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A DNA Database For All U.S. Workers?
fragmer writes "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested a plan on Wednesday that would establish a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers. The mayor said DNA and fingerprint technology could be used to create a worker ID database that will 'uniquely identify the person' applying for a job, ensuring that cards are not illegally transferred or forged. Bloomberg compared his proposed federal identification database to the Social Security card, insisting that such a system would not violate citizens' privacy and was not a civil liberties issue."
The power lies with the proles.
"Bloomberg compared his proposed federal identification database to the Social Security card, insisting that such a system would not violate citizens' privacy and was not a civil liberties issue."
Just by saying that, he's acknowledging that its a civil liberties issue.
politicians it seems ; Big Brother Syndrome
A day does not pass without some u.s. politician or lawmaker coming up with an idea that would be a step on the road that will turn u.s. people into slave labor.
Read radical news here
Requiring all Jewish residents to register as such and wear a Star of David on their shirts is also just a purely administrative aid, to stop people cheating the system and could never be used as a real civil liberties issue either.
I wish people would learn that we can trust the government simply because they tell us we can.
Well I would certainly feel that my privacy was being violated. My DNA is private, thank you very much, and the state most certainly does not have a right to the details of it. It would be nice to think that this is the sort of suggestion that would lose a politician his job, but I have a bad feeling that some will find it rather popular.
Any database that allows people to determine the identities of all the people at any scene, whether it is a crime scene or otherwise, is a civil liberties issue. You were at WHAT social gathering? With WHOM? Now we're going to all have to start behaving like Ethan Hawke in GATTACA, scrubbing off all our dead skin cells before we go out.
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
When will gov't realise this?
"The mayor said DNA and fingerprint technology could be used to create a worker ID database that will 'uniquely identify the person' applying for a job, ensuring that cards are not illegally transferred or forged."
Oh great, another plan where we track innocent people in an effort to find the guilty ones. Maybe if they chose opposite strategies they wouldn't be met with such public opposition.
The employers who bother to ask for an SS card or even go as far as to check the number are not the problem. Even if the workers are illegal they are paying taxes so that's at least a good thing. The only crime is being in the US illegally.
The actual problem are the employers hiring illegals and paying them under the table.
The proposed program will only harm actual tax paying workers by collecting informatino that will only help to make them suspects in crimes.
"Why was your fingerprint on the telephone in that bedroom?" "Because I stayed at a holiday inn this weekend."
Perhaps a better solution would be to simply tattoo a serial number on everybody's arm -- it'd be functionally equivalent, but much cheaper to implement.
David Gould
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Nice try at pretending that only Republicans are at fault here. Don't fall for the shell game. Republicans and Democrats are just two wings of the ruling party.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If anything, we should have learned from the disaster that the use of our social security number has become. It started out with a use that was extremely limited in scope, and has since become a nearly universal identifier for all kinds of information about us- all without our permission, and in many cases, our knowledge. The proliferation of its abuse is now why we're faced with issues like identity theft.
This point cannot be emphasized enough: once something like this becomes a problem, it's too late. Have you seen any "solution" to identity theft? Didn't think so. The only effective response is to slam the door closed on these kinds of ideas, and weld it shut.
Good point though. I wonder how the police deal with DNA evidence for twins. I very much doubt their DNA testing is sufficiently advanced to pick up the minor differences in DNA twins have. I guess they have to hope for fingerprints.
Someone should ask for a DNA sample from mayor Bloomberg. If he has nothing to hide, why not give it to the public? We can test for all kinds of diseases, maybe see if he's predisposed to any mental illness. Would people (re-)elect someone with a proven predisposition for psychotic behaviour?
The problem I've heard mentioned is that with any biological marker, as soon as someone figures out how to fake it you're screwed.
There's no need to fake the biometric data. Breaking into whatever machine hosts the database is quite sufficient.
If this system ever comes to pass, it would be a very appropriate countermeasure to make the DNA of every legislator who voted for it come up as a terrorist or sex offender.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Is it really? Once you're using DNA as a method of identification and society has turned a blind eye, how much longer will it be before companies fire people who are predisposed to cancer, mental illness, or any other genetic trait that a company might find unprofitable for their workforce to have.
