Slashdot Mirror
Vast DNA Bank Pits Policing Vs. Privacy
schwit1 writes "Today a Washington Post story discusses the vast U.S. bank of genetic material it has gathered over the last few years. Already home to the genetic information of almost 3 Million Americans, the database grows by 80,000 citizens a month." From the article: "'This is the single best way to catch bad guys and keep them off the street,' said Chris Asplen, a lawyer with the Washington firm Smith Alling Lane and former executive director of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence. 'When it's applied to everybody, it is fair, and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on.'"
But which people are the bad guys is subject to continuous change. Yesterday it was the rapists and murderers. Today it is the filesharers. Tomorrow it is the occasional book reader.
What I find interesting is the term "bad guy". It seems I've been hearing this alot lately. It is like some strange code word, and when that label is applied to someone, they instantly become a target that can be killed, arrested, abused, even tortured without a guilty consciense.
For instance, in numerous television interviews, troops in Iraq talk about bad guys, cops on the street talk about them, inteligence agency agents talk about them etc.
I'm kind of worried, is this the new code word for sub human? For unexplaned threat?
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
"'This is the single best way to catch bad guys and keep them off the street,' said Chris Asplen, a lawyer with the Washington firm Smith Alling Lane and former executive director of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence. 'When it's applied to everybody, it is fair, and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on.'"
In other words, "It's not a crime if you don't get caught." I guess I should start robbing the estates of the dead. They wouldn't know about it, so I guess I should be able to do it. Or actually, no, you idiot. Just because no one knows about it doesn't make it any better. In fact, it makes your actions more cowardly.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Just because something is fair does not make it good.
I would be greatly interested in a link to just who has had their data collected, and their collection methods. I do not want (and I am far from alone in this) the government keeping tabs on me or archiving my personal habits into some large database that will be used against me in the future. I have never been indicted nor found guilty of any crime and as such there is no reason for the government to retain such information.
Frankly this: "you wouldn't even know it was going on." scares me the most of all.
"This is the single best way to catch bad guys and keep them off the street"
No, the single best way to keep bad people off the street, is to not allow ANYONE onto the street. But that has its drawbacks too...
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
There's a much worse privacy concern.
Did you know that whenever you touch anything with your hand, you leave a unique mark on the thing you touched? This mark can be examined to identify you and track where you've been! Everywhere you've been.
It's a privacy nightmare. Where's the ACLU on this?
My buddy's wife-nurse claims everyone born in a michigan hospital since the mid 60's has a dna sample that is kept in storage. I think it was blood but I'm not sure.
Not commenting on whether I think the database is a good or bad idea beyond stating I think it is bad...
I do think that once a profile is done and a unique ID (The 52 digit number mentioned in the article and thread title) is developed that the sample can be destroyed. Concerns about new techniques etc are red herrings - if there is a need to do more with a given individuals DNA in a criminal investigation then the authorities should be able to show probable cause to get a new sample and do the analysis. Keeping a sample in storage is an invitation to abuse of the data.
"and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on"
And thats EXACTLY why we won't have it.
No, tomorrow it will be any individual who isn't a member of the government or a government-approved corporation.
Sure, you can try and make the argument that DNA will list all of genetic faults while a fingerprint won't, but i think Gattaca is still a long way off and protections can be built into law which will prevent such genetic profiling.
In Gattaca, genetic profiling was technically against the law, but was the de-facto standard way of life regardless of the law.
Rapists leave DNA and not fingerprints. Even if someone feels like their personal privacy is being invaded, if it solves even just a handful of rape or other horrid crimes, then it's worth whatever misconceived big brother conspiracy that some will obviously believe is taking place.
We don't believe a "big brother conspiracy" is taking place here. We have observed, in history, that virtually every government that is given certain powers becomes corrupt and abuses those powers, and we don't expect the U.S. government to be magically more trustworthy.
Thus, we clearly outline our rights, and defend them on principle.
Among those rights are freedom of speech, press, and religion, freedom from "unfair" search and seizure, and privacy. There are many examples of why those rights are necessary, including but definitely not limited to Nazi Germany, the McCarthy era, Japanese immigrant detention in WWII, and the causes of the Revolutionary War.
