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Federal Agencies To Collect Genetic Info
protagoras writes "According to a bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, suspects arrested or detained by federal authorities may have their DNA forcibly collected for permanent storage in a central database. The bill is supported by the White House as well, but has not yet gone to the floor for a vote. Current law permits this only for those convicted of a crime. So even though completely innocent, should the Feds decide to detain you for any reason, your genetic data will grace their database beside that from murders, terrorists, and other miscreants." From the article: "The provision, co-sponsored by Kyl and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), does not require the government to automatically remove the DNA data of people who are never convicted. Instead, those arrested or detained would have to petition to have their information removed from the database after their cases were resolved. Privacy advocates are especially concerned about possible abuses such as profiling based on genetic characteristics."
Republicans at it again, always touting "smaller government" while doing the exact opposite...
pathetic...
Cheers,
J
To all those ostrich-human hybrids who have ever said, "But ... this is America, it could never happen here!" I say, "PHOOEY!"
Gattaca, here we come.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
...because of the FBI's recently-announced task force to crack down on "deviant" porn on the Internet. Should you be detained or arrested for such a crime, even if not found guilty, your DNA would be tied on-file to the sexual preferences which caused you to get busted.
Indeed, this further shows how anti-conservative the Republican Party has become. True conservatives would never support legislation that intrudes so terribly into the lives of innocent citizens. It's against the very ideals that a real conservative holds.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
It's like bar codes on your forehead, without the pesky tattoo.
This is the ultimate surveillance tool. It trumps all other forms of ID.
Imagine if Hitler had this capability, now substitute the word "Jews" for any other ethnic minority/oppressed/handicapped people and see how chilling a database like this could be used, but we all know that Hitler and his ideas was just a one off and those kinds of ideas couldnt happen here right ?, right ?
where exactly is America heading ?
I would suspect the government already has large percentages of the population's DNA/prints on file, they just can't legally use them for prosecution.
If this is the case, a law such as this being passed might give law-enforcement agencies a precedent to be able to access this larger hypothetical already-collected database of information straight away.
I'm not sure if you're an American or not, but if you are, what are you planning to do about this? I mean, at least you're aware of this situation now. That's probably a step ahead of most Americans. But are there any Americans who are actually willing to do something serious about this? And by "serious" I mean not just posting messages of displeasure on various Internet forums or blogs.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Check out this URL for some of the history of genetic and racial classification in America. This data is the health insurance companies wet dream. They want to be able to deny coverage based on your genetis background. So, for example, if you had an uncle who got cancer, or a parent who had a predisposition to a disease, you could become unemployable..
See http://waragainsttheweak.com/articles.php, especially the article in Reform Judaism about this 'new kind of selection'.
This is the real reason behind the big push for medical IT, and its vert scary.
For profit health insurance and medical IT are not compatible..
Since they're "detaining" people without charging them with crimes now on a fairly large scale, in cases where they don't want to be forced to show their evidence in a public setting, they'd need this loophole to track people who they feel they unfairly have to release for what they feel are political reasons. Seems a consistant, if highly corrupted logic.
Reminds me of the British legal tradition of jailing people without any right to a speedy trial. Seems like we created a constitution in order to get away from that kind of thing.
Ryan Fenton
If 1,000,000 different agencies each want a 100 mg sample from me, what does that leave me with?
Here in Britain, police already have powers to retain DNA of those who are innocent - there was a court case in the Lords a few years ago, where the police had retained the DNA of an 11 year boy accused (and found innocent) of a crime, which led to a 4-1 ruling in favour of the police keeping the samples. For example, sometimes in Britain the police will have a mass dna swab session, where they test say a large number of males in a town. The police can then keep the samples, and use them to link anyone who went on to commit a crime.
Yes, you could refuse to give a sample, but if the police really wanted to obtain your DNA samples they'd just obtain a search warrant for your house, and attempt to collect it from hair/nails etc.
