I once was gassing up at a station, and for whatever reason the card reader on the pump wasn't charging, but would let me pump gas anyways. So me, and everyone else who'd used that pump that day, received a phone call from the police telling me to go pay for the gas. I figured it was just an honest mistake and didn't think anything of it.
Fast forward a bit, to where I am undergoing a polygraph examination for the NSA. The exam made me uncomfortable and nervous, but I thought everything was going well. Except for when my interviewer came back and told me I was showing sensitivity towards the hiding crimes question. WTF? And when they do this, they're just giving you enough rope to see if you hang yourself with it. But I had no idea why (or even if) I was showing sensitivity to this question.
They called me in for a 2nd polygraph, this time I didn't show sensitivity to hiding crimes, and I figured I was good to go.
No. I get called into a 3rd exam (each exam was separated by a couple months, mind you). This time the interviewer told me "You did better at the hiding crimes question than I thought you would" W.T.F.?!?! The interviewer then left the room and came back with a manilla folder, from which he procures a piece paper which he reads that I had a suspected larceny charge back at home. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about until I remembered the gas station incident. But after I try telling him about it, he tells me that he doesn't believe me and that he thinks I stole that gas. This leaves me extremely flustered and the rest of the polygraph was a train wreck.
3 strikes and I'm out, my conditional employment with them was terminated.
What irks me the most though, is that when I got back home I retrieved the larceny report from the court house, and in that document the whole story was laid out and my account of the situation was corroborated. So what the hell? Why throw me through such a ringer?
...received a phone call from the police telling me to go pay for the gas. I figured it was just an honest mistake and didn't think anything of it
So, given that you paid-up for the gas when requested, you didn't intend to permanently deprive the owner of it which suggests that technically it wasn't larceny and could have been sloughed-off as a misunderstanding. Given you were dealing with an NSA interview, sounds like they were playing a psychological setup game to determine how calmly you would respond under pressure in the context of an intimidating polygraph test. Seems like they weren't too thrilled with the responses they elicited. Would you really want to work for an organization that plays those sort of mind games?
It’s a subjective interrogation with a prop. You tingled his spidey sense.
And was he wrong?
You pumped gas without paying. Did you acknowledge it as a criminal act or as good fortune or not at all? Look at it from the interrogators perspective.
They're not useless, but yes, they are a form of trickery. It's a psychological technique that tries to make people who are lying or hiding things more likely to be nervous and more likely to confess (or be led down a line of questioning which eventually reveals new information).
The actual results from the machine are pretty much just a red herring, but that doesn't necessarily mean the machines have no valid uses. If use of a polygraph has helped tricked even one criminal into (truthfully) confessing or scared away even one person with malicious intent, then they're useful.
I wouldn't want a polygraph to be used for evidence in court, but I would want them to be used if I were interviewing for FBI/CIA/NSA. (But I definitely wouldn't want them to be used for firefighter and parademic positions.) I know it's a bit paradoxical that they can be both useful and a sham, but I think that's how law enforcement views them, too. This article presents a lot of issues with how they're used, but I wouldn't expect them to be phased out for a very long time (unless someone makes a version that actually has more scientific validity).
True story: we hired a guy who failed his polygraph to work in the motor pool for a local municipality. the test was required because he would be working on police cars and fire trucks.
six years later and hes still working for us, we get an order from that same municipality to overhaul the intercoolers on nearly two dozen cop cars. I called up the pool manager and asked about the polygraph, and his response was they use outside contractors to get around the fact they have no certified mechanics.
I was looking for a statement by the "other side", someone in government who could give a justification as to why they're being used.
Is it simply because its the "standard" now, and bureaucrats don't want to stick their neck out by getting rid of it? Is the fact that it is a machine that has been around for awhile, regardless of efficacy, give people that much comfort? Or are enough people really that misinformed?
Its a bit like marijuana legalization coverage - its rare to find arguments for maintaining the status quo as opposed to getting rid of it.
Lots of technology doesn't work, but we're still going to use it. Sometimes because it's better than nothing. Sometimes because no one gets fired for using <insert standard technology here>. And sometimes just because the politicians owe favors to their corporate handlers.
Lie detectors, Sea Wolf submarines, facial recognition software, etc etc etc. Many security technologies lie on the spectrum from "impractical" to out and out "doesn't work". But we just have to get comfortable with them, because they aren't going away.
Right. The big lie about it is that there's any possibility of the "test" proving a person's statements honest. That's what gets people to agree to them. In reality, once you step into that room, the best you can hope for is to come out without incriminating yourself, just like any other interrogation.
Ignore the cheesy web design, the PDF book is a fascinating read and goes into the detail of how polygraphs work. They're a bit more complicated than "oh your heart rate goes up", and yes they're complete BS.
Getting boxed is always about who gives the test, which also includes what and how questions are asked. That's why you would always prefer some old salty crusty bastard who can see through bullshit vs some young FNG who thinks he's saving the world one box at a time, which is where stories of fully qualified people getting dropped mostly come from.