In other words, even if it leads to some more rapes, if it prevents even just a handful of genocides or other horrid crimes, then it's worth defending your rights to the death.
(or someone important for that matter). How hard would it be for an agent of the state to go edit your "dna profile" and swap you with a child molester?
because we have now been told for years that DNA is 100% infallible, it can never be wrong.
...when you pry it from my cold dead cells.
The sovereignty of the state ends at my skin. Anyone attempting to force a DNA sample out of me will be dealt with in the same manner I would deal with an attempted sexual assault.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Just tune in when a speech of the prez is to happen. Full assembly.
As you can see "bad guy" depends entirely on your point of view and definition. What is a "bad guy"? Someone who robs a bank? Kills someone? Oh, for sure, many people will agree that those are "bad guys".
What about more "questionable" bad guys? With a complete DNA database, you're save from nothing. Even the tinyest lapse of "good behaviour" has consequences. Even if you don't know it. Thrown away a cigarette stub somewhere? Well, you might not have known it, but smoking wasn't allowed in that area. Spat on the street? Too bad your saliva landed on some spraycan that was used for a graffity. Got allergies? Better take that wads of snot with you, dumping them in the next trashcan might transfer your DNA to the cellphone some hijacker used and dumped.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How easy is it to transfer DNA "evidence"? Trivial.
DNA is the single most worthless piece of crap for proving anything. All these experts talk about is how exact they can be about who's DNA it is, they never talk about how exact they can be about how it got to where it was found.
TWW
PS. This is my 3000th and last post. It's been fun and all that but I'm running out of years to be spending them ranting for free on /. Bye bye.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Someone doesn't think twice when someone steps in behimd them at that hair salon until the police have "conclusive evidence" that you are the murderer. You hair gets dropped at 3 crime scenes you are now a serial criminal. What is that going to cost ya to prove you are not guilty!
"When it's applied to everybody, it is fair, and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on."
If full scale thermo nuclear war killed everyone in the world, it would be "fair." That doesn't make it reasonable or right.
When it's applied to everybody, it is fair, and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on.
I honestly don't care that my DNA is on file. I want to know however, about programs which are allowed to use this information, and for what purpose. The overwhelming majority of the people in the U.S. are law abiding citizens(unless you go by *IAA standards) and are willing to at least passively assist in protecting their way of life. To some extent, people will act the way you treat them, so if you treat a population like criminals and spying on them, don't be shocked when they start acting like criminals and finding ways to hide things from you.
even if there is a big brother conspiracy, being misconceived is a matter of opinion. but the future will tell. with the current state of affairs, i don't think its difficult to see where this is headed, and also the potential for abuse...
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ Ron Paul for President 2008 http://www.infowars.com/
Requirements for being "land of the free":
... ... ...
* Take thumbprints, photo and install RFID chip on immigrants (check)
* Take DNA and thumbs of every citizen (check)
* Monitor phone calls nation-wide and data transferred over the network (check)
* Big corporation control the government, government controls the people, people control nothing (check)
That's some land of the free you got there, guys.
Don't want your DNA used by law enforcement? Then don't commit crimes! Fingerprint technology has been around for decades... can someone give me some examples of how that has been used to violate the rights of the innocent?
'This is the single best way to catch bad guys and keep them off the street,' said Chris Asplen
Chris, as long as everyone agrees on what exactly a "bad guy" is, this isn't much of a problem. However, with the current US king^H^H^Hpresident already redefining prisoners of war as something else ("enemy combatants") just so he do with them as he pleases, the definition of "bad guy" might not long stay something we all agree upon...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Finger prints are very hard to fake. Sure, you COULD do it, but DNA is designed to facilitate replication.
A few dollars and a PCR machine, and there's enough DNA to "taint" anything I want. If I already have the DNA, I can frame someone with DNA "evidence" and the current miseducated jury will proclaim the 100% match to be 100% proof.
So you should be worried about databases of DNA. There's no worry about using the DNA itself, just the governmental agencies posessing it. If a court orders I give a DNA sample to test against existing evidence, I can't see the easy ability for abuse (I'm not considering the self-incrimination angle.)
