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themitigating

"The company we got it from certified it was real" - supplier

Court time

"Prove my client knew it was fake, remember innocent until proven guilty + beyond reasonable doubt" - defense lawyer

Acquitted

Court costs for US government - 5 million

"Let's add new regulations to make sure they have to test parts" - some person

"We need to stop big government" - Republicans

"There's too many regulations how can I stay in business, guess I'll raise prices for the government" - supplier

"Why does this part cost so much, corruption, conspiracy, blah" - hackernews comment

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> Prove my client knew it was fake, remember innocent until proven guilty + beyond reasonable doubt

It’s a civil case against the contractors not the government, it carries a much lower burden of proof, just needs to prove preponderance of the evidence (more than 50% chance of the claim being true).

Plus you have discovery and depositions to help build your case.

Oh and if they don’t comply with discovery, well then the judge will just find them liable and then the case will just be about how much money they owe (see the Alex Jones cases going on right now).

>>"Prove my client knew it was fake, remember innocent until proven guilty + beyond reasonable doubt" - defense lawyer

>>Acquitted

It does not work like that.

The client has already signed off, under penalty of perjury, that the parts ARE NOT FAKE, and that the company and the parts (respectively) comply with any number of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requirements applicable to the contract.

If the part is bad, it is going to be up to the "client" to prove that his statements were not false.

Are all your comments like this? Would love to train a holistic scenario condensation language model to turn complex stories into minimized sensibile lines. :-] (e.g. wouldn't it be nice for the average voter to have access to condensed information like this?)

They aren't, feel free to inspect them. I'm boiling down what I see as the hypocracy of most people and how quickly we forget why rules exist

I believe you meant to spell "hypocrisy", but actually "hypocracy" is such a wonderful neologism because it does seem that, wherever we are, we're governed by hypocrites.

If only there were a documentary called Hypocracy, with just a bunch of footage of hypocritical things done by politicians. Heck, it could have a weekly segment it happens so often.

Hypo - A prefix of Greek origin, cognate with sub- of Latin origin, and meaning primarily ‘under,’ either in place or in degree (less,' ‘less than’).

I cant help but feel a hypocracy is a great word for small government

Good point. That would actually follow a similar formation process as the most commonly used term for this, which is "minarchy".

I believe this is among the most cryptic and niche compliments I have ever come across on any social platform, but would need to have a sufficiently large sample size of similar compliments to train a language model.

Corruption and conspiracy resulting from greedy people. Solve for the basest instincts and watch crime evaporate.

"Acquitted"

And blacklisted from doing business with the government.

That particular C-Corp or LLC, sure. The people behind it that know all the secret sauce, connections, etc, to get awarded contracts just go mint a new one.

Blacklist Lockheed, Collins, and Teledyne? What are we going to take to war, Cessnas with water balloons on board?

It would likely be Teledyne. Although they are more likely to just be penalized in some other way, especially since they now own FLIR.

If only. Big companies won't be blocked, small ones change names and nominal CEO/owners and carry on like nothing happened.

I'm pretty sure they also ban executives now.

I think that's exactly how it would have gone done except for the fact Teledyne is accused of replacing the counterfeit parts when the board was sent to them for inspection, which would almost certainly prove they knew they were fake.

If the government took the supplier to court for supplying counterfeit parts it would most likely be in civil court[0]. The standard is preponderance of the evidence[1], which is much lower than that in criminal court:

> Under the preponderance standard, the burden of proof is met when the party with the burden convinces the fact finder that there is a greater than 50% chance that the claim is true. This is the burden of proof in a civil trial.

If the supplier were criminally liable (as they also can be, for trafficking in counterfeit goods or services[2]) then because the bar is higher the prosecution would (should) only move forward if they believe they have the requisite evidence to meet that standard.

As it is, the widow is taking the suppliers to court in civil court[3]:

> Now, two years later, the 32-year-old has filed a federal civil lawsuit against defense giant Lockheed Martin, Collins Aerospace and several sections of Teledyne Technologies, alleging that components of her husband's ejection seat may have been counterfeit, leading to his death on June 30, 2020.

The aforementioned law was passed in Dec 2011 by the House of Representatives, which the Republicans held a majority in, and the Senate, which the Democrats held by a slim majority[4][5].

I'm not sure what your comment is about other than trying to appear knowledgeable through cynicism. Ironic that you would complain about others' HN comments.

[0] https://aronsonllc.com/government-looks-to-contractors-to-st...

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/preponderance_of_the_evidenc...

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2320

[3] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/14/widow-of-f-16...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112th_United_States_Congress

If the government were competent, it wouldn't require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to recoup substantial compensation for faulty parts.

I would guess it's already built into the contract.

Military courts operate differently.

So basically everyone is at fault, including the standard of innocent until proven guilty. Except Democrats.

Convenient

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