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US Set on Expansion of Security DNA Collection
An anonymous reader dropped us a link to this New York Times article about a 'vast expansion' of DNA sampling here in the US. A little-noticed rider to the January 2006 renewal of the 'Violence Against Women Act' allows government agencies to collect DNA samples from any individual arrested by federal authorities, and from every illegal immigrant held for any length of time by US agents. The goal is to make DNA collection as routine a part of detainment as fingerprinting and photography. Privacy experts and immigrant rights groups are decrying this initiative already. Many are also skeptical of lab throughput, as FBI analysts indicate this may increase intake by as much as a million samples per year. There is already a backlog of 150,000 samples waiting to be entered into the agency's database.
Of course, the innocent have nothing to fear from this. We Love Big Blair.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
i don't think keeping a dna database is much a problem. people just fear that the government would abuse this system and possibly set people up and what not. it just shows people don't trust democracy any more and that they definitely don't trust the people that they voted into power.
There are many quotes by our forefathers regarding this. It's a slow death, a slippery slope. We must avoid national security cards, mass DNA fingerprinting, etc, otherwise we will become like the old Soviet state, where you were screwed if you didn't have your "papers".
..........FULL STOP.
In America; screw missing papers.
In Soviet Russia, missing papers screw YOU!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
I don't disagree, but the irony of your statement is that with cheap DNA you would just automatically have your "papers" at all times.
Lynn Parrish is quoted saying: "Rapists are generalists. They don't just rape, they also murder."
brr.
I can see where this is heading. "Robbers don't just rob, they also murder." --> "Beggers don't just beg, they also murder." --> "People spitting on the ground don't just spit on the ground, they also murder."
Basically what she's saying is that all criminals are inherently equal, and potential murderers, and thus deserve to be treated in the worst way.
Now pray, do tell me that that is not a scary viewpoint.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Yes, except that they don't yet have portable checkers. That means that if you are to be tested, you have to stay in a cell whilst they test your DNA. As a punishment for not bringing your ID papers :).
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
The first is the "show us your papers" police state behavior that has a camera on every street corner, national identity cards, huge databases of citizen info, warrantless monitoring of telephone and internet traffic, computerized gerrymandering, cell phone location tracking, etc, etc, etc.
/me puts tinfoil hat back on and crawls back under the bed.
The second is the "buy now!" corporation state behavior that has every purchase, every click, every commercial fast-forwarded through monitored and recorded and analyzed, while MAFIAA-DRM "loss prevention" and RFID tags in your underwear close the few remaining loopholes.
Between the politicians greed for limitless power and the corporations limitless greed for wealth, the average citizen doesn't stand a chance. Like the frog in the pot of water, they keep raising the temperature and we keep not noticing. When I read these stories I think: "By God, if there was anywhere to go, I would".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
DNA is far from perfect. Semen in a rape case, victims blood on murderers clothes, those are workable applications. But when you hoover a crimescene and test everything, suddenly people with even multiple degrees of seperation become suspects. You may not have commited the murder, but your eyelash was found on the victim. It fell onto that guys shoulder that you bumped into on the street. He's the murderer.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
... well, we are all thinking of goverment as big brother - what about private contractors wanting this?
What will you do when goverment decides private firms (haliburton, or one of your private health insurance corporations) are the best entities to run these things. Outsourcing, anyone?
How do you absolutely guarantee that the DNA database wont be used for employee application selection, or for deciding your premium on your health insurance?
I'll just mention that Sweden has a (for medical use only - but that's currently under discussion) DNA database of all in sweden newborns since 1975 (if you havent specifically asked for non-participation), called the PKU database. It's still ongoing (my little dude was just last week registred - he's a couple of weeks)
Certain "high profile" crimes have been resulted in that the use of this database is under discussion - and the debate is for what uses this database could/should be used.
My hopes are that never, ever will this database be sent to the US/Feds/CIA (as flight iternaries are), and also that private corporation use is prohibited. Think of the society where your employer knows all about your DNA... (go see GATTACA).
