[HN Gopher] Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst
___________________________________________________________________
Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst
Author : grubbs
Score : 103 points
Date : 2026-02-21 17:49 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (antipolygraph.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (antipolygraph.org)
| zenon_paradox wrote:
| The most troubling aspect of these accounts is the
| "unfalsifiable" nature of the countermeasure accusation. Once an
| examiner decides you're manipulating your physiological response,
| there is no empirical way to prove you weren't. It essentially
| turns a high-stakes job interview into a test of how well you can
| suppress natural stress reactions. It's a shame to see how many
| talented individuals are sidelined by a process that prizes a
| specific physiological profile over a demonstrated record of
| integrity.
| Paracompact wrote:
| Am I a bad person if the picture of someone in the CIA crying is
| funny to me? Not out of malice or anything. It's just something I
| didn't know they did.
|
| Do they also have little "Hang in there!" posters on the wall,
| too?
| eru wrote:
| It's a bureaucracy like any other.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Not bad, just as misinformed as most folks out there about the
| process and requirements.
|
| National Security is a PITA, full of cutthroat sociopaths who
| would eat the SV VC-types for breakfast. That is a _compliment_
| , because the work they do is broadly dark and grimly
| necessary, at least at the levels of global geopolitics a lot
| of them are expected to operate at. I washed out in contracting
| for much the same reason this person kept "failing" polygraphs:
| honesty to the point of external perceptions of naivety. The
| types who excel in these sectors see folks like us as doormats
| or tissues, and react poorly when we catch them in the act and
| demand anything resembling respect because they know we're a
| threat to the entire establishment if we're allowed to succeed.
|
| The point of polygraphs has always been about control, and
| folks who resist that sort of control are incidentally
| highlighting themselves as being _uncontrollable to power
| alone_. The books the author links are excellent starting
| points for understanding the true function of a polygraph, and
| why more places are outlawing them as a means of trying to
| diversify a deeply broken and hostile security apparatus by
| preventing it from being a "blind fools and sociopaths-only"
| club.
| Paracompact wrote:
| It would seem there's a spectrum of beliefs regarding the
| people in the CIA, the FBI, in politics, etc. ranging from
| "They're just like us!" to "They're lizard people (for better
| or for worse)." In other words, is it the situation or is it
| the person/self-selection? I self-identify as uninformed
| about the bigger picture, but my experience working in a
| federally adjacent sector where all my colleagues are
| perfectly normal, and yet there is always above us the stench
| of lizardry in the decisions being made, has me believing in
| the hypothesis that every bureaucracy is largely staffed with
| normal people doing the legwork (sometimes very high level,
| high paying, and highly consequential legwork), and lizards
| controlling the brain at the management and director levels.
|
| > I washed out in contracting for much the same reason this
| person kept "failing" polygraphs: honesty to the point of
| external perceptions of naivety.
|
| I'm curious if you're willing to elaborate on this story. So
| far in my career I've yet been forced to bend my knee to a
| lizard, nor become one, but it sounds like you have some
| experience.
| airstrike wrote:
| Not a bad person, just lacking in wisdom.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| Not really
| SpaceL10n wrote:
| I would use this information to reflect.
| Paracompact wrote:
| How do you mean? I don't look down on anyone.
| bitwize wrote:
| The movie _Spy_ (2015) is probably the most accurate, realistic
| version of the CIA in cinema, replete with celebratory cakes
| for supervisors ' birthdays and crumbling infrastructure due to
| insufficient funding.
| Paracompact wrote:
| How do you know it's realistic?
| mzajc wrote:
| (2018)
| stego-tech wrote:
| Adding my POV from a former National Security perspective:
|
| Author is 100% on point. The point of a polygraph is three-fold:
| weeding out the dipshits; exerting power over the powerless; and
| identifying the valuable assets (typically sociopaths). It does
| not - cannot - identify liars, deceit, or bad actors on its face
| (that comes from the manual the author linked). It's not
| scientific assessment, it's psychological torture.