In France in the 90's there was an obsession with analysing the handwriting of applicants, the same kind of bunk science. As far as I know it's gone now (I guess nobody applies with a hand-written letter).
I'm surprised a 1930's era pseudoscience is still hanging around professional law enforcement circles. The optimist in me hopes it's a clever ruse to screen people who simply aren't team fit. The pessimist tells me they're the caliber of people who also think calling in a psychic to help with murder cases.
Modern fMRI technologies can tell if people are fabricating stories. There's actual science behind them.
> Modern fMRI technologies can tell if people are fabricating stories. There's actual science behind them
I think there was some actual science behind the polygraph too, but just having actual science on poorly informed/motivated participants isn't really enough for tech that will have long term adversaries.
I can't recall if 1/3 or 2/3 of myth busters staff could beat the fMRI once prepared and motivated.
Initial experiments on disinterested subjects given no information about past experiments may have legitimately been about the same for both fMRI and polygraph (at the respective times when participants could have had no information)..
Boy, they sure didn't open with a case I could be sympathetic with. Lied to the state police, lied when applying to a city PD, but this time, oh, this time he's telling the truth!
My guess is, word gets around, and "inconsistencies" is just the excuse they need. I'm not saying it makes it right, because next it's going to mere coincidence that a black woman had "inconsistencies" when applying. But in this case, I might be willing to let it go.
> He had first applied to the Connecticut State Police and was failed for deception about occasional marijuana use as a minor. He then tried again with a police department in New Britain, where a polygraph test showed him lying about his criminal and sexual history.
> This time he had failed the New Haven polygraph for something cryptically called “inconsistencies.” “[But] I’m not hiding anything,” he said at the hearing. “I was being straight and honest and I’ve never been in trouble with the law. I’m not lying about anything.”
His argument seems to be that all of the polygraph tests were consistently wrong and that he didn't do any of those things. This is consistent with later comments by other people in the article:
> While undergoing a polygraph examination for a position at an FBI field office in New Haven in 2010, a black man was told that his recollection of using marijuana only a few times in high school was showing as deceptive, and that he should change his answer. Later, he wrote: “I was convinced that [the examiner] may have made an assumption, based on a stereotype about African Americans and drug use, and used that stereotype to profile me. I also realized that what [he] was asking of me would reflect negatively either way—if I didn’t change my answer I was being deceptive, and if I did change my answer I was lying on my application.”
It's tricky because I interpreted the paragraph differently: the _polygraph_ has deemed him of lying about these things, not that he -actually- lied:
"He had first applied to the Connecticut State Police and was failed for deception about occasional marijuana use as a minor. He then tried again with a police department in New Britain, where a polygraph test showed him lying about his criminal and sexual history."
> Boy, they sure didn't open with a case I could be sympathetic with. Lied to the state police, lied when applying to a city PD, but this time, oh, this time he's telling the truth!
You misunderstood the article. There's no evidence to suggest he lied ever.
Across lie detectors, forensic testing, and every similar discipline there should be frequent blind auditing by a neutral third party, and the results should be made available to the public.
Obligatory link to http://antipolygraph.org, which provides detailed research on why the polygraph is ineffective, details on how to defeat the polygraph, manuals used to train polygraph investigators, and many other juicy tidbits.
wamsachel|7 years ago
Fast forward a bit, to where I am undergoing a polygraph examination for the NSA. The exam made me uncomfortable and nervous, but I thought everything was going well. Except for when my interviewer came back and told me I was showing sensitivity towards the hiding crimes question. WTF? And when they do this, they're just giving you enough rope to see if you hang yourself with it. But I had no idea why (or even if) I was showing sensitivity to this question.
They called me in for a 2nd polygraph, this time I didn't show sensitivity to hiding crimes, and I figured I was good to go.
No. I get called into a 3rd exam (each exam was separated by a couple months, mind you). This time the interviewer told me "You did better at the hiding crimes question than I thought you would" W.T.F.?!?! The interviewer then left the room and came back with a manilla folder, from which he procures a piece paper which he reads that I had a suspected larceny charge back at home. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about until I remembered the gas station incident. But after I try telling him about it, he tells me that he doesn't believe me and that he thinks I stole that gas. This leaves me extremely flustered and the rest of the polygraph was a train wreck.
3 strikes and I'm out, my conditional employment with them was terminated.
What irks me the most though, is that when I got back home I retrieved the larceny report from the court house, and in that document the whole story was laid out and my account of the situation was corroborated. So what the hell? Why throw me through such a ringer?
Fuck the polygraph.
escherplex|7 years ago
So, given that you paid-up for the gas when requested, you didn't intend to permanently deprive the owner of it which suggests that technically it wasn't larceny and could have been sloughed-off as a misunderstanding. Given you were dealing with an NSA interview, sounds like they were playing a psychological setup game to determine how calmly you would respond under pressure in the context of an intimidating polygraph test. Seems like they weren't too thrilled with the responses they elicited. Would you really want to work for an organization that plays those sort of mind games?
