On Tuesday, 14 May 2013, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan posted to its Facebook page a story about a program whereby U.S. forces in Afghanistan have been training Afghans in the use of a handheld “lie detector,” the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (PCASS) developed by the National Center for Credibility Assessment at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina:
As you see above, AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke posted two comments and relevant links regarding PCASS that same day. By the following day, ISAF had deleted those comments:
The deleted comments included a link to the AntiPolygraph.org message board post, “How to Beat the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System (PCASS)” and to the YouTube video post, Warning to U.S. Troops on Hand-held Lie Detector:
Why did ISAF delete these comments? ISAF’s Facebook page provides the following commenting guidelines:
Nothing in the deleted comments included profanity, sexual content, hate speech or commercial, overly graphic, disturbing, abusive or offensive material, or was off-topic. ISAF’s censorship of critical commentary bespeaks an authoritarian mindset inconsistent with the “freedom” that NATO purports to be bringing to Afghanistan.