FBI Wants To Know If Applicants Have Been Downloading Unauthorized Content
from the limiting-the-supply dept
Earlier this year, FBI Director James Comey suggested that the FBI might consider backing off its policy of refusing to hire anyone who has used marijuana in order to find competent computer folks who can deal with online crimes. After some backlash (and some support) for those statements, Comey quickly backed down, claiming it was all just a joke.Now, TorrentFreak has revealed that beyond pot smoking disqualifying you, so might your history of downloading some music and movies. This came up at a Sacramento State Career Center information session held by the FBI, where the FBI made it clear that your downloading practices matter to the agency.
“If you’re doing that, stop doing it.” Dupree said.From the sound of that, your history might not fully disqualify you, but it may come up again later in the process. TorrentFreak, though, found a post from a few years ago on a job board, where someone says that his downloading past kept him from being hired by the FBI.
He explained how the FBI will ask people during interviews how many songs, movies and books they have downloaded because the FBI considers it to be stealing.
During the first two phases of interviews, everything is recorded and then turned into a report. This report is then passed along to a polygraph technician to be used during the applicant's exam, which consists of a 55-page questionnaire. If an applicant is caught lying, they can no longer apply for an FBI agent position.
“If you are accepted to intern at FBI and fail the polygraph you can no longer apply to FBI again.” Dupre said.
It's interesting to note that TorrentFreak also turned up an article saying that downloading unauthorized content does not disqualify you from the CIA. The difference here actually makes some sense -- since the FBI actually does handle some cases involving copyright (though, that still seems ridiculous). Either way, if the FBI is barring people who use pot and who have infringed on copyrights, they're going to find themselves with an increasingly limited supply of computer experts for its computer crimes division.
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Filed Under: cia, copyright, downloads, fbi, lie detector
Reader Comments
The First Word
“So they can record interviews, but they are unreliable for interrogations?
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Of more concern
The fact that the FBI is using such faulty tech at all is rather more concerning than them using it to check applicants who may or may not have pirated a song or movie.
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Re: Of more concern
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Re: Of more concern
Polygraphs are way way way WAY less accurate and are actually not allowed as evidence of ANYTHING in most countries outside of the USA.
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Re: Re: Of more concern
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Re: Re: Re: Of more concern
went to apply for a shitty radio shack job decades ago at the behest of some semi-friends/co-workers who went to work there...
now, these guys were liars (salesdroids, same thing), scammers, drug fiends, and -well, not to put too sharp a point on it- thieves from work... but otherwise, great guys !
(no, i never witnessed it, just heard of it third hand, way after they had left... these guys had been in the military as MPs and told ALL KINDS of stupid, fucked up shit they did just because they could, like driving a half-track into a lake for the hell of it, etc...)
NOT just a pencil and pad of paper here and there, but thousands of dollars of stereo equipment, etc...
THESE GUYS *PASSED* the super-rigorous pre-screening and polygraph test (one of them did the thumbtack in the shoe trick, the other one was just a sociopath), but little goody-two-shoes me FLUNKED, and i have no reason why...
i answered one million percent honestly, but i guess the examiner just didn't like me... read up on the tests some time after that, and found out they are 90% bullshit...
i would NOT be surprised if the polygraphs with the feebs are to WEED OUT goody-two-shoes and boy scouts, and SELECT FOR sociopaths who will be obedient goons for Empire...
Empire must fall,
the sooner the fall,
the gentler for all
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Re: Of more concern
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good luck to y'all.
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And I would NEVER work for the FBI because I don't believe in their current mission of anti-terrorism while ignoring human rights violations by local cops (what they used to specialize in).
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Yes, of course! That's much more suspicious than... choosing a nick called "PRMan".
Can anyone send me some of what that AC was smoking?
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David Oliver Graeme Samuel Offenbach
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This legitimately tests two character traits, honesty and judgment.
Judgment comes in because . If you are applying for a job with law enforcement you better know you need to be on your best behavior during the process.
Also any word on whether being honest and admitting you used to is a disqualifying factor?
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I realize not everyone is corrupt criminals, just the vast majority of them seem to be.
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It may have all been perfectly legal.
Also, the FBI definition of "illegal downloading" seemed to include even legal sources.
This is similar to the problem with asking you if you've ever smoked pot.
These kinds of questions muddle together large classes of use and abuse.
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So they can record interviews, but they are unreliable for interrogations?
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This is even more delicious due to their policy on recording field agent interviews.
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candidate pool the size of a soup bowl
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Re: candidate pool the size of a soup bowl
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Re: candidate pool the size of a soup bowl
This place sure would a fertile field for FBI recruiters.
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Re: candidate pool the size of a soup bowl
Oh, and tone-deaf as well, not interested in music.
Plus... using a polygraph. Aren't those things basically operator woo, sufficiently unreliable that the courts don't believe them?
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i FIND IT fUNNY
Is like hiring a Physician that has never operated..
AS to the MJ, I would rather hire a person that uses MJ then a DRUNK..
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Can't smoke weed, can't download.
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Re: Can't smoke weed, can't download.
Every type of career seems to have a recreational substance that is trendy for it. Lawyers have coke, doctors have painkillers, truckers have speed, and software engineers have pot.
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This is like the mob telling their new recruits they cannot join their organization if they have beaten people up.
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They're psycho-babble. Uri Geller level realistic. They can be used to scare ignorant people in interrogations, that's all. Water-boarding/torture is about as effective.
Makes me hang my head in shame for humanity. We can do better than this pathetic !@#$. Yet the TLAs still believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Damned sad.
