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Interviewing with the NSA
George Maschke writes "'Interviewing With an Intelligence Agency (or, A Funny thing Happened on the Way to Fort Meade)' is a humorous and entertaining account of one man's recent experience seeking employment with the National Security Agency (NSA). But this story, newly posted to the Federation of American Scientists website, is also one with a serious message. Written under the pseudonym 'Ralph J. Perro,' it includes discussion of the job interview, psychological testing, polygraph, and background investigation. It will be of interest to anyone contemplating employment with a federal intelligence agency."
Just wondering, but is it legal to post this sort of information? I would believe that this is classified to some sort of level, since the NSA doesn't want wannabee-feds to prepare for the (psychological-) tests. Makes sense he/she uses an pseudonym indeed, but is it really that way?
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
Lie detectors are not effective. This is just being used to scare people into thinking they can't lie.
;)
Seems to me, if they scare people into thinking that, then they are effective. Not functional, but effective.
This comment was generated by a squadron of trained super elite albino ninja chickens for you.
There are relatively few things that disqualify you compared to what they ask you. The purpose of most of the questions and polygraph is that they get full disclosure of what you have done. They need to know all the skeletons in your closet, so they can't be used as blackmail against you.
Espionage often starts very simple. One instance I was told about was about a civilian consultant who asked a military person to buy them cigarettes at the Post Exchange (to avoid taxes). They worked together and the soldier didn't see anything wrong with helping the guy out. More purchases were made with the soldier accepting cash kickbacks on the savings.
This was used as leverage to get him to give them some information. The soldier thought the info was harmless and that this would get him out of it but really he was just more involved. From there it can just get worse and worse and he has more to hide.
The NSA doesn't really care that you tried pot 6 years ago as long as you're not trying to hide that fact. Someone that wants that fact hidden is a prime candidate for getting started down that slippery slope. It would probably start with something harmless, "Tell me what time so-and-so gets to work or I'll tell your entire church you smoked dope." If you're a neurotic person that needs to hide your past actions and pretend you were always the law-abiding, church goer that you are now then that may be perceived as a real threat that you'd go for.
t
Can anyone explain the obsession the NSA seems to have with chickens? Or did the author just stick those in as a joke?
The problem with the NSA, like all government agencies, is bureaucracy not maleficence. They kept having you come back for polygraphs because some rubberstamper would give you a stamp of approval until your polygraph test was perfect. Even though everyone knows that a polygraph test is unreliable. What you should have done is taken some yoga classes and then you would have passed. But instead you continued to view the NSA officer as some Wizard of Oz type character so you could never pass the test.
Do not taunt happy-fun-ball.
Well, considering this guy divulged details of the interview process that were not doubt not supposed to be divulged, he was obviously not suited to the job. No wonder they denied him.
I was in the USAF from 1977 to 1982 in the Electronic Security Command (nee Security Service and called something else now). Though we were technically DOD personnel, all of our tasking came through the NSA and that's who we reported to and through to other agencies. My last station was at Fort Meade. Life was exciting working the Soviet problem from northern Japan and later China, Vietnam and parts of the Indian Ocean from the Philippines.
Without going into specifics, I'll say that their methods of checking someone out were very thorough. They didn't bother with polygraphs because they know as well as anyone how unreliable they are. But a highschool friend's dad happened to be an investigator who did part of my background check and the amount of crap they dug up was astounding. Some of it was stuff that I didn't know about myself before then.
Looking back, I'm almost surprised that I got the TS/SCI clearance based on their criteria (special compartmented intelligence is only one step below 'eyes only' and strictly 'need to know'). But nearly all of us took our work and the need to keep secrets very seriously. 'Gig talk' in a bar would cost you a round.
What is the deal with people on slashdot not wanting to read PDF files? Why do we need warnings that a link is to a PDF?
It's certainly not about standards compliance (Slashdot generating incompliant HTML 3.2 code anyone?) And, it's not about supporting patent encumbered file formats (GIF instead of PNG, multiple articles on MP3 players)
So tell me, honestly. Why do people have such a hard time with PDFs?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Makes sense. If they can't calibrate the polygraph in your case, they can't tell whether you're just being very truthful, if you're so psychopathic that you don't care when you're lying (hence no physiological reaction), or if you've developed sufficient control over normally involuntary physical responses (eg through biofeedback training) that you're conciously suppressing a response to a lie.
Either way, it tells them that they can't tell when you're lying. Which, conversely, means they can't tell when you're telling the truth either. Which means they can't trust you enough to hire you -- no matter how trustworthy you really may be.
