Since completing my initial polygraph training under the great Cleve Backster and joining the American Polygraph Association in 2004, I have come to the conclusion that the polygraph industry has a problem with telling the truth about the “test.”

As current events continue to show, polygraph is notoriously unreliable, plagued with structural frailties, and easily defeated (or confounded) by following simple instructions freely available on the Internet.

That's reality.

If polygraph were a medical procedure I doubt many doctors would use it, for fear of being sued.

Effective polygraph has precious little to do with science; it relies solely on examiner expertise. All of the model policies, industry insider research and wishful thinking in the world will never change that. 

A little history... In 1997, the APA proffered a flattering report – The Validity and Reliability of Polygraph Testing – that spawned a lasting perception of near-perfect accuracy. Here's an excerpt:

The American Polygraph Association has a compendium of research studies available on the validity and reliability of polygraph testing. The 80 research projects listed...involved 6,380 polygraph examinations or sets of charts from examinations. Researchers conducted 12 studies of the validity of field examinations, following 2,174 field examinations, providing an average accuracy of 98%.

Incredibly, the APA stuck to its 98% accuracy claim until 2011 – ten years after the devastating NAS report condemned polygraph as lacking solid scientific underpinnings – when the APA published a home-grown meta-analytic survey showing 89% accuracy.

Beyond its continued claims of “evidence based” high accuracy, the APA should address these other troubling issues: victimization of innocent parties via false results; a lack of research on examiner vulnerability to countermeasures; and, potentially harmful discrimination within the APA.

Consequently, I am running for APA president elect on this remedial platform:

1. A bill of rights – similar in spirit to those found in the medical and mental health fields -- for polygraph test subjects, designed to elevate informed consent and avoid potential harms
 
2. Open-book research, including an ongoing countermeasure challenge series integral to APA seminars, designed to reveal polygraph's real-world accuracy and expose the wide variations in examiner competence
 
3. Equality for all APA members regarding access to political and educational opportunities, thereby reducing the inequities of a de facto caste society

Realistically, polygraph is mainly about money. While there will always be opportunists in our field, the principled professional will lead by example. That means living up to the recently (and strangely) abandoned APA goal to “Serve the cause of truth with integrity, objectivity and fairness to all persons.”   

It is time to eradicate the APA's self-made legacy of unrealistic expectations, and be forthright about the risks, realities and limitations of polygraph “testing.” As president elect, I will work tirelessly to bring truth, honesty and accountability to the APA, and to the entire polygraph profession. Please join me.

To contact me, or view my qualifications, visit www.polygraphman.com. I invite your inquiries.

It has been five days since I emailed my opponent for APA president elect, Jamie McCloughlan, challenging him to debate me here.

Mr. McCloughlan has failed to respond thus far.

However, one of the APA politicos who was copied on my challenge to Mr. McClouglan had this to say to some fellow APA members:

A proposal that an APA election debate take place on a site dedicated to the end of the polygraph profession is all I need to know about this candidate's judgment.

In my opinion, such a comment only reinforces the APA's reputation for being insular, closed-minded and self-protective.

Oh man, that is so true.

Drew,

The American Polygraph Association website does indeed have a message board, but it's not open to the public because reasons.

Cowardice abounds.  Hopefully Jamie has not evolved from the young man that George and I knew 15 years ago to adopt the apparent close-mindedness of the group he seeks to lead.

Ray, please, spare us the apologist song-and-dance routine.

I suggest you get to McCloughan and advise him to respond to my challenge to engage me here on A-P.

The future of the APA could depend on it.

I am not able to provide an official explanation, and so I can only offer my thoughts. 

Message boards have been extremely valuable to the profession. As a result of message boards we have had many many useful and important exchanges. We have developed professional relationships, goals, projects, and knowledge. Equally important, the level of friendship, understanding, and appreciation among polygraph professionals with different backgrounds is much different than it seemed to me when I entered the profession. Some of the most useful and important areas of progress are in part a result of relationships or dialog may have been facilitated my message boards. Whether heavily theoretic, highly technical, dedicatedly practical, just pragmatic all discussions are useful. Even the silly discussions are useful because they help people build understanding and friendships that can make other things possible. 

Oddly, the most productive and engaging message boards have been independent of the professional association. I believe this is because they are perceived as professionally safer. Independent forums do not include the same overtones of obligation to policy or hierarchy. Productive discussion sometimes requires the ability to question our assumptions.

Discussion in a forum at the APA website has always been minimal, and mostly limited to professionally safe topics such as announcements and questions about policies. 

In my view, interesting and useful discussion will sometimes require the consideration of alternatives, which can make some people feel uneasy if they are looking to the web resources of a professional association for stability. Also, fun stuff that builds deeper relationships will almost never occur in a message board associated with a professional association. Discussion forums at the webspace of a professional association will always have overtones of authority and policy compliance, which tend to limit the degree of creativity and diversity within the discussion. 

Out of concern for the importance and usefulness of an independent space for productive discussion we put up a new forum for polygraph examiners a couple of years ago when it became necessary to take down the original forum for technical reasons. 

But along with the freedom of an independent forum we also get some chaos in the discussions, and sometimes people are not so nice. We have had opportunities to observe Godwin's law in action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law), resulting in unfortunate decisions by some articulate folks to refrain from participation, and resulting in limiting the access of others. 

In the meantime discussions have also shifted to other more public spaces. Hostility has followed even there. It is my view that the level of agression has resulted in a reduction of useful discussion in those public forums as well. 

In an independent discussion forum problems will be moderated by people naturally backing away from further engagement, or by the owners or moderators who regulate and maintain the space. There is no great discomfort with the sensation that the moderation can be an arbitrary or even authoritarian process. 

When problems occur in a professional discussion form it becomes someone's responsibility to moderate the problem, and moderation of an "official" forum can bring on even more drama and reactions that start to have professional and political implications. Moderation of a professional forum will require more involved administrative efforts to avoid corruption of association power into the arbitrary or authoritarian hands of whomever does the moderation. 

If there is no public discussion forum at the APA website then it is probably only that other options have emerged for productive discussion, and that announcements and policy communications are more appropriately and more effectively communicated in other ways. 

.02

RN