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So full of fail
The national law enforcement agency is so miserably ignorant, so relentlessly uneducated, so appallingly stupid, that it fails to observe the existence of millions of songs, movies and books that are free to download.
(slow clap)
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Polygraphs are a joke
After that I did some research, and found that not only are polygraphs unreliable, but that the most truthful people often fail because they are worried and second-guessing themselves in order to make sure they are not omitting anything.
On the other hand, sociopaths and trained spies can most certainly pass polygraphs. So I guess polygraphs are good for ensuring your organization hires a disproportionate number of those folks while eliminating the really truthful ones. (The conspiracy theorist in me wonders is this is the true purpose of such a nonsensical procedure -- the lunatics are running the asylum?)
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Re: Polygraphs are a joke
They're selecting for those who can convincingly lie to their bosses, juries, Congress, ... High praise. What a message to send to our younger generations.
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Re: Re: Polygraphs are a joke
Don't forget the congenitally stupid too. There are people out there who despite news, adverts before movies, and warnings everywhere, do not realize that downloading is wrong.
I once did a bit of tech support where one office, half the people were running LimeWire and did not realize they were getting and sharing all their music illegally. (Of course, this was Canada, so back then there was no harassment about this.)
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This was also in the days before cable TV piracy became a criminal offence, and most of us had built circuits to descrmble the over the air UHF pay services from the likes of Star TV. UHF-based pay-Tv services were so easy to descramble back in the early 80s, and most everyone in my high school class did it.
Even though we were not breaking any laws of that era, it seems that the FBI wants to disqualify "pirates", even if they were not breaking the law at the time they did what they did.
So I could see people having pirated Star TV, and other scrambled UHF services, being disqualified, even if they were not breaking the law at the time.
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Well it's a "murican" standoff
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lol
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this is simple
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Re: this is simple
I mean, when you've got federal agencies lying left and right to everyone, it would make sense for them to be on the look-out for those skilled in lying, so they can hire them and put them to use lying for the agency.
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I once had a Myspace account and every friends page had music streaming from it. In every instance my computer would have 'downloaded' the track in question. Am I expected to have certified each track that loaded was legal before visiting each page?
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First, lets filter our current government and alphabet agencies..
Include any who did the following:
Recorded Radio to cassette tapes.
Recorded Cable to VCR and lent the tapes out.
Used VCRs to duplicate VCR Rentals
Smoked or drank alcohol as a minor
Cheated in high school
Had sex before they were 18, that's child molestation now
Picked on anyone while in school (K-12 and College) - bullying is supposedly a crime now
Got into a car after having 1 drink, regardless of whether they were intoxicated or not.
Had a joint
Drove while on any kind of medication that altered their judgement, reaction times, etc (pain meds, cold meds, allergy meds) - this is the same as driving drunk.
All of these things are illegal, and are at the same or worse than downloading (which is entirely legal) a song or movie. Downloading isn't illegal, never has been, never will be. Anyone claiming otherwise is a liar.
Now that we've removed the entire U.S. Government, Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches as well as all Federal agencies of any staff, we can start over and actually think before we blow our own brains out with stupidity like this.
Whoever in the FBI came up with this has had to have had at least 3 lobotomies, and should never have been let out of their straight-jacket.
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Re: First, lets filter our current government and alphabet agencies..
Got into a car after having 1 drink
should read
Got into a car and drove after having 1 drink
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Re: First, lets filter our current government and alphabet agencies..
Cheating school is immoral, but not a criminal offence in the U.S.
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Missed the point
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It does ask the question of when such line of questioning is introduced in other areas of employment for reason X (think of the children accessin/downloading those public domain ebooks!!)
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Mr. Dupree, if your agency is trying to influence social policy, stop doing it.
Sounds just as stupid as we would demand of you doesn't it?
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I approve!
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KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?
I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington." — Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant
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You aren't allowed to do that before joining the FBI
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There's subtlety in the wording.
Dupree is making the admission that job candidates may have pirated in the past and may currently be pirating.
Second: "'If you are accepted to intern at FBI and fail the polygraph you can no longer apply to FBI again.' Dupre said."
This implies that pirating music or movies will NOT get you disqualified, but rather the act of failing the polygraph. There's nothing here that says a candidate will be disqualified if they have pirated in the past, stopped, and tell the truth about it (once again, it's a polygraph test, so presumably there are occasional false positives and false negatives).
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A long time ago
As a means of distinguishing truth from deception, polygrahy is totally useless. However, as a means of eliciting voluntary confessions from naïve subjects, it is extremely effective.
So of course the government has a vested interest in keeping that information away from the general public. After all, if there are no naïve subjects, then they lose the utility of the polygraph in obtaining such.
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Because just like (casual) copyright infringement today, sodomy was a crime back then, and criminals, then and now, were not eligible to join.
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USSS
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If you get to use the high tech gadgets and raid equipment, going after potheads and downloaders is alot safer than things like organized crime, citizen terrorists, or even other government agencies that have similar stuff.
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If however you are found to have lied to the FBI and passed the polygraph you will be hired and immediately promoted.
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What if you download something illegally for legal reasons?
Like other people are saying, polygraphs are barely above the science of "micro-expressions" (as seen on the TV show "Lie to Me"). All a polygraph proves is that you can answer questions without setting off the machine.
And didn't this site have an article about how a company got into trouble for teaching people how to pass a polygraph test. And passing a polygraph test might be useful if you want to work at the FBI.
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enslaved
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