop out?