3w ago

FBI Director Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Three Senior Staff

www.propublica.org FBI Director Kash Patel Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Dan Bongino, Two Other Senior Staff

As the FBI’s deputy director, Bongino receives some of the country’s most sensitive secrets, including the President’s Daily Brief. His ascent to that position without passing a standard bureau background check is unprecedented, insiders say.

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FBI Director Kash Patel Waived Polygraph Security Screening for Dan Bongino, Two Other Senior Staff

www.propublica.org /article/fbi-kash-patel-dan-bongino-waived-polygraph

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I mean I don’t agree with him giving special treatment to his buddies, but why is the FBI wasting time on polygraphs, which are a totally debunked pseudoscience?
Says in the article they started using them in ‘94…in ‘98 the supreme court ruled that these ‘tests’ were inadmissible in court. Because even back then it was proven that it’s impossible to determine the truth via polygraph at a rate better than simply flipping a coin.
My only guess is they might ding you on the polygraph if they already learned something through less than legal means, but it’s preposterous to think anyone making it into the FBI would be unfamiliar with the uselessness of the test itself
- It's more about probing specifically where to look if you want to find dirty laundry when looking for security-clearance candidates. They don't assume you lied when you said you didn't do hard drugs, but your body did react to that question deliberately in a way that suggests maybe we should look into a history of drug abuse before we accept you reading about sensitive topics.
  Or sexual scandal blackmail waiting to happen is a great way to get... state secrets... in the... hands of... Oh hey, they raided Mar a Lago, lookit that...
  
  They don't assume you lied when you said you didn't do hard drugs, but your body did react to that question deliberately in a way that suggests maybe we should look into a history of drug abuse
  You mean subconsciously?
  Other than that, I guess I just don’t know what you mean about that, where they don’t assume you’re lying but it gives them a hint that they should go investigate it. Like, why else would they investigate it based on the reaction unless they thought the reaction meant something, you know?
  
  Let me clarify. They do not use polygraph tests alone to determine when someone is lying. They use it to determine the priorities of how resources get devoted to uncovering what might become a security risk for any individual. This is common, good sense practice when handling classified information. It's OpSec. It should be happening to keep us safe. Even if it's, say, 80% accurate under optimal conditions, that saves time and money when devoting resources into invading the personal life of a classification candidate. It helps catch the bad candidates early, unlike what's happening here.
  
  No I know what you mean, it just doesn’t track
  Even if it's, say, 80% accurate under optimal conditions
  Why are we using 80% as an example when it’s definitely impossible for the most skilled interpreters to beat a coin flip? Right like you see the issue? The problem isn’t that it’s sometimes unreliable the problem is that is fundamentally impossible to derive any meaningful information from it
  What you’re arguing for is similar to the thought experiment where they have an airport scanner that can tell with 99% accuracy whether someone is a terrorist (spoiler: even with this level of accuracy, the scanner cannot be relied on alone, because counterintuitively due to false positive rate, the end result ends up being that only one in a thousand positive scans is a true positive).
  But the polygraph is simply not similar to that thought experiment. It’s like “narrowing your search results to better manage your resources” based on the results of asking a magic 8 ball. Which is why it’s illegal to submit polygraph as evidence in court
- Polygraphs are useful in that you can claim the test subject is lying about anything you want. They're using it as leverage more than "fact finding."
  
  For cops interrogating like a random dude they suspect of a crime, have a little evidence on, mix in some questions they already know, etc. yeah I can see it. Part of the broader interrogation, maybe the machine really is just adding some pressure.
  But for a job interview at a three letter agency? I mean who isn’t aware of the truth of these machines at that level? There really isn’t any interrogative leverage if both people know it’s a carnival game, and it’s illegal to hold it as leverage against them in any further proceedings
  
  ...if people know...
- On a technical level, they don't work at all. On a psychological level, they work quite well at getting people to say things they otherwise wouldn't for an interrogation.

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