I'll probably put together a real "write-up" of my CIA polygraph experience at some point and hopefully remember to post it in this forum, in case anyone wants to care. In the spirit of full-disclosure, I just got the thin-envelope treatment today and am pretty confident that the "lie detector" (or some revelation, lack-of-revelation, attitude, etc. that came about during the polygraph circumstance) is what did me in.  Before this last trip to NoVA I had a "conditional offer" in hand, then today I got the news that because of information I had provided, I was unsuitable. Interesting. (And why the ---- did they have the background investigator interview every single friend and co-worker I could name *before* I went out and "revealed" my unsuitability? Asinine. Really excited about all the questions I'll be getting from my friends and co-workers about a job whose true nature I concealed from them.)

Obeying what I had been told, I did not do any research on the polygraph process -- but after the experience it was clear to me that our friends in Langley merely use the polygraph as a prop to aid in interrogation. While the experience sucked massively and I would do everything in my power to keep anyone I care about from having to go through anything similar, some aspects of it were humorous.  It was like the guys were trying to do a good cop/bad cop routine with only one cop. 

Just a few lines of dialogue that transpired on the second day of the exam, after he told me that I was controlling my breathing (and trying to manipulate the test), and which I thought were kind of funny (although, in retrospect, the first-day guy who kept telling me how normal it was to have sex with your step-children and sell drugs to teenagers, might have been funnier):

Interrogator: If you keep doing that (controlling breathing), I’m going to have to bring my supervisor in here and, if it happens again, we’re going to have to write you down for PNC, that’s “purposeful non-compliance”. That doesn’t sound good, does it? And if we put you down for PNC, where do you think that leaves you?

Me: With a good job somewhere else.

***

After leaving the room for about a half an hour ("sorry, I got a phone call, didn't mean to keep you waiting" -- nah, of course not, and you weren't on the other side of that one-way mirror over there either... ), he asked me what I was thinking about while he was gone.

Interrogator: Why did you think you were going to fail the test?

Me: Because you said that if I didn’t stop controlling my breathing, then I’d be put down for willfully subverting the test.

Interrogator: I didn’t say that.

Me: <shrug>

***

After "restarting the test" and supposedly beginning again with the "practice" questions, he then stopped before asking the first question.

Interrogator: Okay, I'm going to have to stop now.

Me: <heavy sigh>

Interrogator: You need to stop controlling your breathing.

Me: If I don’t have anything else to think about, then I’m going to think about my breathing. There’s nothing I can do about it.

Interrogator: I told you what you had to do, you have to concentrate on the question.

Me: It’s hard to concentrate on the question when you haven’t asked one yet.

***

Anyway, with the exception of these two trips to the Ministry of Truth, all my experiences in interviewing with the CIA were extremely positive. Given this, the polygraph exam seemed bizarre and out of place.  I should have taken my (surprisingly large) per diem and spent the second day at the Smithsonian.

Thanks.

And they think it catches spies?

Sorry for the handle change.

As for the warning against "learning about the polygraph" prior to screening, I can't remember when that was told to me -- it was either during the orientation meeting when they came to my area or when they called to set up the polygraph interrogation dates. The warning was to the effect of, "if you haven't already looked up anything about the polygraph test -- don't! A lot of what you'll find 'out there' isn't true. And if you try to use any of the counter-measures, we can identify them and they will cause you to fail your examination."

My other favorite part of the show was when the pre-interrogation video explains that the polygraph is a non-threatening experience, unlike the portrayal of "lie detectors" on TV and in movies, where the subject is strapped into a chair and there's a hostile questioner. (Hopefully needless to say at this point, I *was* strapped to a chair -- three hours on each of two days -- and the questioners were at times very adversarial.)

-ps

Puresmoke,

Why were you "strapped" to a chair? ???

Are you a violent person?

Ray L.

Good point -- they were more like bungie cords than straps. Thus:

"I was bungie-corded to a chair."

(These cords were across my chest and I was told that they were intended to measure my breathing. They were left on during the entirety of both three-hour sessions, including the 10-to-30-minute intervals when the interrogator left the room. While I suppose I could have taken them off -- I kind of wanted to get the job, you know? While the cords allowed some range of motion (I could lean over), they also kept me tethered to the chair.)

Mr. Truth, Mr. Truth. Mr. Truth

Thank you for the link  to the NYS Polygraph page.

Did you notice that I use my full name in my posts, I do not hide behind a pseudonym.  Oh I am sorry, your not hiding it's just that your position would be jeopardized if your real name was used.  I do wish that I had the luxury of hiding and sniping, I guess that I am just not that important. ta ta

Ray L.

First off, George, thanks very much for putting together this site and making this information available. It's good to get some support for the STRONG suspicions I had regarding the process. As for the cord situation:

Had the interrogator been so semantically adept, it probably would have been a better experience.

So then, while the cords may indeed have been attached to a machine, with the chair being in between me and the machine, I was effectively also attached to the chair. Therefore:

I was bungie-corded to a machine, which resulted in my also being bound to a chair.

BTW -- one of the personal experiences on the site talked about "lifestyle questions" with the CIA interrogation. These are no longer part of the interrogation as such. However, because I wasn't that bright, when the interrogator repeatedly told me that I was probably committing sodomy of some sort, I started telling him about my (rather boring) sex life (which, btw, does not involve sodomy). He took this and launched into a line of questions delving further into my sex life and drew some pretty wild conclusions ("so I would say that you're probably the type of person who would want to do [anti-social sexual behavior x]"). So, while technically the "lifestyle" questions no longer seem to be part of the interrogation, this is clearly still a subject of interest to our friends in the MiniLuv.

***

Interrogator: I talked to a man last week who was sleeping with his 14-year-old step-daughter. It's fine. The CIA has no problem with someone doing that, it's not a security risk.

Me: I'm tired of you implying that I'm some sort of pediphile.

Interrogator: (suspiciously) Who said anything about pediphilia?

-ps(moke)

(BTW, I still maintain that I was accurate, even in a literal sense, in stating that I was strapped to a chair. There were cords/straps, there was a chair, the straps saw to it that I remained on the chair. I was strapped to a chair.)

I'm in Sydney Australia, with unreliable email, but on the concept that the polygraph is just an interrogatory prop, see my cv on my web page, paper with G. Ben Shakhar in Contemporary Psychology, in the early nineties.

See also more recent use of polygraph by Toronto police where the examiner decides during the pre-test interview whether the examinee is guilty, and if this is what examiner decides, he goes straight onto post-test interview wihtout doing any physiological recording, i.e., using its purported detection function.  I don't know how commjon this practice is, but I was involved in one case where it was used (case was videotaped).  All the best,  John Furedy