[meowface]

But it is a placebo. That's the point of it. They know it's a placebo. If it works as a placebo, then they have no reason to stop using it. The question to ask is: does it work as a placebo? At all? Ever? If it has successfully worked as a placebo in even one instance, then it should probably be continued to be used as a hiring requirement for intelligence agencies (and for no other purpose by any other entity), in my opinion. As the other replier said, it's a deliberate trade-off of high sensitivity and low precision.

I think the parent poster is 100% right. The whole conceit of an intelligence agency is deceit. The placebo effect is probably responsible for a big portion of their overall power, in a lot of different ways, and it makes sense they'd utilize it when hiring people. The only danger is using it in any other setting, or if the examiners or people who rely on it somehow start believing the placebo isn't actually a placebo.