Spooky23|7 years ago
And was he wrong?
You pumped gas without paying. Did you acknowledge it as a criminal act or as good fortune or not at all? Look at it from the interrogators perspective.
wolco|7 years ago
honkycat|7 years ago
meowface|7 years ago
The actual results from the machine are pretty much just a red herring, but that doesn't necessarily mean the machines have no valid uses. If use of a polygraph has helped tricked even one criminal into (truthfully) confessing or scared away even one person with malicious intent, then they're useful.
I wouldn't want a polygraph to be used for evidence in court, but I would want them to be used if I were interviewing for FBI/CIA/NSA. (But I definitely wouldn't want them to be used for firefighter and parademic positions.) I know it's a bit paradoxical that they can be both useful and a sham, but I think that's how law enforcement views them, too. This article presents a lot of issues with how they're used, but I wouldn't expect them to be phased out for a very long time (unless someone makes a version that actually has more scientific validity).
moate|7 years ago
nimbius|7 years ago
six years later and hes still working for us, we get an order from that same municipality to overhaul the intercoolers on nearly two dozen cop cars. I called up the pool manager and asked about the polygraph, and his response was they use outside contractors to get around the fact they have no certified mechanics.
headcanon|7 years ago
Is it simply because its the "standard" now, and bureaucrats don't want to stick their neck out by getting rid of it? Is the fact that it is a machine that has been around for awhile, regardless of efficacy, give people that much comfort? Or are enough people really that misinformed?
Its a bit like marijuana legalization coverage - its rare to find arguments for maintaining the status quo as opposed to getting rid of it.
bilbo0s|7 years ago
Lie detectors, Sea Wolf submarines, facial recognition software, etc etc etc. Many security technologies lie on the spectrum from "impractical" to out and out "doesn't work". But we just have to get comfortable with them, because they aren't going away.
daveFNbuck|7 years ago
AviationAtom|7 years ago
Lazare|7 years ago
0xcde4c3db|7 years ago
lostlogin|7 years ago
pixl97|7 years ago
The lie behind the lie detector.
stickfigure|7 years ago
arminiusreturns|7 years ago
nraynaud|7 years ago
mindcrime|7 years ago
crooked-v|7 years ago
moate|7 years ago
pippy|7 years ago
Modern fMRI technologies can tell if people are fabricating stories. There's actual science behind them.
yayana|7 years ago
I think there was some actual science behind the polygraph too, but just having actual science on poorly informed/motivated participants isn't really enough for tech that will have long term adversaries.
I can't recall if 1/3 or 2/3 of myth busters staff could beat the fMRI once prepared and motivated.
Initial experiments on disinterested subjects given no information about past experiments may have legitimately been about the same for both fMRI and polygraph (at the respective times when participants could have had no information)..
mikestew|7 years ago
My guess is, word gets around, and "inconsistencies" is just the excuse they need. I'm not saying it makes it right, because next it's going to mere coincidence that a black woman had "inconsistencies" when applying. But in this case, I might be willing to let it go.
crooked-v|7 years ago
> This time he had failed the New Haven polygraph for something cryptically called “inconsistencies.” “[But] I’m not hiding anything,” he said at the hearing. “I was being straight and honest and I’ve never been in trouble with the law. I’m not lying about anything.”
His argument seems to be that all of the polygraph tests were consistently wrong and that he didn't do any of those things. This is consistent with later comments by other people in the article:
> While undergoing a polygraph examination for a position at an FBI field office in New Haven in 2010, a black man was told that his recollection of using marijuana only a few times in high school was showing as deceptive, and that he should change his answer. Later, he wrote: “I was convinced that [the examiner] may have made an assumption, based on a stereotype about African Americans and drug use, and used that stereotype to profile me. I also realized that what [he] was asking of me would reflect negatively either way—if I didn’t change my answer I was being deceptive, and if I did change my answer I was lying on my application.”
NikolaNovak|7 years ago
"He had first applied to the Connecticut State Police and was failed for deception about occasional marijuana use as a minor. He then tried again with a police department in New Britain, where a polygraph test showed him lying about his criminal and sexual history."
Lazare|7 years ago
You misunderstood the article. There's no evidence to suggest he lied ever.
kbos87|7 years ago
nraynaud|7 years ago
rasz|7 years ago
jackpirate|7 years ago
Covzire|7 years ago
your-nanny|7 years ago
s73v3r_|7 years ago
haloux|7 years ago
Polygraphs can produce errors that may be used as a wrongful justification for an employer to dismiss your application.
...on the other hand
A fizz buzz application that produces errors _should_ be used as a justification for a potential employer to dismiss you entirely.
mirceal|7 years ago