Convicted Hacker Adrian Lamo Refuses to Give Blood

CaliforniaCCW writes "Hopefully everyone here remembers the case of Adrian Lamo, a so-called 'gray hat' hacker who plead guilty to one count of computer crimes against Microsoft, Nexis-Lexis and the New York Times in 2004. He got a felony conviction, six months detention in his parents' home, and two years of probation. Today, as a condition of his probation, he must provide a sample of his DNA in the form of a blood sample, something which he has refused to do. Should convicted felons on probation have privacy rights over their DNA? Or is a blood sample like a fingerprint, something that everyone should provide to their government?"

Comments

if the gov wants his/or any slash DNA

[way2trivial]

all they have to do is supply the blonde!

Patented?

[Ohreally_factor]

Quite possibly his DNA has been patented by one of the big bio tech firms, and he is just trying to avoid costly litigation.

The logic escapes me

[Mostly a lurker]

He was convicted of a computer crime. How likely is it that, if he does something similar in the future, it will be of any help to the authorities that they have his DNA on file? I suppose, though, the same goes for fingerprints. If the law is not specific on the subject, I think he has a right to refuse.

Re:The logic escapes me

[Ohreally_factor]

Actually, the law is specific on the subject. If you are convicted of a felony, they have a right to keep your DNA on file. I don't think there are any exceptions made for white collar crime.

Re:The logic escapes me

[Ohreally_factor]

Well, F me for not Ring TFA. He is refusing to give a blood sample, not refusing to give a DNA sample. His reasons for not giving a blood sample are religious. He offered instead to give hair and nail clippings, both of which he brought in, both of which were refused. So long as he is willing to comply with the law, even if not with the the particular collection method, I think he'll win this.

Re:The logic escapes me

[Scrameustache]

He was convicted of a computer crime. How likely is it that, if he does something similar in the future, it will be of any help to the authorities that they have his DNA on file?

Not likely at all.

This isn't about his crime and prevention/ease of conviction. This is about gathering DNA of everyone they can. Pictures, fingerprints, blood samples, they want it all, from everyone. They start with convicted criminals, because no one cares about their rights. Then they added people flying in (only pics and fingerprints for now, baby steps, baby steps).

The phone calls of everone, add a lil' voice recognition software, cameras all over the place, GPS transponders in every car, RFID in every compulsory ID cards.

They're creating a perfect police state, and we're letting them.

Re:The logic escapes me

[v1]

He is probably well-aware that hair (minus a follicle) and fingernail clippings are both just keratin (chitin?) and contain no biological material or DNA of any sort. (those are the only main two substances he could give a sample of without giving away his DNA, and he knows it) A hair with a follicle however, contains DNA. That's why he brought them in instead of offering them on the spot, to make sure he didn't lose a hair with a follicle etc. He knows what he is doing, and it's highly unlikely that religion is his main concern. (unless it's against his religious beliefs to get caught a second time...)

Puting that aside for the moment, I am very much against the manditory collection of DNA except in the event you are the suspect of a crime and DNA would prove your innocence/guilt. Pre-emptive DNA harvesting for the purpose of establishing a database should not be legal.

Re:The logic escapes me

[Catbeller]

And this is said while the FBI is raiding the home of the former number 3 at the CIA; the Vice President is about to be indicted for outing a CIA operation monitoring Iranian nuclear bombmaking; the entire administration has created a nationwide spy operation they didn't feel Justice lawyers needed to be consulted about; the Admin has been running covert special forces ops in Iran for over a year - an act of war, illegally done in secret; the Pres has been outed for secretly delaring war on Iraq on false pretext, killing over 30 thousand civilians...

What does religion have to say about all that? And why does the "law" care more about a teenager pulling pranks than about slaughtering 30 thousand people for no reason at all?

I should respect the law, why? The President has adopted Nixon's notion that the President IS the law, and therefore cannot ever break the law. I guess I just suppose this kid is the law, and cannot break it either. Either statement is equally constitutionally correct.

When the law is obviously manipulated to smash the relatively innocent and pardon the murderous, who cares about it anymore? The law enforcement agencies obviously don't. Powerful people make a call, a kid goes to prison, make another call, and 30 thousand people dead don't count, even as a news story.

Crossing a line?

[E-Rock]

I can't exactly say why, but taking an imprint of my finger doesn't seem like a big deal where taking my blood and analyzing my DNA seems a bit invasive.

Maybe they had the same debate back when the line was between taking down a physical description and taking an imprint of my finger. We all know how that one worked out.

You think that's bad...

[Manip]

If you think that is bad (having to provide DNA after being *convicted*) you must not have been to jail in the United Kingdom...

Over here if you are arrested for things like littering, speeding, drunkenness and other minor infractions the police are legally entitled to take a DNA sample (and they DO from just about everyone).

You can refuse the order either... If they want a sample they are getting a sample...

