Imprisoned Polygraph Critic Doug Williams on This American Life Radio Program

[quickfix]

Okay Quickfix, I'm done blathering.  Maybe you can find someone who speaks English at a 2+ or 3 level who can explain to you what I just said.

I can explain it:  it's jibberish.  You all use the popular buzzwords, i.e. human rights, torture, Orwellian, etc.  You all pat each other on the back with your "well said".  THE BOTTOM LINE:  if you think a class-action suit is going anywhere, you're delusional.  There is no inherent right to a security clearance or federal employment.  It is a privilege.  But go ahead and follow the cockroach convicted felon (WHO PLED GUILTY) Williams.  We look forward to it. 

[John M.]

Maybe you can find someone who speaks English at a 2+ or 3 level who can explain to you what I just said

I guess he couldn't find anyone and he still can't handle the truth (DODI 5210.91.)

Go back under your rock asswipe.  You're only showing how ignorant you are every time you post something.

[Wandersmann]

There is no inherent right to a security clearance or federal employment.

So if there is no right that entitles you to abuse people?  There's also no right to commit slander and libel.  If the polygraph is so vital to national security, why don't we polygraph Federal judges and prosecutors?  Are they a special class that is above reproach?  Have you ever contemplated any of the above Quickfix or are you just happy to do whatever it takes to collect a paycheck?  Judging from what you've shown on this site if you didn't have the polygraph you'd be working in a carwash.   

[xenonman]

who speaks English at a 2+ or 3 level who can explain to you what I just said. 

Maybe someone should address him "pa russkiiy" as he appears to  know some Russian?   

[xenonman]

Did you poly Reality Winner too?  Or, was she one of the tens of thousands of people every year that do not really successfully pass the polygraph, but get/get to keep their clearances?

I read someplace that Monica Lewinsky held a TS clearance when she was working at the Pentagon. That was where she went after she swallowed up all of Chelsea Clinton's siblings. I don't know if she was ever polygraphed while there, but then she's sufficiently sociopathic that she could probably bluff her way through almost anything. 

[xenonman]

It also occurred to me that this policy is a left over from Obamaism.  And just like its brothers Fascism, Socialism, and Communism, it survives by denying human rights.

However, the mentality behind the policy dates back to the National Security Act of 1947, fourteen years before Obama was born!  IC abuses have proliferated since that Act, irrespective of whatever political party or President is in power!

[John M.]

irrespective of whatever political party or President is in power!

All politics aside, I was referring to the presidential directives and the laws that created the Insider Threat Task Force and the Anti-Border Corruption Act.

Here's an excellent article from four years ago addressing this point: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-new-paranoia-a-government-afraid-of-itself/2013/08/15/1f3db594-038a-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html?utm_term=.82ee0fee995a

[Wandersmann]

Maybe someone should address him "pa russkiiy" as he appears to  know some Russian?

I don't think so Xenonman.  I think he knows how to use Google Translate.   

[Wandersmann]

However, the mentality behind the policy dates back to the National Security Act of 1947, fourteen years before Obama was born!  IC abuses have proliferated since that Act, irrespective of whatever political party or President is in power!

Don't forget, the founders of the CIA were hard corps lefties! 

[xenonman]

Judging from what you've shown on this site if you didn't have the polygraph you'd be working in a carwash.

Very likely!   However, I think Quickfix is hardly unique in that regard.  I suspect that the bulk of IC employees would have great difficulties were they ever compelled to seek "real" jobs. 

The combined protective mantle of possessing a security clearance and being "polygraph ready" is indeed a powerful cloak for the masking of incompetence.

[Wandersmann]

The combined protective mantle of possessing a security clearance and being "polygraph ready" is indeed a powerful cloak for the masking of incompetence.

You are a true genius Xenonman.  You are spot on.  Most, if not all, people who have encountered the polygraph have figured this out, but select members of our executive and  legislative branches of government buttressed by the media are profiting from polygraph, so it's going strong.   Josef Goebbels would be proud that his methods are still widely used and successful 

[Wandersmann]

There is no inherent right to a security clearance or federal employment.

You are correct Quickfix.  No arguing that there is no right to a security clearance.   People of honor and integrity, however, like our Founding Fathers, lived by a code that no one dared impune another man's honor and reputation without absolute proof of dishonorable action.  This code is why men fought duels to the death if anyone falsely accused them of dishonorable action.  That fact that you don't understand that concept is clear proof that you have no honor or integrity yourself.   Try to get the moral courage to examine yourself and admit at least to yourself, if to no one else, that you are just exploiting an evil system for personal gain. 

[xenonman]

No arguing that there is no right to a security clearance.

There is no such right, obviously, but somehow learning that Monica Lewinsky once held a TS clearance while she was briefly employed at DOD makes me wonder just how reliable any vetting process could possibly be.

Of course, there is no right to employment by ANY employer.  Yet, in the application materials of most prospective employers, that obvious fact is usually not regarded as something which need be stated.   Interestingly enough, the CIA, for whatever reason,  finds it necessary to explicitly state in its employment propaganda that "employment by the Agency is not a right upon which anyone can insist". Something to ponder!   

[Aunty Agony]

I do not object to current public sector use of the polygraph because I think the applicant is being abused. I'm not applying for a job with the NSA or the CIA, and none of my friends and relatives are either. Unfair treatment of applicants is a very serious civil rights problem, but it is different from the problem that terrifies me.

I object to out government's inordinate reliance on the polygraph because it doesn't work! There is abundant evidence to prove that the lie detector allows the CIA and other TLAs to hire spies, moles, and traitors, and no evidence at all to suggest that it does anything keep the people of America any safer than hiring a witch doctor to do the anti-spy dance.

From the applicants' point of view, the problem of being treated unfairly is self correcting: Each intelligent mature applicant -- once he recovers from the shock of finding his patriotism deemed worthless -- declines to participate, and goes on to find rewarding employment elsewhere.

However, from the government's point of view, the problem of applicants being treated unfairly is self-reinforcing: as the applicant pool is reduced to only the stupid or gullible, government agencies fill up with employees who think there's nothing wrong with their hiring process.

If there's one thing that Aunty loathes and despises more than a citizen who would purchase himself a comfortable government indenture by giving up his essential liberty, it is a coward who would purchase himself a comfortable government indenture by giving up my essential liberty.

[quickfix]

You are correct Quickfix.  No arguing that there is no right to a security clearance.   People of honor and integrity, however, like our Founding Fathers, lived by a code that no one dared impune another man's honor and reputation without absolute proof of dishonorable action.  This code is why men fought duels to the death if anyone falsely accused them of dishonorable action.  That fact that you don't understand that concept is clear proof that you have no honor or integrity yourself.   Try to get the moral courage to examine yourself and admit at least to yourself, if to no one else, that you are just exploiting an evil system for personal gain.

This isn't the 1800s when Aaron Burr shot it out with Alexander Hamilton.  The system is evil only if you don't pass your polygraph.  I hear no complaints from those who passed.  And BTW, the vetting process is just fine.  Xenonman is a perfect example of someone weeded out by not one, but two agencies for mental instability-without the need of polygraph testing.