On Friday, 2 January 2015, National Public Radio aired a report by Martin Kaste on the upcoming trial of polygraph critic Doug Williams, who was targeted in a February 2014 sting operation led by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection polygraph unit. While the NPR report is titled, “Trial of Polygraph Critic Renews Debate Over Tests’ Accuracy,” there is broad consensus among scientists that polygraphy is pseudoscience. Professor Stephen Fienberg, who headed the National Research Council’s Committee to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph, who was interviewed for this report, has it quite right when he states, “My personal conclusion is that [the polygraph] has no place in government’s dealings with its citizens.”
Comments on Kaste’s report posted to the NPR website are running heavily against the government’s prosecution of Williams and its reliance on polygraphy.