Follow-up to FOIA Request for DoDPI Polygraph Handbook

This follow-up message was sent to Mr. Leslie R. Blake, head of the Defense Security Service Office of Freedom of Information and Privacy, by e-mail to <leslie.blake@mail.dss.mil> on 17 March 2002.

I wish to provide you with further information pursuant to my FOIA request of 14 March 2002 for the current version of DoDPI's handbook for federal polygraph examiners. First, I request that I be provided with a copy of this document in electronic format (for example, as a word processor file), if such copy is available. Otherwise, I request that the document be mailed to me at the following address:

I also wish to provide you with an additional reason why this document should properly be released under the Freedom of Information Act. The Department of Defense Polygraph Institute represents polygraphy to be a forensic science. For example, DoDPI formally refers to its basic polygraph examiner course as the "Forensic Pyschophysiological Detection of Deception (PDD) Program" or, alternatively, the "Forensic Psychophysiology Program":

As I mentioned before, the Department of Defense states in its Polygraph Program Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2001 that DoDPI's handbook for federal polygraphers, which is the subject of this FOIA request, "sets forth standardized techniques and procedures for conducting polygraph examinations" and "outlines a Quality Assurance Program (QAP) wherein DODPI inspects federal polygraph programs to ensure compliance with both those techniques and procedures taught at DODPI and the continuing education requirements established by the polygraph community for polygraph examiners."

The "standardized techniques and procedures" of any genuine forensic procedure, as well as the details of any quality assurance program intended to ensure compliance with those techniques and procedures, cannot legitimately be withheld from the public.

I am aware of no forensic test whose standardized techniques, procedures, and quality assurance measures are withheld by the U.S. Government from the American people. Forensic tests are necessarily science-based, and they don't depend on public ignorance of how they work. If DoDPI and DSS truly believe that the handbook for federal polygraph examiners which is the subject of this request describes a legitimate forensic technique, there should be no objection to releasing it under the Freedom of Information Act.