"If it can be thought up, there exists at least one person trying to make it happen for real" - Phil
I'm a European, I love to travel, and I've recently decided I'm not going to travel to the USA until things improve there. How sad is that?
How quickly things can change...
Riders is a total loophole in the democracy that's possible to drive a dictatorship through. Given your use of power internationally (both diplomatic and violent power), we would prefer if you had a better functioning democracy. Do you have any estimated time-to-fix? Even a time-to-start-working-on-a-fix would be helpful.
Thanks!
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
How many criminals wear gloves? That's how many criminals will potentially carry a bottle of somebody's cultured DNA.
Why are immigrants rights groups getting angry. The article says it would be applied to illegal immigrants (or at least the summary does - no-one read the actual article do they?). As a person who has only briefly visited the USA, my understanding of the law was the illegal immigrants had very little rights and they are obviously committing a crime being in the country illegally and all... I have no problem with DNA samples being taken from people committing crimes.
:(){
If I'm arrested for anything, I'd be refusing the DNA sample and taking it through the courts. It appears that nobody has questioned the right of the police to store DNA indefinitely. Don't they also take DNA swabs from children at birth now?
Fingerprints are bad enough, but at least they aren't much use beyond identification (and any abuses of identification).
But DNA? They say they are collecting it for identification, but it's practically your personal biological blueprint. Once enough of the population has their DNA recorded, you can expect to see all kinds of non-identification uses and novel abuses. Expect to see the data sold to companies that do background checks, so that potential employers can check for the "alcohol abuse gene" or the "predisposed to violent rage" gene, or subtle forms of racial discrimination like the gene that causes sickle-cell anemia.
Who knows what the future holds? Privacy is like Pandora's Box - once you give it away, you can never get it back. Anyone clinging to the, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about" meme just lacks imagination.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I thought they had already accomplished this by making parents do it in case their child is abducted. They get a dental impression and a cheek swab for DNA. Granted, it would take another 60 or 70 years to make sure you had everyone, but they are well on their way.
Ooohh, be carful of little Bobby, better give us a sample of his DNA to hold on record forever.
As I understand it, they keep actual samples to allow future testing after technology has improved. This means that in 30 years, we could imagine a scenario where insurance companies deny your grandchildren coverage because of your genetic makeup. Or, less realistically, the government could decide that some set of genes were bad- for example, caused a tendency for violence- and they would have the tools ready to round people up and arrest them. I can't imagine the government doing this, but the 20th century taught us we always have to be vigilent againt totalitarian regimes developing.
Finally- remember that you don't have to be arrested for them to get your DNA. You may be a model citizen, but have a family member who, eg, because he is at an anti-war rally, gets arrested and gets his DNA taken, and then the government essentially has your DNA too.
I noticed recently when entering the States they took fingerprints and a digital photograph of everyone who is not from the US. This happens everytime we enter, not just the first time.
Do they not do this to US citizens because it is not allowed by law for them?
Do they take it multiple times because they delete it after the traveller's visa has expired (90 days)?
There are many quotes by our forefathers regarding this.
Yeah, but they had ideals about how they thought individuals and society should act. That's why one of my philosophy books on that era was called "The Age of Ideology". America slipped into pragmatism a long time ago: "If it produces results, do it." Lately we've gone way Postmodern and if getting medieval on your ass feels good even if critics in the know who have tortured or been tortured tell you it doesn't work we'll do it anyway for the short-term power fix. A little late in the game to get our innocence back and extort ideals without a national catharsis.
It's just a continuation of BIG BROTHER and centralized government. We have been headed toward a centralized BIG BROTHER government all of my life, 60 years. I just learned last night that we are going to all have a FEDERAL ID as of 2008. Just another small step. That's how they do it, one small step at a time. Then when we end up with no state rights and one CENTRAL GOVERNMENT, few will even notice that our Constitution is no longer valid and fewer yet will even complain and the ones that do will be squashed like a bug. The masses are so easy to fool it's almost funny, if it wasn't so serious.
