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A comment on California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B. Parent comment

Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by Jesus_Jones on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @06:56PM (#16173263)
But you are giving up their fingerprints to the government. That's one thing that really bugs me about those programs. I want to remind everyone of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield. They arrested him because some of his fingerprints slightly matched. The FBI claimed they exactly matched. Quoting from the wikipedia article

"His prints were ... taken ... when he joined the military. He became the prime suspect because of his conversion to Islam and because he had represented one of the Portland Seven...

The FBI described the fingerprint match as "100% verified". According to the court documents in judge Ann Aiken's decision, this information was largely "fabricated and concocted by the FBI and DOJ".

This is why I'm reluctant to give the govt. my fingerprints, but my friends think I'm overreacting.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by selectodude on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @07:21PM (#16173460)
In no way is that remotely acceptable, but the dude got $2 million. The government making a habit of that behavior would get expensive quickly.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by ComputerGuru on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @08:54PM (#16173985)
Are you kidding, that’s your defense?

$2M in taxpayer money is nothing to them. Just like the expense of incarceration didn’t bring down jail terms for minor offenses. Or settlements for police brutality haven’t affected that one iota either.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by selectodude on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @10:21PM (#16174403)
If they did that to ten thousand US citizens (.0031 percent chance of being messed with), a 2 million dollar settlement would cost them $20bn. Affordable, but certainly not a rounding error line item.
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by dx034 on Thursday January 18, 2018 @03:54AM (#16175661)
The officers working on the case do not decide about the govt budget. I'm not even sure if the government tracks expenses from those cases and would know how to react if the costs escalate.
[ Parent | on HN ]