Mark is absolutely right: now is a critical time for the future of U.S. polygraph policy. We must take advantage of this time when polygraphy is in the national spotlight to help expose it for the fraud that it is.

In addition to writing your elected officials, write letters to the editors of your local and national newspapers. Most reporting on polygraphy in the wake of the Hanssen spy case has uncritically accepted the premise that "polygraphs = security."

It would be especially helpful to write to the editors of major national papers like the Washington Post, the Washington Times, and the New York Times. Letters that comment on their stories are more likely to be published. See the AntiPolygraph.org news page for links to recent articles about polygraph policy. And be sure to include your name, address, and daytime phone number for confirmation purposes so that your letter can be published (even if you request that your name be withheld).

You can send letters to the editors of most newspapers by e-mail. The e-mail addresses for letters to the editors of the above-cited newspapers are:

• The Washington Post: letters@washpost.com 
• The Washington Times: letters@washtimes.com 
• The New York Times: letters@nytimes.com 

Last modification: George Maschke - 02/22/01 at 17:39:12

Distrustful,

The reason that most of our efforts are geared toward law enforcement/military/intelligence positions is because these employees/applicants comprise the majority of people who can still be "tested" under current US law.  Nearly everyone else (employees of private firms, criminal suspects, etc) already has the right to refuse to be polygraphed and suffer no adverse consequences on the basis of this refusal alone.

Nonetheless, feel free to e-mail me any specific ideas you might have for such a letter (or better yet, a complete model letter).  We will be happy to consider it for posting on the site.

I know I am several years late on this topic, but I am planning on writing to my local representsative concerning he use of ploygraphs.  I am currently in the hiring process with 3 differeny agencies.  Is there much likelyhood that info of me writing a letter like this could get to the wrong people?

-Smokey

retcopper wrote on Feb 13^th, 2006 at 6:06pm:

Retcopper,

Why are you here?  Why do you come to this message board at all?

You obviously disagree with George and everyone else who is against the use of the polygraph.  However, all you bring with you is apparently a willingness to throw out a random, brief, unsupported comment here and there which contributes nothing to the ongoing discussion.

If there was a website full of people I did not agree with I couldn't imagine spending my time there just to post the intellectual equivalent of "Oh yeah?" and "How do you know?"

I come here to get amused at some of the writings in here. It is particularly funny  to see how much bad advice is being given to some of the people who have done something wrong and are trying  to beat the test.

Why debate polygraph with you?  Are you an examiner? Most of the people in here have their minds made up anyway. Try to debate you and others and you come back with flippant remarks.