WTF?!?!

[schon]

is a blood sample like a fingerprint, something that everyone should provide to their government?

Why the fsck should *everyone* provide fingerprints to their government?

Re:WTF?!?!

[BVis]

This is, of course, assuming that you WANT your government to treat everyone like a criminal.

I'd prefer that they didn't. If they want my DNA or my fingerprints, they can bloody well get a warrant signed by a judge. If they can't get that, then the Constitution protects my privacy. Bloody annoying, that Fourth Amendment. Requiring that "due process" and all. After all, law enforcement is entitled to be autocratic and lazy and just demand whatever they want on a pretext.

Pretty soon they'll want to put black boxes in your car.. oh wait, we already have those. Then they'll want to video tape you for the sole reason that you've driven down a street.. oh, we've got those too. Then they'll want to know about every phone call you make whether you've been accused of a crime or not.. oh, wait, we just found out about that one this week.

Amazingly enough, there are people who think a police state is a GOOD thing. I like to call those people "idiots" and would like to extend the police state to regulating their ability to breed, telling them it's to prevent terrorism. Fixes the problem neatly and ironically.

from the article:

[seezer]

According to his attorney, Lamo's refusal is based on a religious objection to giving blood, and he's willing to provide his DNA in another form.
"He went in there with fingernail clippings and hair, and they refused to accept it, because they will only accept blood,"

Some do. Some don't.

[leftie]

Did they take a DNA sample from former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham when they put him in jail for taking bribes from defense contractors?

This guy didn't do close to anything as bad as Cunningham.

Retention policy?

[Chris Pimlott]

On a related note, what's the law regarding retention of stuff like DNA data, fingerprints, etc? For example, if my next door neighbor got murdered, I might get asked to provide my fingerprints to rule me out as a subject. I might be willing to do this (provided I'm not actually guilty) but what happens afterwards?

Are there restrictions for situations like this that only allow the authorities to use such data for only a specific case? Or does my data get permanently entered in a general database, to be automatically scanned for any and every crime in the future?

I'm not against cooperating with the police, but if it's the later, I'd be extremely wary of volunteering for such things.

DNA versus Fingerprints

[goombah99]

On the one hand there is clear neccessity for the governement to establish a foresnic identity system. Finger prints, photographs, age, weight, height, eye color, build, race and gender are all legitimate and well established metric the government collects and wisely uses in our collective best interest.

One the other hand, DNA is quite different. You can learn from DNA things the govenrment is not entitled to know. Your lineage, your health prospects, your allegries, and any number of personal attributes. From blood you can learn even more. e.g. are you HiV positive.

So saying DNA and bllod are one more in a long line of useful tools is not a gimme. We have to think it through.

It is quite clear that infinite knowledge of people is not neccessarily in societies best interest. Or at least our society does not agree that it is. And crime deterence is not the sole purpose of governement. protection of privacy and civil lberties needs to be considered. For example, even prisons and navy ships, the most well watched populations on the planet, do not fully prevent crime. And we certainly would not be willing to subject ourselves to that kind of scrutiny just to reduce crime. So there must be a trade between security and liberty and risk. One should not just blindly always trade liberty for security becuase the trade off is without limit.

Yet coming back to DNA. unlike everything except finger prints, it's something that ubquitously taints crime scenes, and it's utility is thus so much above any othe rmetric it's foolish not to atleast consider a DNA databse of former felons and possibly even citizens at large. One solution to this might be DNA hashing. perhaps there is a way to hash a DNA sequence in a manner that would be sufficient to establish presence at a crime scene. Or maybe atleast probable cause for further testing of a particular individual without actually having the governement retain DNA samples of innocent people.

An approach to this would be to identify a long list of biological diversity markers then weed out all the ones know to be associated with any health condition. Then hash these in a way that preserves just enough features to establish likely identity between two samples without revelaing any further details. The govenrment would be required to destroy the original samples and to delete any of the pre-hash specific information. This would have to be done in a manner we can trust them to actually execute this policy. I think this could be done and just to make the point, here's how. Have all testing done in labs in non-networked computers with small hard disks. This would be a physical layer to prevent overt records retention. One could of course imagine ways this could be subverted on a case by case basis but it would impede wholsale collection.

Re:DNA versus Fingerprints

[fyngyrz]

This would have to be done in a manner we can trust them to actually execute this policy.

The problem here is that we can't trust the government. We already know that. They said that the SSN would only be used for social security. They said that there would be no new taxes. They said that there were weapons of mass destruction. They said that eminent domain was a tool never to be used for commercial interests. They said that no citizen could be held without a right to a hearing or the ability to contact a lawyer. They said that no person's privacy could be invaded without a warrant. They said the patriot act was only to fight terrorism. They said that they would make no law regarding the establishment of religion. They say that intrastate commerce is magically interstate commerce. I could go on for pages.

