I disagree, George. They don't know anything of the sort. No more than any of you inexperienced anti-polygraphites know for certain what you so arrogantly claim to know. Calling the polygraph unreliable may be a convenient excuse for these task force men and women, and I would probably use that excuse too, if I were in their position, as part of my argument. But the real issue is that FBI is showing that it doesn't trust its own. There are few betrayals of friendship or the spirit of teamwork more devastating than saying or implying, as is the case here, that you don't trust those who are already serving you well.

Now, about your having served on a task force, that's also different from becoming an FBI agent. If they had wanted to suddenly polygraph you as a task force officer, after you had been serving them well in that position of trust, that would have been wrong too. But when you decided you wanted to be an FBI agent, suddenly you had to comply with all of the processes that entailed, including taking a polygraph. Sure, you had proven your trustworthiness working with the task force. But no one is going to let someone circumvent the requirements for an agent position simply because they didn't have to go through the same hiring process to be part of the task force.

A question for the Sergeant: How in the world did your relevant questions specifically ask about cocaine? I don't know of any agency whose drug question would be isolated to cocaine unless there were some reason to suspect that particular drug and none other.

Sorry guys. It seems we are stepping on each other's toes while we are all online at the same time. Sergeant, see my previous post that I edited while you were writing your last.

Also, I maintain that these task force people do not know that the polygraph is unreliable any more than you "anti-" people do, even if you were--as some of you claim--false positives. But you are right about one thing, Sergeant: When dealing with a process that is, undeniably, not 100%, perhaps they do have more to lose than to gain by submitting themselves to that risk, however slight.

Bilsul,

I hope you realize that Bill was being sarcastic. He doesn't think that everyone should be polygraphed; he thinks that no one should be. And if you have taken that many polygraphs in that short a time, I will agree with Bill's true sentiment: that's wrong. I've never agreed with periodic testing for anyone but child molesters. With those bastards, it is a good deterrent at the very least, a good interrogation tool, and, in my opinion as a polygrapher, a good way to detect additional criminal behavior. But periodic testing of people who have already proven their trustworthiness by working shoulder to shoulder with you is wrong. There are many agencies who have people working for them who never had to take a polygraph because the polygraph wasn't a component of the hiring process when they were hired. Those people aren't now going to be polygraphed. Neither should people who have already taken a polygraph, nor people who already are in positions of trust within their agency.

Still waiting on a reply from the Sergeant. Why was your relevent drug question narrowed down to only cocaine?

No need to get all snippity, Sarge. I just never heard of a polygraph examiner running a screening exam with the relevant drug use question narrowed down to include only cocaine without good reason. Especially since you admitted using marijuana a couple of times--the examiner should have wanted the drug question to include any additional marijuana use, so it makes no sense that he would then ask the relevant drug use question, focusing on cocaine, without marijuana included.

Bill,

I'm surprised you weren't thorough in your reading and just selectively chose that one sentence to quote. You should have read this one that I wrote to George in this thread:

Now, about your having served on a task force, that's also different from becoming an FBI agent. If they had wanted to suddenly polygraph you as a task force officer, after you had been serving them well in that position of trust, that would have been wrong too. But when you decided you wanted to be an FBI agent, suddenly you had to comply with all of the processes that entailed, including taking a polygraph. Sure, you had proven your trustworthiness working with the task force. But no one is going to let someone circumvent the requirements for an agent position simply because they didn't have to go through the same hiring process to be part of the task force.

LieBabyCryBaby wrote on Dec 14^th, 2006 at 7:13pm:

It is interesting to me that the part of my polygraph exam you feel "makes no sense" is that the examiner would focus on cocaine during drug questioning.

What would jump out at me as making no sense is that I was telling the complete truth throughout the entire process and I was deemed "deceptive" and failed the test.