For this thread, let me separate out the use of polygraphy by law enforcement to extract the "truth" from a suspect regarding a specific crime from using polygraphy to acquire a paid job.

Don't government agencies - especially "super-secretive" ones like the CIA, NSA, FBI - WANT to hire people who can lie?  Don't they go through all their bullshit intimidation tactics during the polygraph exam of claiming "you are being dishonest", "we have problems", etc. as a theatrics, designed to measure how much a person can control their physical parameters under pressure, but without themselves REALLY believing their own bullshit about the polygraph being a "lie detector"?

My opinions about polygraphy now are the same as they were 25 years ago - before I ever had my first of two polygraphs (separated by 19 years). I believed what I wrote above before and I believe it now.  I went into these exams assuming they WANT to hire people who can "hold up to the pressure" and who are good at lying.

One would not be a very good spy if, when an opposing spy from another country asks the first spy if they know the codes to the nuclear bombs, the first spy replied "yes".

Like I mentioned in another thread, I went through the same intimidation bullshit, and even *I* - as much as I disrespect polygraphers and all those who defend the institutions that use polygraphs - can sympathize with them having to "put new applicants through the ringer".

I considered MY polygraph experiences POSITIVE ones ONLY for the PERSONAL challenge of seeing how much I can control my thoughts. The polygraph is best described as a "thought detector" - if that, at all. There is no such thing as "passing" or "failing" it. I knew it bore no relevance whatsoever to the job. I considered my polygraph experiences as an outside tool by which to measure my own abilities. Some other person's judgement - in particular, wheter one is offered a paid job or not - is irrelevant as a measure of one's own abilities.

I was NEVER told - neither immediately at the time of the polygraph nor later by letter - for either of my polygraph sessions, that I had ever "failed" the polygraph or had "not passed" security. I was never told the reason I was not given the job, and I never expected a government agency to tell me the TRUE reason for not hiring me. I am even willing to admit that they have valid reasons for not telling me.

By "valid", I mean, "consistent with the stated philosophies of the given government agency".

In the end, I am confident that the only reason I never got hired was because they never had any job in the first place. Most government agencies (except the EPA, for instance), like corporations, have unlimited amounts of time and money to throw away. They don't mind wasting job applicants' time with bogus interviews.

The issue of "lying or not lying during a polygraph exam in order to get a gov't job" is just a tip of the iceberg of the hypocrisy and bullshit. On an entirely higher level, governments, and the politicians who support them, and the people who support those politicians - lie ENORMOUSLY, repeatedly, openly, and proudly and want others to lie in order to get paid jobs in gov't.

I would have to name specific political issues to make my point clearly, which I won't do here.