|
| Would I take a polygraph to reactivate my clearance? Yeah, if I
| had to. Would I pass? That's up to the examiner, because much
| like the author I won't tolerate being called a liar, nor will I
| capitulate to power games. I'll be honest, forthcoming, and
| cooperative - and if that's not enough to pass, then I don't want
| to work for you.
| rconti wrote:
| This was all so weird to read about. I guess I just assumed the
| polygraph was of marginal utility, and you either passed, or
| you didn't. I didn't realize it was part of a combative
| interrogation process, even for regular employees.
| fudged71 wrote:
| There's two kinds of sociopaths, the uncontrollable ones and
| the controllable ones. The CIA only wants the latter.
| wrp wrote:
| This comment or something like it should be at the top, because
| it's the main point about polygraphing. It's the process, not
| the answers that matter.
|
| I knew a guy who did security clearance checking for the Three
| Letter Agencies for many years. He told be that if I ever had
| to do these interviews, I just need to pick good sounding lies
| and stick to them. He said it's the ones who try to be honest
| and introspective who get failed out.
| ifh-hn wrote:
| I've no idea why I read to the end of that, seems like a long
| ramble, I kept expecting something to happen and it never did.
| alansaber wrote:
| This was how I felt about reading War and Peace
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| tl;dr: polygraphs aren't reliable and can be misused?
| breve wrote:
| It's not that they're unreliable, they simply don't work in
| the first place.
|
| The misuse is that they're used at all.
| tokenless wrote:
| And they are performed interrogation style but cannot be
| refused without risking your career.
|
| OTOH, someone arrested can (probably should?) refuse.
| Drupon wrote:
| "One of the most evil organizations in the world responsible
| for untold human misery treats its employees and applicants
| badly :( :( :("
|
| That was all that was in there. Just complaining from someone
| that was salty they might have missed their chance at playing
| with the infant annihilator gun in South America.
| tokenless wrote:
| He is a good writer. I also read to end and my attention span
| isn't good! I think the switching between what happened, what
| he felt and just the plain "daily WTF" rediculousness of the
| situations is what kept me locked in.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| I don't get it, I thought it's settled science that polygraphs
| don't work. Why are these agencies still using them?
| sonofhans wrote:
| They do work. Their purpose is intimidation. They're not truth
| machines, they're pressure cookers.
| apical_dendrite wrote:
| There's an old interview on C-SPAN's BookTV with a CIA
| polygrapher. He seems to genuinely believe in the validity of
| the polygraph, but watching the interview, I was convinced
| that the only value comes from intimidation and stress.
|
| (all-caps bad transcription)
|
| > THE ESSENCE OF A POLYGRAPH TEST IS IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO
| LOSE BY FAILING A POLYGRAPH TEST IF YOU WILL, OR SOMETHING TO
| GAIN BY PASSING IT, THAT IS WHAT MAKES THE POLYGRAPH
| EFFECTIVE. WITHOUT THE FEAR OF DETECTION IT IN A SIMPLE WAY
| AS I CAN PUT IT THAT IS WHAT MAKES IT WORK. YOU HAVE TO BE
| AFRAID. IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BY TAKING THE POLYGRAPH
| TEST THAN THE PRESSURE IS NOT ON YOU. BUT AS I SAID THAT IS
| WHAT MAKES YOU WORK. IT HAS TO BE PROTECTION MORE THAN GILTS.
| NOW YOU MAY FEEL GUILTY, BUT FEAR OF DETECTION IS THE
| OVERRIDING CONCERN IN IN A POLYGRAPH TEST
|
| https://www.c-span.org/program/book-tv/gatekeeper/180053
| Stevvo wrote:
| It sounds like religion; it only works if people believe in
| it.
| influx wrote:
| Exactly, the whole point is to put someone into an
| interrogation scenario for hours or days, where you control
| whether nor not they "passed". Unfortunately, it probably has
| zero effect on psychopaths.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >I thought it's settled science that polygraphs don't work
|
| Of course they do. And if you read the article in the OP you
| also realize why.