I think I see why they brought it up though. It's been a while since I've seen Gattaca, but as I recall, it did sort of make the point about where things would eventually go once you started doing this kind of thing. Gattaca seemed to propose a future where the initial genetic identification and modification was relatively harmless (using it for pretty good things like getting rid of diseases and genetic defects, etc.), which eventually led to a society built around getting rid of defective people as a whole or making life difficult for them. I think the point the above poster was making would be that you can start out with just one piece of the puzzle (i.e. a genetic database of every worker in the US), and it could end up being the framework for something much worse.
> Uh, we support the basic idea. How is DNA different than a finger print or photo?
How is asking your name different from demanding your driver's license?
How is patting you down different from a strip search?
How is knowing your address different from entering and searching your home?
It's a 4th Amendment issue at the very least. The general principle is that you don't target *everybody* for investigation just so you can catch a few. Constitutionally you have to have specific reasons to suspect criminal behavior in order to detain and/or search someone.
When we withheld due process from the VERY FIRST PERSON, we became EXACTLY as bad and evil as and Nazi.
The ONLY differences being methods and bodycount.
To the person tied to a chair and beaten to death, or marched into the gas chamber, it doesn't matter that "there's only one"...
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Bingo!
...
... and ... linking that person's body (via tattoos or DNA or fingerprints) to any government authorization.
Although there isn't much real difference between issuing someone a Social Security card and tattooing that number upon his body
Yeah, almost everyone can see the difference between issueing a card with a number to a person
Almost everyone. Fascism is a state of mind. It is when you value people's Freedom less than the perceived "efficiency" of your Government.
The government serves the People.
The People do not serve the Government.
They DO realize it.
It's the princple of: Tell a lie loud enough, often enough and long enough and the people will eventually believe it to be true."
Most people believe the Patriot Act is necessary and constitutional. Why should they not buy this new lie? It pisses me off that even many small-government conservatives believe that limiting rights in exchange for a vague promise of safety is necessary, let alone even remotely acceptable.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Good idea. Let's test it on the families of politicians first. They believe most strongly in the concept.
Actually, power lies with guns (as it always has), whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive that it is the Duty of the People to alter or abolish it.
You're an idiot, and this is just an assaninely stupid statement.
What you seem to have missed out on is that in 1776, the guns the populace had and the guns the government had were the same, so the side that won was pretty much based on how many people you had, influenced by your ability to pay them, and their emotional/economic investment in the fight.
In modern day resistence, guns are so useless that they're only used against extremely poor governments. You might be able to stage a revolution in the Congo with guns, hell, you can even do it with enough people and some machetes, but there is just no way that you can keep a government like the US government honest with the treat of a firearm. The government is not threatened by a firearm - it is useless against their tank, and it is especially useless after the government has blown up your car.
Iraqi insurgents have guns. IRA had guns. Hamas has guns. What do these groups do with guns? They try to AVOID using them, because when they make use guns they are visible, and when they are visible people can drop a bomb on them. A gun is useless when your enemy is just going to send a missile into your apartment if they know where you are. They know that guns don't work, which is why they use bombs. Look at the number of Americans killed in Iraq by IED vs. firearm.
Even with bombs, you're not going to get what you want; all you succeed at doing is creating an environment of poor security, which leads to a poor economy. Even in a poor economy, the government is still better off than the populace. Once you've let the government get out of hand, it's too late: The best you can do is make your economy so bad that your government becomes militarily weak enough that they provoke someone to come and invade you.
There's a name for places like that: Bosnia.
Americans must VIGILENTLY protect and excercise their democratic rights to keep the government honest. If it comes time to use guns, we're fucked.
paintball
Iraqi insurgents HAVE guns. They have PILES of guns. They *CHOOSE* not to use them because they ARE NOT EFFECTIVE.