A database is a much different matter.
Looks like Mr. John Doe has finally gone too far. Pull his DNA file, duplicate it in mass, and
spread it around the next dead homeless person you find. Who knew he was socially unbalanced and
liked to kill homeless people? Well, those political activists were always a strange bunch! A
few years in prison will help him sort is out.
When did it become appropriate for the government to own a piece of you? A fingerprint is an external feature, but DNA is a part of you. Ceratinly it will be put to noble uses, but like anything that is available, sooner or later it will also be put to much less than noble uses. That's just human nature.
I know all the Slashdot fanboys are violently against anyone collecting personal information about them without their permission. I can't say I disagree (at a gut-feel level). But set your emotional disgust and fear aside and think about it.
Information collection isn't the problem. Information misuse is the problem.
The problem with the data brokerage industry isn't that they collect data about me (and sometimes get it wrong). The problem is that there's no transparency for consumers into the data kept about them, and no efficient process for them to get inaccuracies corrected. The problem is that companies and the government are often using data (sometimes incorrect) in ways they shouldn't be allowed to.
You just can't stop data collection. It's going to happen, it's already happening, it's been happening. Organizations and people need to collect and exchange information in order for the economy and society to function efficiently and smoothly. Law enforcement needs information to investigate and prosecute wrongdoers. These kinds of informational needs aren't going to magically disappear.
What needs to be stopped it the misuse of data. I should be guaranteed by law the right to completely and freely see, without being charged, at any time, any and all information that any organization, business, or the government has on me, and I should be able to challenge the accuracy of the data and get corrections made in a timely manner. It should be illegal for law enforcement or the government to use data about my legal actions or protected opinions as justification for arresting me, harassing me, publicly smearing me, getting a search warrant against me, or suspecting me of criminal activity. It should be illegal for a lender to deny me a loan based on inaccurate information in my credit report; I should be guaranteed by law an opportunity to prove that the information is wrong and the lender should then be forced to reevaluate using the corrected data. It should be illegal for an employer to not hire me based on information in my credit report or medical records. Etc.
What we need are more accurate and good laws to protect people against the misuse of information. Then the mere collection of data becomes a moot point.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Actually, a bigger problem (not to take away from your point, but to underscore it) is that everyone not in the database is not a suspect. So when you hear them say they have it "narrowed down to two people", of course they mean "it's either these two or perhaps 6 billion not on record, or even 1 million of those who might match all they searched for". But you just know they're going to spend more time harassing those they have data on than on the other 1 million that would have matched if they were on file, too.
On the other hand, I think it's inevitable that these databases will happen. At some level, I'd rather we start moving ahead to create laws on how such info can and cannot be used than worrying about stopping the inevitable. Perhaps that's giving up. But it's practical.
Rather than telling insurance companies they can't have the data, I'd rather say they cannot discriminate in how they use it. Because at least then we can start to take statistical data on who they deny insurance to or who they fail to pay quickly and we can start to see if they are being fair. As long as this is secret, then only they can know if they are discriminating, since it becomes a "risk" to give a watchdog organization the data they should be watching for, and that's a problem right in oversight...
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
What makes me laugh when I see posts SUPPORTING an all out assault on our freedoms, is that they don't realize that by defending the assualt, they are supporting forfeiture of their own rights.
But then I realize I shouldn't get all worked up over the US Government doing this, I need to get worked up over my fellow Citizens who are letting this happen by not voicing Outrage.
Our current Laws, and Judical system (Thanks to the last couple SCOTUS appointments) give the executive branch so much power that they can dismantle our sacred rights.
This isn't a hypothetical, its happening now.
Wake up people.
--
Ok, so 3 million may seem shockinly large for you americans, but thats only 0.5% of your population, move to the UK, and you get a larger database, ok so only 3.4+ million DNA samples, covering 5% of the population.n g-science/dna-database/
Take a look at this:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/science-research/usi
Today a Washington Post story discusses the vast U.S. bank of genetic material it has gathered over the last few years.