My children are good examples. One of which is a national merit scholar, who totally expects and has excepted that we are going to have a totally controlling centralized government and thinks you would be crazy to question it and set yourself up as a target. There you go.....the game is already over, it's just a matter of time.
More a question than a comment, but if old uncle Jethro decides to up and rob a liquor store (we always knew how much Jethro loved his liquor) and they collect DNA from him, what does that mean for the rest of the family? I mean, DNA isn't just a way to identify the person. It's a way to identify entire familial relations. So, having never knocked over a liquor store myself (despite those selfish bastards for not giving it away free!) by virtue of a froward uncle, now whenever a liquor store is hit and DNA left behind, not only can they say "looks like Jethro was here" they could conceivably say "looks like a family member of Jethro's was here". What next? Does that give them Probable Cause to DNA test the rest of us...I mean, they KNOW it was one of us, and I do look drunk most of the time.
I hate to invoke the ol' Slippery Slope argument, but it sure seems like a classic case where the government is poring grease on the slope as we speak.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
All this seems to me like it'll just criminalize the already non-criminals. Innoncent until proven guilty, but someone's identity in the system might just be an implication in her/him being a criminal.
I wouldn't mind a database of DNA for convicted criminals, but just those arrested seems like killing a rat with a nuke.
Unfortunately, the founding dudes didn't see privacy as a 'self evident' right. So now, we have to fight for our rights (for privacy, not "to party"). But why do we have to fight so hard, so often, and in such mintue detail?
AKabral
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before. - Thorstein
Aside from the fact that it's (maybe) more accurate, and it's (probably) a little easier to fool, having such a thing for identification doesn't seem that different from fingerprinting.
for identification being the operative words.
Law enforcement wants it because it makes it easier for them to do their jobs--that's their agenda, I understand that. I don't like it from a civil liberties standpoint. New York has been expanding the list of crimes that DNA samples are taken for, just as they've been expanding the number of crimes that count towards the sex offender registry. Well, okay--the latter is done at least in part for political reasons as opposed to law enforcement reasons. Although it's also done to cover the sorts of crimes that the registry is, theoretically, designed to protect against.
The thing that really bothers me about this, though, is the invasion of medical privacy. Of course you lose a lot of rights if you're arrested--but if you're not found guilty, why should you have your medical expectations for your entire life suddenly in the government hands? Eye color? Ethnicity? Tendency to be gay? longevity? Chance of developing prostate cancer? It's one thing if they're keeping enough data to differentiate your DNA from someone else's, on average. It's another if they're keeping enough to select your DNA out of a million people's DNA. And it's something else entirely if they keep a complete sample. Hell, they could clone you. Disturbing thought, eh?
As several people have already said, this is already in widespread use here in the UK. Not just for those who've been arrested/suspected, but also for all those who have given samples to be excluded in a widespread area search. There is no way that these 'innocent' samples can be removed from the database as the law does not allow it. Indeed, witin the few weeks one of the UK's senior police officers has voiced an 'opinion' that it would be beneficial to take a DNA sample from every baby at birth. Also, given the previous history of the UK governments to sell off the family silver, how long will it be before this information can be purchaed by insurance or private medical companies and then used to deny insurance cover - for an example, look at how they sell off details from the electoral register and the vehicle licensing databases to private companies.
I see lots of posts about how this portends the US as a totalitarian police state.
Sorry, but that camel's nose is under the tent - you already let him in. You (the public) has begged and begged for a nanny state that watches over you and caters to your every whim. Got a problem with your neighbor? Let the courts decide. Your crop failed this year? Beg the government for disaster assistance. Hurricane wiped out your below-sea-level home? It *must* be the government's fault for not protecting/saving you, and then complain because the government handouts are insufficient or slow.
It goes back to the line from "A man for all seasons" - (IIRC) would you tear down the law to get at the devil? Of course? Then what will you hide behind when he comes back at you with his terrible power? If you demand the government keep you safe, employed, fed, housed, and happy, you're a hypocrite if you don't realize that logically this requires extensive surveillance. Kind of like the parent of a toddler.
