23 June 2006

Third Times the Charm

The blonde woman on the other side of the desk was lean as whipcord. She looked like she might be reformed from something, the fat rendered away in some sort of fire. Smoking, certainly, but she also had the complexion of someone who might have spend a long time in dim light, and an expression that suggested she might have found something unpleasant there in the darkness.

I wish I could tell you what color her badge was, or the seal below the picture that tells which entity issued it. But I can't. In the one case, revealing the color would tell you something that could be used to build a database on what the real thing looks like. In the other case, the one I was interested in, it would tell you if she was a real government employee or a contractor.

The latter would have been useful; there is the possibility of indirect recourse against a contractor, since enough complaints could cause them to lose the re-compete to do the work that the government can no longer do itself. There is virtually nothing you can do against a govvie. They don't even have real names in this building

I think she was a contractor, and I think she might have met me before, somewhere out there in the darkness. I shivered, and the needles danced on the box, registering my blood pressure and respiration and the amount of sweat that accumulated on a sensor attached to my finger. She watched me closely, to ensure that I was not employing sophisticated “countermeasures” that would invalidate the test.

I need to be delicate here. She was afraid I might be clenching my sphincter .

The word has spread about how subjective the results of the polygraph are, and how easy it is to tamper with the results from both sides. If she caught me, the test would be immediately terminated, my clearance stripped, and I would have a suddenly open afternoon.

You can read up on it, if you are interested. If a polygraph exam is not part of your condition of employment, you may not take this as personally as those who do. This session with the hard blonde woman was my third time on the box, and after the fifth complete background investigation by government gumshoes.

They show a tape about what to expect in the waiting room. It is warm and fuzzy, an calculated to put you at ease. The polygraph is just a tool, say the preppie actors on the tape. There is nothing to fear, if you are a good person. Nothing at all.

Which is nonsense. Your job is on the line. You could arrive at the facility with a full in-box and a busy calendar back at the office, and leave under escort from a guard, escorted to your car and advised to retain an attorney. Nothing to worry about indeed.

Having a clearance is absolutely essential for tens of thousands of us in Washington. Many places will not even let you get into the building without one, including NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, NGA, NRO and large areas of the Pentagon. Since the agency charged with conducting investigations is hundreds of thousands of investigations behind, there has been an increased reliance on the polygraph. Many  of the agencies have special dispensation to set their own standards, and are not required to honor those of the others.

The polygraph is not a lie detector, since that is impossible. It is a fairly accurate recorder of respiration, sweat and heartbeat. When calibrated to a series of questions, its proponents claim that it can indicate areas of anxiety. That, in turn, could correlate to possible deception.

That could mean anything. The number of people who have been damaged by botched polygraphs is legion, and some of them are still angry and relatively articulate. The short answer is that if an examiner thinks there is something deceptive in a session on the box, the notes go in the file, and the file goes on forever.

They talk about “your permanent record,” and what goes on it from the earliest school days. It is regarded largely as a metaphor. My permanent record, at least the part from this agency, was at the elbow of the examiner. It was thick, maybe three inches in depth. I imagine the results of the last two polygraphs at the Pentagon, and five periodic investigations were contained there, along with goodness knows what else.

With all that paperwork, you would think that they might have a clue about who I am, and what I am likely to do. But no. This session was my first on the box with this particular agency. Their polygraph was notorious, since it had not worked to protect them. Regular investigations had failed to detect a spy in their midst for years and years, and the consequences had been catastrophic.

People had died because the Agency believed in the evidence of their polygraph. I sympathized with them. The polygraph was a useful tool, since people are gullible, and a stern look from the examiner can elicit all manner of useful things. Rules against self-incrimination do not apply during an examination, and results are recorded for possible prosecution.

The principle is that the box encourages the examinee to spill their guts in order to please. It is thoroughly demeaning and altogether unpleasant. But it is a useful tool, as a gruff Admiral I knew observed, even if it was voodoo. There was no real alternative to self-incrimination except more expensive real investigation, old-fashioned gumshoe work. And even that cannot reveal the nature of the human heart.

Of course, you see the vulnerability of the system. The hardened sociopath would scarcely be concerned with what the examiner thinks, and pass with flying colors. A real spy would certainly be equipped with drugs and countermeasures beyond that of the clenched asshole.

The Agency knew that, but there was no money in the program to do anything else. Certainly they could not abandon the only tool that was so effective in gaining confessions of crimes real and imaginary. So the emphasis on the voodoo science was redoubled, and the examiners were rewarded with cash bonuses for ferreting out areas of possible deception in their people they tested. The logical result of the bonuses was the ruination of a generation of employees, who could not be cleared and sat, blankly, in the cafeteria, wondering at the nature of the crimes they had not committed.

An old pal in the business is scheduled to drive out to one of the agencies for his third time on the box. They seem to think that after nearly forty years of service he has a bit of an attitude. He is optimistic, and thinks that the third time might be the charm, and he will be allowed to keep working.

When he told me, I had to nod. It took three visits to the hard chair and the little room at the Agency that did my test, and I think I passed. Or perhaps better said, I did not confess to imaginary crimes, and did not clench my sphincter.

Not once.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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