Wait...the Washington Post has been gathering genetic material?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
That's just the point, sir. It will NOT be applied to everybody, thus it WON'T be fair. Find me one single law that applies to everybody...fairly!
"... and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on."
I'm sure that's what you're counting on.
What?
The time is swiftly approaching for patriots to initiate the Second American Revolution and burn Washington D.C. to the ground.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Last week I went to buy a pack of smokes and the cashier said there was a new law that requires you to show some I.D. when purchasing cigarettes. I'm 55 w/ grey hair. It's obvious I'm old engough (and dumb enough)to smoke. But she was insistent that I show my I.D. After a couple of days of this, I asked her if there was a camera watching her and she said yes, thats why she has to check.
Seems pretty minor (not to mention creepy) but I beleive it's this constant onslought of new laws that is the most dangerous threat to our freedoms and way of life.
The congress (both federal and state) seem to think you can solve any problem just by passing a bill. And with the current culture of lobbyism/activism not unresaonable to think that eventually everybody will be guilty of something.
Right now we have a wannabe facist administration. What do you think will happen if we get a real one? Should someone dare speak out there would certainly be something they could be arrested on.
It's not even really about the impact new laws have on us today, but how they might be used in the future. Isn't kind of odd that people cussing someone out are now charged w/ making a 'Terrorist Threat'? Or have the baby seat pointing in the wrong direction is 'Child Endangerment' (a felony unless you're Britney Sprears). And of course remember Al Capone was eventually brought down with 'Tax Evasion' charges. You might think he might of deserved it but remember you could someday be on their rader.
Not to mention they're taking all our freedoms by protecting everybodys rights.
R.H.
It'll quit hurtin' once the pain stops.
You may not be alone in this but you are still in the minority. Most people don't give a shit about this stuff. When it gets so bad that they do care it's too late, so it makes no difference then.
Legislators know that they just have to use phrases such as 'protecting the children' or 'defeating terrorism' and the vast majority of Americans will happily agree to whatever draconian demands are made or laws passed.
There's very little, if anything, the minority you are a member of can do to effectively counter that. Not without making yourself a target of people with the power and authority to ruin - or even end - your life.
The United States of America has willingly turned its back on its own Constitution and Bill of Rights, and is rapidly on the way to becoming a police state.
As far as I'm concerned, the next American who tries to claim to live in "The Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave" will get spat on...unless he's recently switched citizenship.
THEN we'll see whether the lawyer community is as eager to be profiled via DNA as they are to have others profiled that way.
Just imagine, a crime is committed, and the latent DNA evidence at the scene (which may or may not have anything to do with the crime) is determined to include the previously identified "LAWYER SEQUENCE". The list of suspects is automatically expanded to include any members of the legal profession known to be in the vicinity (via NSA phone tracking and TIA data mining of credit card transactions), and they are all hauled in and subjected to mandatory DNA matching with the "evidence".
I suppose they would feel that their rights had not been infringed upon when none of them happened to match the subset of markers chosen for comparison. Or, pity the poor sod(s) who happened to match more closely than anyone else.
There is a fundamental problem with using an indicator such as a DNA match as the primary evidence of guilt instead of as a datum providing additional correlation to other evidence such as motive and method.
Lest the possibility of a correlation of DNA with aptitude for a profession seem far-fetched, there is the (admittedly highly controversial -- so much so that it is difficult/impossible to get a fair assessment of the claims amidst the furor) statistical study that purports to show a linkage between many factors (including profession) to one's zodiacal sign (or season of one's birth).
It would seem to be a trivial thing to confirm at least some of these results by using birth dates of those passing the bar exams as compared to the distribution of birth dates in the population at large. But I suspect that the legal community might have qualms about allowing a substantial body of data about them to be plumbed for arcane inexplicable correlations.
Just in case these opinions are widely shared in the legal community, and not just the property of the nutcase quoted, it would go a long way toward building a public trust if all the bar associations would make DNA typing and registration part and parcel of the process of becoming a lawyer.
They could actually DO that fairly easily.
However, the roots of the word (in it's Nazi context) go deeper than that. It originated in 1922 from the writings of an American named Stoddard who was racist, a WASP and a white supremacist.