They lie. They lie all the time. They're not lying for our benefit, either — they lie to do us harm, to hide things from us, to get certain people into office (or keep them there), they lie to take our property, our freedom, to erode our rights, and to diminish our ability to hold them accountable.

You give them your DNA, and they'll swear up and down that they'll hash it and throw away the raw data. But mark my words, that DNA will appear in a database not too long afterwards in the hands of not only the government, but your insurance company, your employer, and your potential spouse.

Anything you do to extend the power of the government will be misused. Anything. Our government is completely, utterly, absolutely out of control.

Re:DNA versus Fingerprints

[samkass]

It's the private companies that abuse the social security numbers, not the government.

This is not true. The DMV asks for it, it's on government medical forms, etc. It is used today as a way to uniquely identify each American completely outside the context of social security.

They said that there were weapons of mass destruction.

It was not the government who said that, but croporate oligarchs who wanted to get Iraki oil.

This is also obviously false. Colin Powell was acting on behalf of the government when he gave a speech to the UN detailing the reasons we know Iraq to have WMDs, and implying there was much more evidence that was too secret to share (which has also, now, been found to be a lie.)

And it is the courts who said that, not the government.

Courts are part of the government. The US government is comprised of three separate (ha!) but equal (ha!) branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.

"DNA dragnet" on the cape, cops watched declinees

[SuperBanana]

On a related note, what's the law regarding retention of stuff like DNA data, fingerprints, etc? For example, if my next door neighbor got murdered, I might get asked to provide my fingerprints to rule me out as a subject. I might be willing to do this (provided I'm not actually guilty)

A woman was raped and killed in a small town on Cape Cod. So what did the police do? Set up DNA collection stations around town and asked men to submit DNA samples. "Well, nobody said 'if you don't submit a sample you must be guilty'"m you say? WRONG.

"A few people have declined to give samples, according to news reports. Police said investigators will closely watch individuals who fail to "volunteer" their genetic code."

"Well, if you're innocent, you won't mind us taking your DNA."

"Well, if you're innocent, you won't mind us searching your car."

"Well, if you're innocent, you won't mind us searching your house."

Doesn't work that way. NEVER has, NEVER will. If I'm innocent I don't HAVE to give you my DNA, or let you search anything- I'm INNOCENT. If the police or prosecutors of a crime wish to collect evidence from you or your personal property, they need search warrants- and they don't just hand those out for shits and giggles over at the local court. What is frightening is that 5-10% of the population of Truro apparently felt it was OK for the police to just ask for their DNA- and gave it!

http://www.righttovote.org/state.asp

[ankhank]

Which nation are you from?

In the US, at least, Constitutionally-recognized rights aren't all lost upon a felony conviction, though you're limited in some of them. That's why it's illegal to experiment on prisoners, or torture or kill them.

Nor do you give up the rights administered by states. You can still vote, in most states. See the list at http://www.righttovote.org/state.asp

Re:All large organizations attempt to control us

[mrraven]

Libertarian dude sed:

"You quote Shell using the local police and/or military for their purposes. Were I a local, I would blame the government here; just as the company that wants my land to build a hotel on is not at fault, the government is at fault if they allow it to be taken."

And do you honestly think that Shell wouldn't have hired mercenaries to do the same thing if that had been cheaper or easier? As the record obviously shows Shell as a company is quite willing to do ANYTHING to continue their operations in the Niger delta. The point is, is that Shell is quite willing to kill innocent people to continue it's oil drilling operation in Nigeria. It is exactly this sort of case that makes me mistrust Libertarians despite their excellent well honed admirable contempt they hold towards the state. When it comes to HORRIBLE deeds committed by corporations suddenly Libertarians are as slippery as Bill Clinton talking about what the meaning of is, is... Lets see some more honesty here, BOTH corporations and governments will commit horrible deeds when they think they can get away with it, only by holding BOTH corporations and governments to merciless scrutiny and calling them on their bad deeds will we see any decency, liberty, and a sustainable way of life. Making apologetics for the owners of Nike's production facilities quite literally raping their own employees only makes you look like an asshole, which is really too bad because your original post about not trusting the government not to misuse DNA data was quite excellent. I no more trust Nike to subcontract to other private shoe making corporations that will respect human rights than I do the government to hold my DNA data or my phone records. NEITHER the government, nor Shell, Nike, Haliburton, Bechtel, Microsoft, Monsanto, Maxxam, Wal-Mart, Exxon, etc have earned my trust by engaging in consistent ethical behavior. If you wern't blinded by your Libertarian ideology you would be more honest and admit that, yet for you suddenly crimes become non crimes when committed by private corporations. THAT is why I have some respect for Libertarians outspokenness about the evils of government but do not consider myself to be a Libertarian.

Please apply the same high standards to the conduct to private organizations that you apply to governments, thank you.