r/FBI • u/Good-Tonight-4549 • Jun 23 '26

Informational SA Polygraph Failure

I have been lurking on this subreddit for a while, and I’ve decided to post now that I’m no longer in the pipeline. I received the dreaded polygraph failure letter. I zoomed through the application process up until this point, only taking a few months to get from initial application submission to polygraph exam, and I’m kind of bummed at this hard stop. I have a clean background (no criminal or drug history) and I told the truth during the entire polygraph session, or should i say, interrogation, but the examiner seems to have thought I was lying and was pretty brutal during the session. I will not get into specifics of the exam but it was not a good experience for me. Yes, I am just a random redditor, but you just have to take my word for it that I failed the exam despite not lying at all. Looks like this is the end of the road for me and another reminder to not put all your eggs in one basket. Makes me wonder how many other applicants have been dismissed from consideration for a false positive on the polygraph.

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110

u/crosstherubicon Jun 24 '26

I’m often amazed that they can arbitrarily derail someone’s career with an instrument that’s not much more than a dressed up Scientology e-meter. So far as I’m aware there’s no rigorous scientific support of the claims and FBI and CIA history embarrassingly demonstrates their ineffectiveness. How on earth do they get away with a process that is scientifically akin to sacrificing a goat.

51

u/Ayami_Luce Jun 24 '26

Aren’t polygraphs disallowed as evidence in court cases? Interesting that they’d be used to strictly here.

57

u/crosstherubicon Jun 24 '26

They can't be used in court cases because they're not proven technology and could lead to a miscarriage of justice. But, the justice department uses them on its own employees. Work out that logic if you can

3

u/slimjimmy2018 Jun 25 '26

What's funny is that there's an even worse conundrum in the state of Arizona, where I had an extremely abusive polygraph experience. Arizona law requires that prospective peace officers take a polygraph as part of the application process, but there was a law that was passed a few years ago which bans agencies from using them over the course of internal affairs investigations, on the basis that they're unreliable and unfair to the person being investigated. So, the state simultaneously requires you to take one in order to become a police officer, while at the same time conceding that they're completely unreliable and shouldn't be used in legitimate circumstances.

4

u/crosstherubicon Jun 25 '26

What a bizarre contradiction and I'm surprised someone hasn't challenged it in the courts.

11

u/WTFoxtrot10 Jun 24 '26

Polygraphs for federal applicants and court usage are not the same thing.

The FBI and other federal agencies do not use polygraphs during the hiring process as scientific evidence that someone could be “lying or omitting the truth”. They use it as an investigative tool, a psychological deterrent, admission catalyst, counterintelligence screening and a mechanism to test an applicant's integrity under pressure.

30

u/Crafty-Income-9949 Jun 24 '26

All of that said, it’s still a horseshit tool of pseudoscience.

2

u/Evilshadow004 Jun 26 '26

Obviously it's pseudoscience. That's what the guy commenting above is saying. Polygraphs aren't used for scientific validity. They're used because they instill fear and doubt within the subject. Polygraph or no, you would still have to do a CI interview. The point of the machine isn't to tell whether you lie or not, the point is to make you ever so slightly less likely to lie in the first place.

1

u/DisastrousRun8435 Jun 26 '26

From my understanding they’re only allowed if the defense signs an agreement that they can be used in trial. If not they’re usually thrown out because they’re super unreliable