opinion on the polygraph

[lax854]

ok so for everyone pretty much the polygraph is standard to get in LE. Im a recruit with the nypd and for those who dont know, they do not polygraph. Yet, my ultimate dream is to go federal in the coming years. My question goes as follows, we all know the polygraph is not the most reliable machine. I have been raised with integrity and wouldnt consider lying on it. However, i keep on hearing stories of people who pass and lied and people who failed and told the honest truth. Now, could they possibly use this against me whil on the force at the NYPD. I worked real hard to get to this point and would never want to risk my job. However, how can i turn down an opportunity to go federal. Im just scared of failing and this turning around to bite me in the behind with the nypd? Am i just being paranoid?

[Norm357]

Do a search. This subject has been debated, argued, and fought about many, many times.

[mobrien316]

If I understand your question, you seem to be wondering if a failed polygraph during an application for a federal position will have a negative impact on your current status in the NYPD.

If you fail the polygraph without making a damaging admission it will not have any other effect. If you fail the polygraph and make some sort of damaging admission there is always the possibility that the admission will cause someone to follow up.

[lax854]

If I understand your question, you seem to be wondering if a failed polygraph during an application for a federal position will have a negative impact on your current status in the NYPD.

If you fail the polygraph without making a damaging admission it will not have any other effect. If you fail the polygraph and make some sort of damaging admission there is always the possibility that the admission will cause someone to follow up.

that is my exact question. I just dont want to fail a polygraph with regards to drugs and then have them be like well this guy said he never had taken drugs before which is the truth. Im going to take my chances and try to go federal. thanks for the responses

[txinvestigator1]

The polygraph is NOT a machine.

[lax854]

The polygraph is NOT a machine.

A polygraph machine records the body's involuntary responses to an examiner's questions in order to ascertain deceptive behavior. The test measures physiological data from three or more systems of the human body—generally the respiratory, cardiovascular, and sweat gland systems—but not the voice. There are other tests that test the voice for deception.http://www.epic.org/privacy/polygraph/
i could be wrong but that is what several sights refer to it as.

[chewy]

The polygraph is NOT a machine.

???:confused:

[Roger Dat]

The polygraph is NOT a machine.

umm mine was

[madsnax]

Machines are precise, and typically have the same desired outcome... Unless of course it is a BROKEN MACHINE.

Nope, polygraph isnt a machine.. :D maybe a broke one..

CVSA .. garbage as well.

[SeVere]

Voodoo

[txinvestigator1]

Machines do work. A polygraph is an instrument, just like an intoxilizer.

[Lawson]

I thought it was one of those old cars... :D

[BP348]

I think there's a reason that Poly's are not admissiable in court.

I've talked to several people who are former special forces and all told me that part of their training was on how to defeat a poly. And like everyone else I've heard the stories about people who admit they lied on the poly and still passed.

[mobrien316]

I think there's a reason that Poly's are not admissiable in court.

I've talked to several people who are former special forces and all told me that part of their training was on how to defeat a poly. And like everyone else I've heard the stories about people who admit they lied on the poly and still passed.

I know a lot of people are under the impression that Special Forces, or Seals, or CIA operatives undergo special training to defeat the polygraph. I think that pro-polygraph people are willing to admit to that because it adds to the false mystique of the polygraph. If SpecOps soldiers who routinely undergo backbreaking, mind-numbing training designed to break the average person are able, after extensive practice, to defeat the polygraph, what chance does the average person have?

In the 1995 book “Betrayal: The Story of Alrich Ames, an American Spy” the authors detail the concern Ames had about undergoing his first CIA polygraph since going to work for the Soviets.

On May 2, 1986, not long before he was to leave for rome, Rick Ames faced the biggest crisis yet in his short career as a spy. He had to take a polygraph, a lie-detector test. He was terrified at the prospect. Though employees were supposed to submit to the machine every five years, the CIA's Office of Security had not been able to keep up with the tremendous expansion of the Agency's ranks under Casey, and the testing was running years behind schedule. It had been nearly a decade since ames had last been strapped to the machine. But he vividly remembered the experience.

When he had learned a few weeks earlier that he was facing the test, he had passed a note to the KGB through Sergei Chuvakhin, urgently asking for advice on how to handle it. There had to be a way, he thought. Some combination of tranquilizers? Clenching your toes when asked your name to even out the stressfulness of your responses? Maybe visualizing an ocean or a clear blue sky?

Ames received a note back shortly before the test. "And my initial response was: This is all they have to tell me?" he recalled. "It said: Get a good night's sleep, and rest, and go into the test rested and relaxed. Be nice to the polygraph examiner, develop a rapport, and be cooperative and try to maintain your calm." Though disappointed at its simplicity, he took the advice all the same. "I did reflect on the fact that the KGB had invested a tremendous amount of time and effort and work in the polygraph, even though they didn't believe in it the way the Agency does," he said. "I also thought: There probably isn't anyone that the KGB wants to help pass a polygraph more than myself."

The test took place in a rented suite with an unmarked door at the Tysons II Corporate Office Centers, in Tyson's Corners, Virginia, a business park west of Washington, where Casey had relocated most of the CIA's Office of Security. The fact that the security unit was housed miles from Langley illustrated its second-tier status at the CIA.

The polygraph examiner was extremely chummy as he strapped Ames into the polygraph. A tube was fastened around Ames' chest to measure his breathing rate. Electrodes attached to his hands would record any sweating of the palms. Cuffs around the biceps would calculate his blood pressure and pulse. All were linked to sensors that would record these indicators of stress with ink lines on a moving cylinder of paper.

Ames knew what the key questions would be. They were always the same: Have you divulged any classified information to any unauthorized person? Have you had any unauthorized contact with foreigners? Have you gone to work for the other side? Have you been pitched--that is, approached--by a foreign intelligence service.

As Ames answered that last question, the needle quivered. The examiner told Ames that his responses indicated deception, and he asked about his reaction. Well, Ames replied, of course, all of us in the Soviet division are sensitive to that question. We know the Soviets are out there, and we worry about that. I myself have pitched the KGB's people in Washington. And the thing is, I spent some time in 1985 with that Soviet defector, Yurchenko, and I think I might be known to the Soviets as a result. And, you know, I'm going to Rome in July, and I have some concerns that I might be pitched there. Thank God, he thought, I'm telling the truth. He had not been approached by the KGB. It was the other way around.

"I was totally relieved," Ames remembered. The dreaded lie detector was a farce. The machine said he had been telling the truth when he had been lying and said he had been lying when he had been telling the truth. And the man controlling it was not much better as a judge of character. The polygraph operator deemed Ames forthcoming in all respects, and he called Ames' responses "bright" and "direct." Thanks to the helpful advice from Moscow, the incompetence of the polygraph operator, and the dubious value of the lie detector, Rick Ames had kept his secret.

It seems that it may not be so difficult to "beat" the polygraph after all. Ames started off "terrified" and after being told to simply relax he was able to pass without a problem. It didn't take years of training, though I'm sure that the fine people over at the American Polygraph Association would like you to believe it did.

BTW, after Ames was arrested the CIA told its polygraph unit to go back and look at his charts again. Amazingly enough, the quality control people decided that his charts did, in fact, show deception.

That seems pretty transparent to me. I see it as a desperate attempt to keep the public from looking behind the curtain.