Government-controlled Reddit Community for U.S. Secret Service Applicants Bans Discussion of Polygraphs
Skip to content
r/usssapplicant logo
Reddit is a popular social media website. It includes a community (or "subreddit") "for U.S. Secret Service applicants" called r/usssapplicant which, at the time of writing, is moderated by three U.S. Secret Service special agents and a former Uniformed Division officer:
Incidentally, r/usssapplicant is currently seeking additional moderators. The only stated requirement is that one be a current Secret Service employee. Those seeking to become moderators must declare their position within the organization and send by private message their "badge or creds."
Late on the night of 29 July 2026, r/usssapplicant moderator u/OnProblem1811 made a post titled "Poly Ban," announcing:
Hey Guys.
Quick post here.
We are instituting a rule for this sub that our friends over at r/1811 run.
No posts / comments specifically regarding polygraph.
We just had to ban a user who was repeatedly posting links & information on how to “beat” the poly. Simply reading that will disqualify you from USSS before your polygraph even starts. We are just trying to help yall out.
We know the poly is frustrating, stressful, & unpredictable. but please don’t research it. You are hurting yourself. All<br>you can do is relax, tell the truth, and see where the cards fall.
– Mod Team
The user the federal agents "just had to ban" is AntiPolygraph.org’s Reddit account (u/ap_org), which is run by co-founder George Maschke. Earlier that day, he had posted a reply to someone who recently failed the Secret Service’s pre-employment polygraph and was seeking advice. The since-deleted post asked:
I took and failed my polygraph. The polygrapher said I failed the serious crime question. We then went over my whole life trying to find something and I couldn’t think of anything I’ve done that may have triggered a response. I’m lost and confused on how that happened when I have been honest this whole time. What are the chances I get a retest if I wasn’t able to come up with a statement. Is this the end of the road?
AntiPolygraph.org posted the following reply:
I cannot quantify your chances of getting a retest, because no federal agency publishes statistics on such things. But they are not good.
Polygraph "testing" is a pseudoscientific sham. To keep up appearances, the polygraph branches of federal agencies cannot afford to reverse more than a handful of initial decisions.
To understand how you could fail despite telling the truth, you need to understand the simplistic methodology on the basis of which polygraphers make their decisions. Your physiological responses to the relevant questions, such as "Did you ever commit a major crime?" will have been compared with your physiological responses to what are known as "control" questions. Common control questions include "Did you ever lie to someone in authority?" and "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?"
The polygrapher will try to convince the subject (you) that your answers to these "control" questions (whiich [sic] may have been introduced to you as character questions) are as important as your answers to the relevant questions. But it’s secretly expected that everyone, even people the Secret Service would like to hire, will answer these questions dishonestly.
If the subject’s physiological responses to the relevant questions are stronger than their responses to the control questions, then they fail. Conversely, if their responses to the control questions are stronger, then they pass.
This simplistic methodology has no grounding in the scientific method. Perversely, the more candidly one answers the control questions, and as a consequence exhibits weaker physiological responses to them, the more likely one is to fail.
For more on polygraph methodology, see the free book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.
In the same thread, another poster asked:
As someone who hasn’t taken a poly test before, what type of questions are asked? Genuinely curious as I am weighing my options down in a career path for the USSS.
AntiPolygraph.org replied:
See the administration guide for the polygraph screening procedure used by the Secret Service (and most federal law enforcement agencies with a pre-employment screening requirement):
https://antipolygraph.org/s/lepet
Both of AntiPolygraph.org’s replies were polite and directly responsive to the questions asked. Neither post violated any of r/usssapplicant’s rules at the time they were posted.
Nonetheless, the federal agents who moderate r/usssapplicant deleted both of AntiPolygraph.org’s replies, locked the message thread so that no further replies could be posted, and summarily banned u/ap_org from posting to the subreddit.
Within hours of announcing the ban on discussion of polygraphs, r/usssapplicant moderator u/OnProblem1811 locked the thread in response to criticism of the decision.
AntiPolygraph.org...