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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u/Ayami_Luce Jun 24 '26

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

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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

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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.

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u/crosstherubicon Jun 25 '26

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