-- Alastair
Maybe your browser should come with a warning. The @#@#$@ PDF plugin managed to not crash Moz Firebird...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm not saying I'm a huge proponent of their procedures, I just can see their point as to why such people get turned down. They're like a B horror movie -- they want more robots and zombies, less heroes.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
This is definitely true, however it doesn't matter. You still will be required to take one if you're looking to get cleared, and you will still have to deal with the inaccuracies of the test...
I took a polygraph 2 days ago for my security clearance to work at the NSA as a contractor (very top-level clearance, after months and months of background checks and questionnaires). I have never done anything seriously wrong, aside from shoplifting some things while a teenager and various other small-time things that really do not matter much. I've never touched illegal drugs. However, during the test, he decided that I was lying about three things:
Serious crimes I have committed
Drug usage in the past 5 years
Providing false information on my security forms.
He was a nice guy, though, and after his analysis, we talked about it, and it basically boiled down to the fact that the polygraph doesn't really detect if you're lying, it just detects if you have any symptoms that could be related to lying after asking a question. When he asked about serious crimes (which only apply to murders, rapes, and felony larcenies like embezzling and what not), I thought about every wrong thing I had done in the past. This triggered a response on the machine.
We talked about that, I told him everything that went through my mind, and he told me that none of those things matter now, and that I shouldn't be concerned with them when answering the questions. The same thing happened with the other questions. He then re-administered the section to me regarding these things and he said that it was "much better, but not perfect." I imagine someone with a conscience that is much less-overactive would do far better than myself.
Remember, these tests simply measure what you think might be lying, not what actually is a lie. So if you feel that the $20 you stole from your dad's wallet was so morally reprehensible that when it runs through your mind you feel that you were a criminal, then you would most likely appear to be lying about your past serious criminal offenses, even though the NSA doesn't care about it at all.
Well, one problem is that these attributes you describe also filter out many entrepreneurial people with broad cultural backgrounds.
By eliminating risk takers and diversity, they've also eliminated many of the people who can think outside of the box or who might have a greater understanding of how the rest of the world works.
And yes, this is a problem.
Just a thought but it seems to me they may have made the correct assessment. After his interview he seems to feel it's correct and necessary to divulge the entire hiring process for the world to see, after he's been told not too, that it's at least confidential if not a secret process (for proper reasons I imagine). I'm assuming he's done this out of anger or bitterness that he didn't pass. There was more than once his tone seemed to take that spin. Nevertheless, whatever his reason(s) for telling everyone, in my mind, they made a good call keeping him away from the real secrets. I'm in no way a flag waving zelot but I'm going to have side with the NSA on this one. -[d]-
but there are places in the government that require a degree of secrecy to maintain national security.
Why would security through obscurity work any better in government than in software? Honestly, if the interview is true, and the NSA is still using pseudoscientific crap like lie detectors, the Psychic Friends Network is probably more useful to national security. What a waste of tax dollars.
Uh... I don't get it.
If you can't pass a polygraph test, regardless of whether you are lying or telling the truth, then what kind of intellengence agent would you make? If you were captured and tested by an adversary suspecting you of being an operative, you better be able to pass a polygraph.
It implies the NSA is listening to your phone conversations.
Even before I saw a few sample questions, I had a hunch, but that's got to be the test the NSA it using. I've taken it myself, and anyone who has taken it will immediately recognize it... a bunch of questions like "I am afraid of doorknobs".
You'd wonder what they could possibly learn from this. Well, a lot. The full name of the test is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. The test was originally developed in the '30, and has been continually refined since. It even scales to what degree you're attempting to fake the results, and whether you were trying to fake "good, bad, or neutral".
It wouldn't surprise me if a favorable MMPI result was the single most important factor in getting a security clearance.
One of the most important attribute of a force's strength is not the force itself but fear of the force. It behooves the intelligence services to make people think they are all-powerful, all-seeing and all-knowing, but they are not. In reality, they are ideologically fanatical, to their detriment, and often staggeringly incompetent.
You hit the nail on the head here. The author thinks he failed the polygraph because polygraphs aren't reliable. Instead he failed because he crumbled miserably under stress.
how careful you will be with secrets - he's putting this whole experience on the internet.
who you trust - answering questions about himself, your example
how normal do you look and how you react under pressure and stress - not breathing (out of extreme fear) while taking a polygraph
The interviewer in the car was correct in saying "You're getting defensive". In fact, the entire act of writing this story and justifying himself not getting the job, and criticizing the interview methods, is "being defensive". Overly defensive I'd say. He seems like a nice person, probably more well adjusted than most, but I can't say I'm disappointed that he didn't get the job.
no you could not. there is no federal _____ agency. the answer is obviously federal that does not belong. its just a (lame) joke.