VERN HUMPHREY wrote in a message to ROY J. TELLASON:

RJT>VH> That's exactly right -- "60 Minutes" turned into an
informercial
RJT>VH> for this machine.  And they gave us the impression that it does a
RJT>VH> lot more than it really does.

RJT>Of course.

RJT>Hey,  let's go invent something,  sell it like that with an issue
RJT>involved has a lot of emotional import to bunches of people 
RJT>(that'll get a politician's attention quick),  and sell it to the 
RJT>guvamint.  Even if it doesn't work, doesn't matter.  The 
RJT>bureaucracy that results will never go away, but it'll keep the 
RJT>folks that get into it out of trouble in other,  more important ar
RJT> and we'll all make a lotta money.

VH> You want to invest in my psyonic sweat detector? :-)

Nonono,  *I* don't wanna invest,  I'm talking about *other people's* money
here...  Ain't that the way it's supposed to work?  :-)

RJT>VH> They never did answer the basic question -- how long would it take
RJT>VH> on average to match up a fired case or bullet?

RJT>That's because there is no answer to that.  They did point out
RJT>that the rough matching was about the best of what the system could 
RJT>do,  and that final matching would still have to be done by people.

VH> And "rough matching" is basically selecting all the 9mms from the
VH> data base when the suspect case is a 9mm. :-)

Sounds about right.

RJT>Then there's the fact that there's what,  tens of millions of guns
RJT>out there already that haven't been subjected to the process?

VH> And I LOVED the argument that, although they have to admit you can
VH> change the "ballistic fingerprint" of a gun in a minute or less
VH> "Criminals wouldn't do THAT." :-)

Yep.  Not if they pass laws and stuff.

RJT>I gotta hand it to them for snagging the term "fingerprint" for
RJT>this nonsense.  The general public _believes_ that no two people
have RJT>the same prints.  The only people who would be in a position to

RJT>know for sure would be somebody like the FBI,  and they ain't 
RJT>talkin' about it.  But their choice of this term was a move 
RJT>_designed_ to put the implication into people's heads that
RJT>the same thing would hold true in this case -- that no two of them 
RJT>would be the same, and the technique would therefore be a sure-fire 
RJT>way to identify "the bad guys"

RJT>Yeah,  right.

VH> Oddly enough, "60 Minutes" did a piece on fingerprints just a week
VH> before this crap aired -- and pointed out that there has never been
VH> a scientific study of fingerprints, there is no standard for
VH> matching fingerprints, and most fingerprint "technicians" are not
VH> certified.

I didn't know about that.  But it's no big surprise...

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