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VeryCuriousOne,

The NSA DOES NOT care if you downloaded music in college.  Please tell the examiner what is on your mind and he will word the polygraph test questions to exclude that area of concern.  I wish you much luck in your test and your new career...

Polycop...

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OK, well, NOW I'm confused.

From what I've heard, people downloading software (not distributing or running massive bulletin boards) were not really the target of the laws that make it a felony.  Also, you have to establish willfulness, and if you thought you had to be making money off the deal, and destroyed the copies you had when you found out that wasn't true, lack of willfulness may come into the picture.  So maybe it's a felony, but its a felony that millions (maybe tens of millions) of people have committed through Napster, Kazaa and other file sharing methods.

Anyway, in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, copying music might be seen as one of the things a person might react to in a control question, since it's so common.  I'm not sure I trust Polycop, either, but really, wouldn't this be the sort of minor admission one could make to a pre-test control question?  If the NSA or CIA are looking for people who've never downloaded music or software (especially tech people) they're going to have a mighty small applicant pool.

VCO

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Don't be.  

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Let's set aside the legality/illegality question of your past actions for a moment and address the heart of the matter. Unless you wrote somewhere in your application form and questionaire that you downloaded music in possible violation of copyright laws, YOU set the tone for your reactions to questions concerning illegal past activity, not the polygrapher.

George has an excellent suggestion. Should your polygraph interrogator lie to you and bluff that you're having some sort of reaction to the sets of questions regarding criminal activity, at that point you could really reflect for a few moments and say words to the effect that you downloaded some music from the Internet once, and could that be the problem? [Earnest look].


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Of course, only make minor, non-substantive admissions.

Do you guys (George et. al) have any reason to believe, based upon correspondence or other evidence, that there is any truth to the notion that polygraphers currently doing screening polygraphs for intelligence agencies can detect correctly-done TLBTLD countermeasures at better than chance levels?  In other words, have you received any reliable reports of a means to detect (technologically or otherwise) puckering, etc.?

I ask because of some of the repeated posts on this board by polygraphers talking about "classified" methodology for CM detection.  Surely, such classified methodology would have caught CM users going through screening?

Skeptic

Skeptic wrote on Jun 25^th, 2002 at 11:07pm:


As of today (25 June 2002), the answer to both questions is, "No."

Somebody asked if I failed my second poly.  Yes, of course I failed.  What were they going to do, make the first polygrapher look bad.  As I said, NSA's security people and the hiring committe had gotten into a major pissing contest over me.  They only retested me to satisfy the hiring board.

BTW, the format they used was the RCT (relavant control test).  There were four relevant CI test questions.  IOW, the relevant questions WERE THE CONTROL QUESTIONS.  They are looking to see if you react to any ONE of the questions, MORE than the others.

One thing that is not being discussed about the NSA polygraph process is the importance of the PRE TEST INTERVIEW.  This is were they go over your application with a fine tooth comb, especially in the areas of foreign contacts...etc.  They are fishing for information they can use against you later on.  DON'T be overly talkative, and do not answer open ended questions.  Just answer their questions with as few words as possible, and be right to the point.  If they ask open ended or vagues questions, make them be more specific.

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Ann,

So, basically, all questions were "fishing" control-type questions?  Do you recall what the specific questions were?  I'm afraid I've never heard of a "RCT" format before.

Also, was there any kind of a "stim" test, or were any irrelevant questions asked?  Were the questions in groups that were repeated several times?  If so, I'd think you actually faced some sort of R/I test.

Skeptic

DupedbyCIA,

Your Kafkaesque experience has been shared by many others, too. See, for example, the Public Staments page on this website. If, at the appropriate time, you'd like to add a statement of your own, please contact us by e-mail to info@antipolygraph.org. By working together, and publicly exposing ongoing abuses, such at that which you are now suffering, we can hasten the day when polygraph screening is finally abolished.