|
| Polygraphs are an interrogation tactic, you can force a subject
| into a somewhat ridiculous procedure and ask them threatening
| questions, creating an disorientating situation. Afterwards you
| can accuse them of having "proven" that they are a liar.
| Polygraphs work, it just does not matter whether the machine is
| on or off.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/0gJFG
| Cider9986 wrote:
| It is not paywalled....
| shevy-java wrote:
| > countermeasures such as butt-clenching
|
| Ehm ...
|
| I am actually not that convinced of that, largely because e. g.
| the KGB operated quite differently. And it seems very strange to
| me that the CIA would train an army of wanna-be's as ... butt-
| clenching recruits. The more sensible option is to have a poker
| face; and totally believe in any lie no matter how and what.
| That's kind of what Sergey Lavrov does. He babbles about how
| Ukraine invaded Russia. Kind of similar to a certain guy with a
| moustache claiming Poland invaded Germany
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident).
| BoredPositron wrote:
| It's not butt clenching it's Kegels you just say butt clenching
| because it's funny.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| The guy trying to work for the psychological torture club got
| psychologically tortured a little? My heart bleeds for him
| tptacek wrote:
| What do the people writing these kinds of comments think the
| CIA is? There are mustache-twirling villains there, in greater
| proportion than in other government organizations, but the
| median CIA employee sits at a desk and translates cables from
| Farsi to English and back again, or keeps track of the rainfall
| in Azerbaijan. A very small fraction of the agency does
| anything more "interesting" than that, and the majority of
| people there perform functions that every government in the
| world also performs.
| Animats wrote:
| I went through national-security polygraph exams twice, and they
| were no big deal. Filling out SF-86 (which used to start "List
| all residences from birth"), now that's a hassle.
|
| In my aerospace company days, almost everything I did was
| unclassified, but I was put through the mill of getting higher
| level security clearances so I could be assigned to classified
| projects. Fortunately, I never was.
| jMyles wrote:
| I'm curious about how "residence" is defined for this purpose
| (and for many purposes). Often it's just presumed that people
| will know what a "residence" is, but I've lived many years of
| my life houseless, including on a skoolie.
|
| I never know what to say about my residence. Even now, I own a
| house, but I don't consider it my home, at least not all the
| time. Have a specific "residence" presumes that there's one set
| of coordinates on earth that is canonical for each human, but
| many people don't live this way.
|
| Is there a definition that cuts through this?
| relaxing wrote:
| 90 days living there is the threshold.
|
| You wouldn't make a good candidate for a national security
| job, not that it sounds like you want to be. Investigators
| would want to know who you'd been associating with at all
| those different places, and tracking it all down would take a
| long time ( the wait for the investigation can be years, the
| period during which you'd be unhireable for the job you were
| going after.)
| jMyles wrote:
| ...I think I'd make a great candidate for a national
| security job, if the job meant the security of the nation
| rather than the security of the state.
|
| But I take your point of course. :-)
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| > I was put through the mill of getting higher level security
| clearances so I could be assigned to classified projects.
| Fortunately, I never was.
|
| Sure was lucky you didn't work on any of those classified
| projects - <wink>
| Animats wrote:
| The company had decided to move networking R&D to Colorado
| Springs, where they supported USAF facilities, and I didn't
| want to leave Silicon Valley for that.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I watched at Derbycon multiple times someone that could make a
| polygraph test do whatever he wanted, otherwise he was a murderer
| that murdered himself and it all happened before he was born. The
| test was being administered by a long time veteran polygraph
| operator who had recently retired.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't know what that means, because a polygraph by design
| tells the polygrapher whatever they want it to.
| c22 wrote:
| If the demonstration was performed in some blinded protocol
| then perhaps there was more room for ambiguity in the results
| than usual.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| > but I wondered why a petty thief thought she could get into the
| Agency.