From the wiki:
SO, yea, it's relevant that he's "rehashing a small part of the parent post in another language." If you had bothered to look it up (or even just guessed at its Nazi heritage) you would have understood the social commentary being made.
I don't know if the OP knew that the word was originated by an American, but it adds an extra layer of meaning to his short comment.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
FTA:
Law enforcement officials say they have no interest in reading people's genetic secrets. The U.S. profiling system focuses on just 13 small regions of the DNA molecule -- regions that do not code for any known biological or behavioral traits but vary enough to give everyone who is not an identical twin a unique 52-digit number.
This is nothing more then authentication for matching parts that came from you to you yourself. I think it is unreasonable for anyone to believe that the US government is intent on storing the complete genetic profile all 300 million US citizens much less being able to do anything useful with that information. Besides, 99.9% of all of those profiles would be more or less identical and a total waste to store!
With every new technology there is both a potential for abuse and a potential for doing a great amount of good. Obviously you have all covered the (extreme) cases of potential abuse, but what about the benefits of such a system? All the talk about this being a civil rights violation is pure rhetoric. If you consider the efficiency and elimination of possible false convictions that will arise from having such a system, it starts to sound more and more like a good thing. The ability to identify a murderer/rapist/terrorist in a split second? The ability to automatically rule out all the innocent people as possible suspects in a split second? The ability to eliminate the need for massive amounts of investigative work that comes with building a murder case with a quick SQL query? You guys can be paranoid all you want to, but I would actually be more relieved to know that for once our government is putting science and technology to good use. When the FBI starts praying to God in order to crack cases and find suspects, then I'll be worried. Until then, I have faith in science and technology.
When it comes down to it such a system is an innevitability and I think the true concern is whether or not it is done right. This sounds to me like they're doing it right using DNA as a biometric identifier as opposed to genetic profiling. I call FUD.
But when criminals get a hold of it, it will be the reverse. Organ mining.
Read radical news here
Actually, the single best way to catch bad guys is to arrest everyone and put them in jail. Collecting evidence against everyone is only second best.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Index finger prints, not thumb prints. That said, I believe it's all fingers for immigrants anyway.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
its only a matter of time until Law enforcement lobbies to use the technology to screen for those genetically predisposed towards crime and forces them to undergo more surveillance i.e. ankle bracelets.
Law enforcement is always trying to get more power to "do their job" always. Its completely moronic for anyone to believe that Law enforcement has no interest in genetic screening this material. They just haven't thought of a good use for it yet, but they will, just like always and when they do our congressmen will bend us over and fuck us in the ass in the name of keeping us safe.
My attitude towards my government (USA) and my belief in the value it holds for me was a lot better.
today I roil with distaste over every story concerning rights, freedom, and privacy.
it would seem, the standard requirement to being a member of the executive branch higher echelon is a willingness to bend the law beyond the point of legality.
I do not consider the country I live in today, to be preferred to the one I lived in five years ago.. (I haven't moved- it has changed)
ten years ago, the bulk of military forces seargent and up were pretty evenly divided between republicans and democrats, today's armed forces are largely republican.. this scares me very badly...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
What do you want for nothing? Rubber biscuit?
Geez, OP has a point. There are problems with DNA evidence, one of which is it's really easy to plant at a crime scene.
Will this be yet one more program that is supposed to serve "just one" purpose, that grows and grows?
Does anyone else refuse to give blood to the Red Cross until they stop asking for FICA numbers?
Feeling has a lot to do with 'quality of life'
3 919.php
if a spouse calls you an asshole every day, your mindset will falter pretty soon, or you'll get a divorce. either way- it is a change.. consider this is the best analogy I can feel about the difference in the relationship between me and my Govt.
as to the other, it's what I got from talking to some vet's I know.. but I found a reference readily
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-251
One likely factor in that support: Military members are much more likely to identify themselves as Republicans. Recent polls show about one-third of Americans consider themselves Republicans, but 57 percent of those surveyed by Military Times identified with the GOP."... "The poll found:
About half described their political views as conservative or very conservative; four in 10 called themselves moderate; and only 7 percent called themselves liberal.
