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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.'"
"and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on"
And thats EXACTLY why we won't have it.
his mark can be examined to identify you and track where you've been!
That's true, to a point. However not every person's DNA/fingerprints are on file. I was born in 1981 and I wasn't finger printed when I was born (well actually foot printed then). Then in school, my mom never had me fingerprinted either when they had the fingerprint drive for kids incase they get abducted. I've never been in trouble w/ the law, except for a traffic ticket here and there. That doesn't mean I'm innocent, it just means I've never been in trouble. So when they go and dust something for fingerprints they'll find mine, but when they do a search, I'm not in the system.
"When it's applied to everybody, it is fair, and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on."
I better know it's going on. I don't necessary have a problem with keeping a record of DNA and fingerprints and suck on file for kids, especially when I've been reading about alot of abductions in the paper lately. However, it should be known that it's happening. And it should be somethign that can be removed from the list. It also brings up the question of Witness Protection. Some teach savy crook can get a copy of your fingerprints and just keep an eye on any criminal complaints that come along.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
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 unthinkingly "progressive" can you be?
It's still not illegal to read The Anarchist Cookbook, but it's still illegal to blow up buildings. Determining which teenager purchased The Anarchist Cookbook a week before the school blew up is a perfectly valid tool the police can use when tracking down who the bomber is.
Come back when there is a consistent practice of knocking down people's doors just for buying The Anarchist Cookbook.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The problem with a DNA database is that everytime they run a search against it, everyone in the database is a suspect.
"Blah blah blah it's no different than fingerprints blah blah blah"
You're wrong. It's nothing like fingerprints. My fingerprints are unique.
With DNA, they can get a partial match based on your relatives. Ontop of that, DNA matching isn't always all that accurate. You can read a lengthy book excerpt that goes in depth.
DNA evidence isn't always all the prosecutors make it out to be.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That's a definite problem. Which is why you'd better always get a good lawyer.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
> What I find interesting is the term "bad guy". It seems I've been hearing this alot lately. [...] I'm kind of worried, is this the new code word for sub human? For unexplaned threat?
....You should be TERRIFIED!!" (From the Viewer Mail segment where someone submitted a through-the-passenger-window photo of a GE-brand airline jet engine.)
To paraphrase Dave Letterman, "You shouldn't be worried.
I'd say that your intuitive unease is spot-on: this sounds like yet another [double/new]speak term for "anyone we don't like for whatever reason". Compare it with the conservative/Republican term "family values" -- a catchphrase that encompassed a hell of a lot of hidden meanings....
- Two-parent family household
o Must be heterosexual married couple
o Husband must be "in charge"; wife cannot have career
- Must follow (and teach to children) fundamentalist Christian beliefs, including
o Abstinence before marriage
o No use of contraception (even when married!)
o No abortions -- ever!
o Wife must always "joyfully submit" to husband
o No tolerance of homosexuality
Thankfully, I don't hear people throw around the phrase "family values" very much anymore -- every time I do, I want to either laugh or vomit.
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
I thought it was 'enemy combatant'.
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.
Exactly- there's a danger that you may be associated with a crime or criminality because of your relationship.
What happens if someone goes for a job in, um let's just say a security firm, or a bank, or the army, and they get turned down because your estranged half brother committed credit card fraud 5 years ago on the other side of the country.
Even worse, that pervy loner uncle that no-one ever talks about much rapes and kills a girl, and they come looking for you because you're a match.
Even worse in some ways (you can always get an alabi for the occasional criminal accusation, burglary etc) is when big business gets it's hands on the records (which is pretty much inevitable), and withold mortgages from honest people with dishonest relatives.
Compulsory DNA database? Pffffft. I'm glad I'm Irish, and not for the first time.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
First...
That second point of immigrants not being tagged is simply not true... as my GF and I quite often leave the country with her (she is from Taiwan). And I can certainly tell you, she gets harassed almost as much as I do. The last time we entered the country, they tried to force a RFID sheet for her passport. (I happen to work for a few firms that provide such tech). Tagged? You bet.
And all it takes is to be on someone's list and presto, you are suspect for everything from the bombing in Madrid to last week's football team loosing. (Trust me on this one; I've been detained, harassed, and questioned more times than I really care to count.)
And second (the natural follow up)...
DNA and Thumbprints are not taken from every citizen OFFICALLY.
Do you honestly think that the government will let a little thing like the "law" stop them for something that they REALLY want to do? Please, for years the government deigned the very existence of the NSA (can you say lied?) until far too many people started to squawk and question budgets, etc... Look at the news. More things are popping out not because the government is saying "we want to do this"... it's because a whistleblower has come forth with a conscious and let people (ie: the media) know... And what is the rhetoric we hear when such things come to light? "It's for our protection". I am sure some honest hearted people really think that (and a few of them might even be in positions of power to influence things), but the reality is... MOST people enjoy power, and what scares them is the loss of such power... And what do you think the government is made up of? There is no special tests, no trials, no rituals, nothing that prevents someone from running for (and obtaining) office besides the ability to schmooze and enough money to schmooze the masses).
Remember, in the current political climate, you are dealing with a military mind, and to the military, EVERYONE is a suspect, EVERYONE is a liability unless they are officially part of the military (and even then, constant checks) and anyone that is a suspect needs to be controlled and managed.
So I agree with the person that said, stop trying to put our collective heads in the sand, and enforce some rules on how it can use the information is collecting (and you can be sure it IS collecting it, it may not be doing it officially, but you can bet it is).
And now *breathing out*.
I will go...
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
I think it would be accurate to say that in modern terms he was "bi."
In point of fact he was, because his culture was, indiscriminate. He'd get off with guys in camp because it was full of guys, and rape the women in the towns he conquered, because they were full of women.
There was, indeed, a certain aversion to homosexuality as a sexual perversion, but not because it was the obverse to heterosexual, that was just as perverted. "Bi" to one degree or another was considered normal.
It was ok to prefer one or the other, but weird not get off with whoever, or perhaps whatever, was available. Exclusion was the sexual perversion as behavioral extremism.
Alexander's primary bonded relationship was with a guy, but he had three wives as well.
The ancient Macedoneons were different from us and our mores simply cannot be mapped to their way of thinking.
Much the point of my initial post. Rape and murder were part of a good soldiers reward; and part of his duty. He was the "good guy" while performing that duty and would be the "bad guy" if he were disinclined.
And people would look at him funny besides. See the opening of Eric the Viking.
KFG
Any "thing" that requires more money
Now, we just have to test the validity of the assertion that giant databases increase the incidence of wrongful accusations.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
And we have just found genetic material on a rape victim in Taiwan proving that not only are you a rapist but that you were in Taiwan illegally without a visa. How are you going to prove your innocence?
There has already been a case of mistaken identity with DNA evidence when a British guy was accused of a rape commited in Italy even though he had never left the Britain. When these databases get too large the idea that no two are the same goes out the window because they only look at so many points and it only identifies you as one a few million. When the whole of the US is linked with the whole of the EU that will be about half a billion. There will be mistakes and the general public (i.e. a jury) is not yet ready to see this new snake oil as phalable.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.