So, the reason Federal Law Enforcement Agencies want this is because often times crime scences contain a fair amount of DNA evidence. They can quickly eliminate suspects if they know their DNA does not match.
I'm surprised at all the uproar over this. If you are arrested, but later cleared, your fingerprints are still kept. When is the last time your local police station returned your fingerprint card?
I have been arrested and later the charges were dropped. I didn't get my fingerprints back, and I'm pretty sure they could be in a municipal or state database. Fingerprints, like DNA, are unique. Its essentially the same thing.
I found the best way to avoid false incrimination is to not leave my DNA at crime scenes.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
The next step is to redefine "detention."
When the TSA pulls you over for a search at airport security, is that a detention? When a police officer stops you for speeding, and leaving before he's done writing you a ticket would be illegal, is that a detention? When authorities stop you in the subway because you fit s certain profile, is that a detention?
Maybe not now, but it's the next step.
Bah, anyone knows that if you've ever handled a penny, the governments got your DNA. Why do you think they keep them in circulation?
Remember, what we worry about is abuse of said information. So, I get my DNA sampled and stored. I am worried that:
1. The government will sanction me in some way (deny medicaid benefits, etc.) based on my profile.
2. Private sector actors (insurance carriers, hospitals) sanction me in some way based on the data (deny coverage, raise fees).
3. Illegal use is made of my information by some 'other' party - the American Nazi Party starts a 'hate list' of genetically inferior people based on their analysis of the data.
4. Unforseen other use.
For #1-3 above, it is perfectly possible to protect the use of the information by enforcing a prohibition on abuse. For example, If an insurance company has better information about their clients, they can better hedge their risk. With enough valid data, it is possible to hedge virtually any risk to within reasonable tolerances - Wall Street does it all the time. Better hedging = less risk to the insurer, so they can actually adjust their cost/coverage better. Enforce a certain "risk profile" to be allowed to serve as an insurance provider - i.e., make it illegal and civilly actionable to refuse coverage, and everyone wins. An insurance carrier is "stuck" with providing coverage to higher-risk clients, but known risks can be hedged. They already do this sort of thing by pooling customers - young, healthy people and older, sick people offset one another, so overall, the risk is lower - everyone get some coverage, with the healthy subsidizing the sick. That's how it's supposed to work. Better information (DNA) leads to better hedging.
So, you set up the laws such that information is available, may be used for analysis, but if it is used against you, you have a solid legal foundation for a lawsuit, with HUGE fines for violators.
As far as the police use of DNA goes - I live in Illinois, where we have the death penalty, but it is so broken that we've had several people on death row exonerated after their cases were reviewed and DNA evidence was admitted. There is also evidence we may have actually executed innocent people - the state doesn't re-open cases where the convict has already been executed. Frankly, mass DNA testing would not only solve a lot of crimes, but prevent gross miscarriages of justice. More data would mean better prosecutions.
Not just that, but if a person has a genetic predisposition towards, say, Alzheimers, a public database of DNA could be used by researchers to find the prevalance of that gene or gene-sequence in the population and thereby plan for future medical treatments, allocate research resources and maybe even warn the poor, unsuspecting SOB before s/he starts losing mental function.
Of course, someone out there will come up with a "yah, but the secret-government agency who REALLY runs America will use your profile for Bad Things..." If they start rounding people up based on DNA, it's an obvious abuse, and only a Tinfoil Hat would actually think that is anything close to likely - heck, The Economist reports that Guantanamo is shipping prisoners back to their countries of origin because of the uproar - in the US and from abroad - over the abuses there. The administration might (will) do unethical things, but they will pay at election time. As long as the framework is open and transparent, there is reasonable protection afforded to the public.
Yah, I know, you can't always trust the public, we re-elected W, but NOT BY MUCH, and he's on a much shorter leash - see above Economist citation.
And lets face it, if the government wanted a 'secret DNA database', they could already have it and we couldn't do bupkus.
So what exactly is so holy about our DNA that it shouldn't be on file? Unitl I am actually deprived of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness, how are my rights being violated exactly?