More than half called themselves Republicans, and just 13 percent said they are Democrats. Recent polls of the general public show the nation evenly split, with Democrats, Republicans and independents making up about a third of the population each. "...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
sorry.. I had a paragraph explaing that even after the physical withdrawal was over.. the mental imbalance still jerks me around daily.. it it is a drag on my life.. point being, I'm jarred by the change in perception between me and Government as I am over constantly thinking there is something I should be doing (smoking) that I'm not
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I have a question... Why would the Washington Post have a vast bank of genetic material, and why would they write a story to discuss how much it has gathered over the years.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"When it's applied to everybody, it is fair, and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on."
I wonder what this guy would think if he were denied health insurance because his DNA indicated he was predisposed to get cancer or some disease or there were other indications he may have health problems?
FalconShould there be a Law?
I agree with the comments above in response to this post.
I don't agree with modding the post troll. If you disagree with a legitimate post counter it with arguments like the posters above, don't try to stifle honest discussion by abusing mod powers.
I think it is unreasonable for anyone to believe that the US government is intent on storing the complete genetic profile all 300 million US citizens much less being able to do anything useful with that information. Besides, 99.9% of all of those profiles would be more or less identical and a total waste to store!
You must be new around here...
DO you think computers are not capable of handling this much data?
IBM sells a computer named "BlueGene". It can contain up to 65536 processors, linked via very very fast network connections. I think it costs only a few million dollars.
300 million / 65536 = 4577.
So even if you used a really dumb searching algorithm (one that checked ALL of the entries), 65536 nodes operating in parallel would each only have to look at 4577 people -- a highly trivial number irregardless of how much data was associated with each.
And also consider that there is currently a massive amount of research work in universities (department of defense-sponsored) in the area of Data Mining. I don't think the DoD is using this to find a better target for their "Army of One" advertisments (marketing).....
If $SUBJECT were granted, for the purposes of discussion I would still be inclined to point out that is much more difficult to "misuse" $INFORMATION which has NOT been collected than $INFORMATION sitting in a nice preindexed database.
Law enforcement is not an easy job.
Good.
If you don't understand "Good" , google "Panopticon"
Am I the only one who wondered why the Washington Post has a massive DNA database?
This space intentionally left blank.
kpresident???
Jesus, what a bullshit argument. No court in the world would convict solely on DNA evidence. Even the worst lawyer would ask the arresting officer if his client's DNA could have got on the weapon after it was dumped. The potential for accidents is hardly a good reason to oppose this stuff. For any argument you can make as to how this technology might be abused or cause an accident, you've just shown how ineffective it will be in a court of law. So what's it good for? The same way a telephone book is good for looking up a criminal's address, to make it harder to commit a crime and get away with it. Now if you'd like to say that we, as free persons, need to be able to commit crimes, we can have a real philosophical argument.
How we know is more important than what we know.
A bud of mine in the FBI told me in just the last six years they have gone from being able to hold people 24 hours without any cause to 72 hours without any cause. Just hold them... no charge, no reason, no constitutional protections to speak of.
Britain is shooting for longer-- I guess we'll use them as an example to "average up" against.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Well.. someone has to do it.
Due to a database error, your total was 3,000 posts but you really only have 2,997 posts.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I don't know, but if I had mod points, it would be hard not to mod down a statement post which says "Rapists leave DNA and not fingerprints."
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Your skin/saliva/sweat are falling off you all the times in all sorts of places. For example, suppose that you were brought in for a quick chat at the police station. They're not trying to arrest you (yet), mind you, they just want to clarify some things about your statement. And they offer you a cup of coffee. It has been done to death over the years that if its their cup you've got no expectation to privacy after you move your hands off of it or otherwise discard it, so the police can lift fingerprints from it without any of that pesky 4th Amendment business getting in the way. If you ever touched your lips to the cup, you left saliva on it to, and probably had some skin cells incidentally fall off around the handle. They don't need a heck of a lot of tissue from you to get a sample, and the amount that they do need is falling every year as biotech gets more advanced.