|
| It's reassuring to know no one at the CIA has ever done anything
| wrong, like stealing fifty dollars.
| delichon wrote:
| Knowing someone had committed petty theft is at least a red
| flag. I can't blame an employer for considering it
| disqualifying when they have many equally qualified candidates
| without it. Even for a burger flipper, let alone a secret
| agent.
| delichon wrote:
| I was a security guard at a big ritzy condo with access to all of
| the keys when one of the apartments was burgled. Two local
| detectives showed up and questioned me with a polygraph. I failed
| to suspend my disbelief. It seemed like bullshit from the start.
| I lied about smoking weed.
|
| Then they told me to wait. An hour later one of them came back
| and told me I had passed. I had the impression he was watching me
| very carefully for some kind of relief, and that moment was the
| actual test. I laughed at him, which seems to have been the right
| answer.
|
| I still think it's an interrogation manipulation prop, and the
| courts that don't admit polygraph results have it right.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| I'm always surprised to hear that a government agency administers
| polygraph tests in something as serious as hiring but then I
| remember the CIA also spent millions of dollars trying to develop
| telekinetic assassins and train clairvoyants to spy on the
| Kremlin.
| XorNot wrote:
| That research was oriented towards making sure it wasn't
| possible though.
|
| You're saying "of course it isn't" - but how do you know that?
|
| At the time the Soviets had the same sort of projects. So until
| you're sure it's not possible, the potential capability is an
| enormous threat if it is.
|
| _How_ they went about that research is where the waste creeps
| in.
| endominus wrote:
| > General Brown: So they started doing psy-research because
| they thought we were doing psy-research, when in fact we
| weren't doing psy-research?
|
| > Brigadier General Dean Hopgood: Yes sir. But now that they
| _are_ doing psy-research, we 're gonna have to do psy-
| research, sir. We can't afford to have the Russian's leading
| the field in the paranormal.
|
| Source: The Men Who Stare at Goats
| delichon wrote:
| The polygraph doesn't have to emit any useful data at all to be
| very useful in interrogations. Like a bomb doesn't have to have
| any explosive in it to clear a building. Interrogation is a
| head game and a complicated box with knobs and buttons and
| maybe even blinking lights makes a fine prop.
|
| And there's enough ambiguity in it that it's easy for the
| operator to believe it helps. Like a dowser with their rods, a
| clergyman with a holy book or an astrologist with a horoscope.
| That gives them the power boost of sincerity.
| 13415 wrote:
| That's an old classic, should have 2018 in the headline but the
| site is much older. Some people hate it because they're afraid
| that knowing the site might count as preparation and might make
| them fail their polygraph exam.
| Arainach wrote:
| I applied for an internship with the NSA. My understanding of the
| process (years ago, pre-Snowden) was that they did a pass on your
| resume (I can't recall if there was even a phone screen), then
| they started background checks and if there were N internships
| the first N people to pass the security clearance were selected.
|
| They went through the standard stuff, interviewing my neighbors,
| etc. Then they flew me to Fort Meade for a polygraph. This
| article matches my experiences well - the interviewers latched on
| to arbitrary accusations and threw them at you over and over. I
| walked out feeling absolutely miserable and the examiner still
| claiming I was hiding past crimes and drug use (nope, I confessed
| to everything all the way down to grabbing coins out of the
| fountain at the mall when I was quite young). My interviewer said
| some large percentage of people fail their first and most pass
| the second.
|
| ...except there was no second, because shortly after I passed an
| interview and got an internship at a large tech company that paid
| significantly more and didn't require me to take a polygraph. No
| regrets on that decision.
| fmajid wrote:
| Polygraphs are junk science. I wonder why they haven't graduated
| to fMRI. Can't be for lack of funds. My guess is the polygraph
| bureaucracy is what's known in Washington as a self-licking ice
| cream cone.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-02-21 23:00 UTC)