AntiPolygraph.org Celebrates Ten Years Online

[George W. Maschke]

Saturday, 18 September 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of AntiPolygraph.org's establishment. Five year ago, on our fifth anniversary, I reviewed the site's origins and accomplishments, and future plans.

Since then, AntiPolygraph.org has remained the leading source for polygraph information on the Internet. We estimate that our key publication, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector, has now been downloaded well over 500,000 times.

Today our message board has 4,793 registered users and 34,733 posts within 4,692 message threads. We remain proud to provide the Internet's most open forum for discussion of polygraph issues. We also now have a blog for commentary on newsworthy stories. And we continue to respond to frequent inquiries received by e-mail and telephone.

As for polygraph reform, much work remains to be done. Polygraphy is, if anything, more firmly entrenched today than it was 10 years ago. In particular, it seems to me that the attacks of 9/11 gave polygraphy a new lease on life, making it easier for federal agencies that rely on polygraphy to completely disregard the damning conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences, which in 2002 warned that "[polygraph testing's] accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies."

I encourage all to join us in working to end the madness.