(Sure, I suppose if they had fumbled carrying the cup over from wherever they had autoclaved it to you they could have contaminated it somehow. Realistically, though, the police are probably going to win with "We took every possible precaution to avoid contamination, and believe this DNA (which matches what we found at the murder scene) to be the suspect's. If he disagrees, well, let him submit to a blood test and we'll know in twenty-four hours. Heck, we'll just go ahead and ask for you to compel that blood test now, since this is good enough for a search warrant as it is.")
I'm not actually worried too much by that, to be honest.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Now every time a murder occurs you search the database. And up pop about 350 names. Let's assume you put in some other criteria like location and limit it to people who live within 50 miles of where the murder occurred. If the place happens to be a large city (where the majority of murders occur) you're still talking about 10 names. But you can't be sure none of the other 340 people who match weren't in town on vacation. Solving crimes needs to start with real police work. There's no getting around it. After the police work is done, and you have probably cause, then you can worry about finding out whether there is a DNA match. Starting out with a search of a massive database is sure to result in a lot of false accusations.
Support SETI@home
It was "done to death" before DNA testing; such testing, regardless of the source of the sample, raises serious privacy issues. But given the appropriate protections (warrants etc), I have no problem with such passive collection.
This is where I say, "The government has no legitimate authority to forcibly violate my body. The sovereignty of the state ends at my skin. If you try to penetrate my flesh with that needle I will consider it assault and I will defend myself." Will they assault me anway? Quite likely. Does this remove my right, indeed my duty, to resist the assult? Should I just "lie back and enjoy it"? Fuck no.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
What this meant was that the proper way to use DNA testing was to find suspects by traditional methods, and THEN test them. If you got a match from among them, you had your criminal (or, rather, you had someone who left DNA at the crime scene...not always the same thing!).
What this also meant is that it did not work to START with DNA to find suspects. That is, if you took a DNA sample from the crime scene, and matched it against a database of DNA you had collected for something unrelated to that crime, and got one match, it wasn't that good at all. It told you that this person was one of dozens (or even thousands for some of the tests in use) people with that DNA profile.
Basically, a DNA database, as a tool to find criminals, with the DNA testing technology in use then, would only work if it had everyone who could conceivably be the criminal in the database.
Had DNA testing progressed enough since then that they can now test at enough sites to actually make a DNA match prove (ignoring twins, I suppose!) identity?
Frankly, this has got to be my least favorable argument for justifying anything...
you wouldn't even know it was going on.
It's the same as saying "You know what, I really want to take advantage of you by doing something that I know you wouldn't approve of but I'll rationalize it as ethical and avoid having to ask your permission by saying that what you don't know doesn't exist. So I can't possibly be doing anything wrong since it isn't happening."
Grrrrrr!I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Prisoners and Military personel already give blood to this DNA database.
All they need to do is match the current DNA database to a genealogy database. The perp is a descendant of this man and this woman living in the area. Round them all up for testing. They really don't need a baby's DNA, what they need is the DNA of the oldest living man and woman in every bloodline. Actually they don't even need that, they need to pass a law making it legal to pull DNA from everyone who dies.
Surely the US revolutionary war was caused for the same thing as the war against mexico, and the civil war - for the right to keep slaves.
Well, in a way. My point was what mindset one should use. When I consider the real world, I see either what others have said about it, or what I can see with the intellectual tools available to me. Maybe what I see when I consider the world is wrong, rather than my assumptions. If so, I need not reconsider my assumptions, I need to reconsider the world.
...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
"Hey, you're a bad person. So we're going to give you all these labels. And lock you away; you don't deserve to be free. And take away many of your rights; you don't deserve to have them.
Do you believe that we should always give all of the same rights to everyone? If a man has molested children, should he have the right to be employed as a schoolteacher? If a man has a history of drunk driving should he have the right to drive a car?
Don't you think that there are people in the world who don't deserve freedom? Those who have not earned it?
That said, I like your thoughts on how our words can convey our hidden thoughts or desires.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
This part of the thread reminds me of the movie Gattaca (1997). In a nutshell, DNA testing was done at birth, and if you had problems, you
were a second class citizen. The entire world revolved around DNA testing to make sure the "problem people" never got an even break.
BWP