Quote:Am I over paranoid?
No.
Quote:I mean how can being on the side of the law be an issue?
As I understand it, you have admitted to seeking out and accessing child pornography at a time when you were not working in any official capacity.
Quote:Again, this group was non-governmental and non-official. It was simply forensics geeks trying to assist in the closure of illegal websites on the .onion network. We had a professor at my university do the same thing and the FBI loves him, so should I not even fret?
I think you should be very concerned. Any admission to having sought out and/or accessed child pornography will be perceived as a trophy confession by any NSA polygraph operator. The next step may very well be a referral to local law enforcement, a raid on your home and workplace, and the seizure of all of your computers and storage devices.
See, for example, the NSA polygraph statement of "Frustrated":
https://antipolygraph.org/statements/statement-019.shtml Although the events described in this statement transpired 16 years ago, NSA polygraph practices have not changed in any substantive way since then.
AntiPolygraph.org's current advice, which will be reflected in the forthcoming edition of
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, is to not submit to any pre-employment polygraph "test" with any federal agency and to seek employment elsewhere. For the past 15 years, I have
provided such advice with respect to the FBI, but similar considerations now apply to all federal agencies.
Federal pre-employment polygraph rates range between 50 and 70 percent, and polygraph results are routinely shared among federal agencies. Retired CIA polygrapher John F. Sullivan
opines that "an honest subject has no better chance than a dishonest subject of getting through the process."
Stating what you have stated here to any federal polygraph operator would only invite trouble and could result in your being criminally investigated and blacklisted from employment across the federal government.