27 May 2004 - FBI fingerprint

< yesterday -- tomorrow >

reporter: What’s your name?
FBI: I’m not sure, I’ll ask headquarters.
background music: Toe, toe, toe the line.
reporter: Um, OK. About the case of the mistaken fingerprint—
FBI: The data was poor quality. Procedures at the lab are being reviewed.
background music: Things are as they seem.
reporter: How many other people have been wrongly jailed because of the FBI’s overconfidence in poor data?
FBI: I can say, with 100% certainty, no one.
background music: Verily, verily, verily, verily
reporter: How do you know?
FBI: The FBI has no further comment.
background music: Truth is but a dream.

clue:

The FBI matched a fingerprint from the train bombing in Madrid with Brandon Mayfield of Oregon, who was arrested and jailed. The FBI insisted that it was 100% confident that the match was correct, though Spanish police were not. Sure enough, the Spanish arrested an Algerian whose finger had made the print. The blunder was so egregious that the FBI apologized, which they almost never do.

give me a clue so sweet and true

the Daily Whale || copyright 2004, 2024 Jay J.P. Scott <jay@satirist.org>