Marisa Taylor on Federal Polygraph Policy

[George W. Maschke]

McClatchy investigative reporter Marisa Taylor has published a series of in-depth articles on the federal government's growing reliance on the pseudoscience of polygraphy, the lack of oversight of polygraph operators, the misgivings of federal polygraph examiners regarding the value of polygraphing detainees in Iraq, and the federal government's withholding of information from researchers:

• Feds expand polygraph screening, often seeking intimate facts
  
• As polygraph screening flourishes, critics say oversight abandoned
  
• U.S. polygraphers questioned accuracy of tests on detainees overseas
  
• Federal polygraph programs are secret even to researcher
  

[George W. Maschke]

On 13 December 2012, McClatchy published a letter from American Polygraph Association vice-president for governmental affairs Robert Peters, who is also a retired senior CIA polygraph operator. Peters is critical of Taylor's reporting, castigating it as "incomplete" and "poorly researched."

I found Peters' critique to be so poorly argued that it was hard to decide how to even begin to respond. Nonetheless, I sent McClatchy a response to Peters' letter. It has been published and may be read here.