People with clearance have to undergo regular lie detectors. Wouldn't be surprised if a loyalty chip is the next step on that path.
I'm not convinced a very dark future is preventable
I'm not convinced a very dark future is preventable
The lie detector in the regular process is when the federal employee investigates whether the answers on your questionnaire match up with public records and in-person interviews.
The polygraph is security theater intended to intimidate the subject and possibly reveal previously undisclosed issues by provoking a stress response. That's why they keep using it.
Most of the time, comments about “lie detectors” are a reference to polygraph tests, which only apply to an extremely minor percentage of the overall cleared workforce; I just wanted to point that out, that it’s not quite as bleak as implied by the parent.
The lie detector in a polygraph test is always the human running it, and they're about as fallible and unreliable as anybody else, with respect to determining honesty. They could just chuck the machines in the trash and call it a "veracity interrogation", but selling the machines and training the people to use them is a better money sink, and gives more ass-cover when someone invariably deceives the investigators. "Trained to beat the machine" sounds better on paper than "really good liar".
Security theater needs its props.
As far as I know, only those working in secure compartmentalized facilities and with high-value assets ever get polygraphs.
If you hold a key and wait by a coded terminal in a nuclear missile silo, you get one. If you reduce and analyze anti-ballistic missile test telemetry, you don't. If you write systems code for submarines, you might get one. If you write route-planning software for in-flight refueling tankers, you don't. My guess is that it ultimately depends on how much Country X would probably pay you to borrow or copy your access. If it's above $Y, they do a little more to scare you into being a good little guardian of the nation, and hope you're not another Snowden.
They just have way too much need for cleared personnel to spend enough to actually make certain, for everybody. Doing it correctly always costs more, in time and money. Why do it right when you can make it look like you did it right, and get paid the same?
I really don't think there is much hope. He just thinks everything works out in the end when in reality it is people fighting tooth and nail and giving up their lives to fight for this shit.
Who's read The Truth Machine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_Machine