IC Poly and Adjudication Process

I am in the same boat. I submitted my T5 PRI in September 2019 and my BI was completed on November 2020 (about 14 months later). My clearance was in Pre-Adjudication for Nov 2020 to May 2021 and was not signed an adjudicator to review my case until a few weeks ago. How do I know? He called to verify some basic information to make sure nothing has changed and I have not switched jobs. So I am hoping my case is done by Labor Day.

Granted today - Thanks everyone for answering my queries ! Good luck !
Timeline: SF-86 - Nov '20; BI and Poly - mid March.

They donā€™t use that term by design. Its just the security office. But calling them too oftenā€¦not in your best interest.

How in the heck do I update my address, telephone number, and employer? Just leave a voicemail on the POC number I was givenā€¦2+ years ago and hope for the best? How do I know someone is even checking it? This is crazy.

Now with changing employers do they need to do that part of the background again? Will it add even more time? Ugh.

Does changing careers from what I have my COL for make me more desirable (well rounded) or less desirable now because its not in the same field as my COLā€¦so many questions.

Agreed. Donā€™t do that.

Security will contact you if they need to. And when they do, respond in a timely manner AND according to any instructions.

The best advice for all applicants/subjects is to practice patience. No news is good news.

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Its always a mystery. Shaking the tree when one portion times outā€¦sometimes works. If you are on the inside. From outside any of the agenciesā€¦you are but one of thousands of folders circulating. .

Hopefully as more and more continuous evaluation kicks in it clears a lot of backlog out.

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One can only hopeā€¦

June will be 3 years for me since SF-86 was submitted. Background Poly and medical all will 3 years old in Sept 2021. After seeing someone got the boot after 36 months im not even sure no news is good news is the truth any longer.

The not to put your life on hold it so true with this. Just update your contact info and keep it moving.

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Today is 1,400 days for me. No news is, at this point, just no news

I got this a few weeks ago and responded right away: ā€œ I am a representative from the Office of Personnel Security currently reviewing your security processing paperwork. In order to continue with your processing, we need additional information from you.ā€
Does this sound like BI or adjudication?

It sounds like adjudication to me. Now some agencies will have their adjudicators contact applicants/subject directly while others will have an investigator make the contact.

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Heard this statement allegedly made by a senior security official at an IC agency:

  • it is very difficult for a person to lie without the polygraph detecting it;
  • however, it is very easy for the polygraph to incorrectly indicate deception

Based on this, the question becomes, how much is the examiner expected to do to eliminate the possibility of a false positive? And what about these agencies who seem to have a one-and-done policy for polygraph exams?

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This is a classic Type I vs Type II error analysis, where trying to decrease one type of error leads to an increase in the other type of error. The first statement indicates a low type II error rate, while the second indicates a high type I error rate. And this makes sense for national security purposes, you definitely want to minimize the number of people who pass the poly with lies, even if it leads to a high chance of incorrectly indicating deception.

One-and-done is a really bad policy since it is clear that the polygraph is not a very ā€˜specificā€™ tool, and repeating the test goes a long way towards improving its value. Basically, the system is currently so overtuned towards eliminating type II errors that a candidate passing one test is adequate to confirm that hypothesis, but it should take repeated failures to believe there is deception.

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Thanks. That makes sense.

I always wondered why people got multiple chances to ā€œpassā€ yet people who ā€œpassā€ initially arenā€™t rechecked.

Isnā€™t there a risk though that by someoneā€™s 3rd or 4th exam that they will just have a ā€œgood dayā€ one of the times and pass?

Repeating an invalid ā€œtestā€ such a polygraphic lie test does not increase its value. It does, however, increase the likelihood of error.

Absolutely. Like I said, any action that decreases one type of error increases the other. Retesting decreasing the error of excluding truthful candidates, but increases the risk of letting through untruthful candidates. The balance is struck (I think) on throughput. You want to minimize retesting while ensuring those who pass are trustworthy.

Iā€™m certainly not in favor of the polygraphā€™s current use and I do think it is a poor test (in terms of statistical power), but letā€™s not let that override discussion of its use.

Your use of the word ā€œerrorā€ isnā€™t specific enough. Repeating a test does allow you to alter itā€™s error distribution. In this case, retesting deceases the Type II error rate while increasing the Type I error rate. This is totally separate from whether the test is good enough to be used, and is just looking at it statistically.

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In this case, retesting deceases the Type II error rate while increasing the Type I error rate.

Why do you believe that this is so? How do you know, for example, that the converse is not true?

This page gives a good introduction. Basically, it isnā€™t important that retesting is the method, only that it decreases the error rate associated with falsely determining the applicant to be lying, while also increasing the error rate associated with failing to catch lying. This happens because you only need to pass one test in the current system, so retesting is advantageous to the applicant while being slightly more risky to security interests.

I think you have a misapprehension about what goes on in a polygraph ā€œtest.ā€ Polygraph screening has no diagnostic value as a test for deception. Itā€™s sheer pseudoscience. The reason the CIA and NSA give multiple sessions, while federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and U.S. Secret Service usually administer just one ā€œtest,ā€ has to do with institutional culture. With multiple sessions, there are more opportunities for interrogation, and this is historically how CIA and NSA have conducted polygraph screening. They also use the thoroughly discredited Relevant/Irrelevant ā€œTest,ā€ while the law enforcement agencies are use a probable-lie ā€œControlā€ Question ā€œTestā€ (which is also pseudoscience).

Pre-employment polygraph failure rates of about 50% are typical in federal agencies, regardless of the screening format used. Such failure rates are a policy choice, not a function of the sensitivity or specificity of polygraphy.

Among federal employees subject to polygraph screening, the polygraph pass rate is much higher than among applicants, and is typically in the high 90th percentile. This is because as a policy matter, agencies cannot afford to accuse more than a handful of employees of being spies and saboteurs.

After the 1994 arrest of Aldrich Ames (who passed his polygraphs) for espionage, there was a period when the CIA flunked many employees on the polygraph. This polygraph jihad did not go well. No spies were caught, but many employees suffered serious career harm.

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