The insurgents would be doing us a HUGE FAVOR if they started using guns. Why? Because then we would know who the insurgents were - they're the guys shooting at us - and we'd know where they are - in the building the bullets are coming from! Then we just drop a bomb on the building, problem solved.
Instead, the insurgents avoid using guns and instead use bombs. Why? Because when a bomb kills your troops, the bomb doesn't tell you who or where the insurgent is.
That's the problem with you gun nuts - you have absolutely no concept of tactics. You think that "Oo, I can shoot the other guy, I win!" The other guy is thinking "Oo, I can drop a bomb on the other guy, I win!" and HE is right.
Insurgents in Iraq are not causing all this damage DESPITE not using guns, they're causing it BECAUSE they don't use guns.
The insurgents who thought they could fight the US with guns are already dead. Only the insurgents who use bombs are left, because they're never around to be killed.
paintball
would these be the same people that were guards at abu ghraib? or that are patroling gitmo? or murdered iraqi civilians execution style? and so on...
sum.zero
guns don't do much good when...your opposition has clusterbombs and cruise missiles.
You can't huh? Is that why the Iraqui Insurgents are still mostly fine and dandy? Is that why nobody has claimed the $10 Mil bounty on one of the leaders' head? Is that why our soldiers keep getting their asses blown up by a roadside bomb that cost less than $5 to make?
Cruise missiles are good for point targets, to destroy something without causing massive collateral damage. They're so expensive that it dosen't make sense to use them en masse... And cluster bombs are for all intents and purposes, weapons of (a little mass) destruction. If you want to take out an area 100x70 meters, that's what they're good for.
A network of like-minded people is all that it takes to counter all of the billions and billions of dollars that all of the first-world governments combined have spent on weapons in the last 50 years. There will never be anything more effective to counter such a group but troops pounding the pavement... That is, unless they are willing to destroy every living thing at their target site...
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Saying that the governments in the US and Birtian possibly changing is due to the insurgency in Iraq is about as valid as saying the governments in Germany, France, etc, didn't support the invasion because of the insurgency in Iraq, even though the insurgency hadn't happened yet.
Many people thought that invading Iraq was a bad idea. Those people had a government that did not reflect that opinion - in the US, partly because people vote on other issues (like gun control or abortion) that are the most important to them and get you a government that likes to invade other countries as a consequence.
Hell, the government in the US *HAS* to change if for no other reason than that Bush's term limits are up. It's even looking likely that we might get a presidential race between someone like Feingold and McCain - can you imagine that? Each party fielding a rational, intelligent candidate?
Anyway, even if your (or their) definition of success is "get rid of hated US government", they still are failing: At best, they've substitted one hated government for another. Even if Bush gets ousted by a Democrat, the American troops arn't going anywhere - we broke it, we've bought it. The only thing dumber than invading Iraq would be to leave it without finishing the job.
The truth is, though, that THEIR definition of success isn't even political change. Their definition of success is "Condutct/die in a holy war." If you gave many of these guys the choice between wiping the US off the face of the earth and going home to farm with their family, OR continuing a holy war, many of them would find a way to continue a holy war.
That was the big mistake the US made in invading Iraq: We gave the Arab "freedom fighters" a way to fight a holy war locally.
paintball
Just take a look at the architects of the Iraqi invasion and it's biggest backers - all people that did not serve in the military (many took multiple deferments such as Cheney) and do not have family members serving in Iraq.
If Bush, Cheney, Rummsfield and GOP leaders in Congress all had sons or daughters in the service who would have been on the front lines, maybe they really would have treated war as a last resort rather than planning on invading Iraq from day 1. Maybe they would have made plans to secure the country after ousting Saddam instead of ignoring historians who predicted violent resistance to any occupation. Maybe they would have been a little less eager to legalize tourture if they knew their family members could be patrolling the streets of Baghdad and the information leaked out. Invading Iran might not even be on the table of discussion if it meant sending Jr. out on his 4th tour of duty. But no, they've only risked other peoples lives, other peoples sons and daughters.
Far from being a "tired argument", you could hardly find one more relevant.