Sorry, but we're getting exactly what we've spent at least the last 50 years begging for - government uber alles. Is it such a shock that the government (in order to protect us from stubbing our toe) wants to begin tracking where we are, what we do, and whom we do it with?
-Styopa
For years, the hospitals have been collecting DNA from every live birth. They also have records of hand and foot prints. So I don't see whats the point of resisting this. The gov is collecting data on us left and right from the time we are born.
Dear Rest of World,
Voting appears ineffective. Total system corruption appears inevitable. Please send another copy of manual of Democracy, ours has been misplaced. Please instruct on how to reboot the system.
Help!
- U.S. Citizens.
Considering how you don't even enjoy First Amendment protections in Europe then it is particularly sad. It's sad that you're so damned blinkered to always be bemoaning the impending fascism of the US while ignoring your own conditions.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
In Texas, you have to give your thumb print for permanent record in order to get a Driver's License or a State ID Card. You essentially need one or the other to operate as any form of legitimate legal citizen.
Once the federal government has ramped up its collection, analysis, and data warehousing facilities for DNA-based identification, it's not hard to imagine that the submission of DNA will become a rote part of the process of applying for the (soon-to-be) required federal ID card.
Heck, if a DNA extraction and sequencing device could be made small, fast, and cheap enough, it's another easy extrapolation to imagine physical DNA identification cross-reference being required at any TSA security check point.
The only way to reduce the reliance on DNA records (yet further validate the use of such in court cases, when the innocents are tried), is to increase the signal/noise ratio. In the case of the movie Gattaca, the way the main character assumed another's identity was by collecting miscellaneous tissue (hair, skin, blood) samples and strategically leaving them around the workplace, so that anyone investigating him would find the DNA for the man he was impersonating.
This could work similarly, if one was, say, to go an extra day or two between showers, as just everyday life would result in little samplings of DNA scattering everywhere. After they find your DNA sample at a liquor store following a robbery, for example, they would be forced to release you, and even pay financial restitution, when they find the same DNA on later crime scenes while you remain incarcerated. At the best, they're forced to pay you off, at the worst, they pay your attorney's fees and the final reward is proving such a cataloging system is flawed and unreliable.
The only question is in the decay rate of DNA. Considering how so many people are being released from prison based on decades old DNA evidence, I'm guessing DNA survives for a relatively long time.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Gattaca
You're exactly correct, but... This is no different than what's been going on with fingerprints for years.
Basically, just do your best to stay out of the database if you don't want to be a suspect in every unsolved crime for the rest of your life. Good luck though... It won't be long until they start taking fourth graders on a field trip to the police station, where they get fingerprinted and swabbed "for fun". They already do it for fingerprints, so why not DNA too?
You're innocent until they're not sure who is guilty.
i'm an immigrant to canada, my ultimate destination was the US until i saw how ape-shit crazy and nationalistic americans became after 9/11, so i stayed in canada. later i had to pass the border to get my passport stamped for the landed immigrant visa, i swear when i passed the border even the sun lost it's sparkle, everything was gray, the buildings were gray, the cars and people were gray, the only thing that was bright and pink were the grossly overweight G.I. Joe border patrol guards and their black/blue uniforms, guns were present EVERYWHERE! it was like dirty harry had become a place and was asking me if i was feeling lucky. i got my picture and fingerprints taken like a common criminal (under the kindly grimace of a framed picture of dick cheney hanging on the wall) and then had my papers stamped and got the hell out of there back to canada, back to freedom, somewhat. this DNA collection won't make things worse, they're already at rock bottom, i purposely missed my cousins wedding because it entailed doing a stop-over in new york and you know what? fuck america, i'm never spending a dime on an american comapny if i can avoid it and i'm not playing the little fascist game they have going on there. sorry i had to rant but it's sad to see what once was a vibrant and relatively open society that trumpeted it's freedom turn into a fear mongering, polarized and confontrational society. maybe it was always like that and it's just my illusions that got brought down to reality but i like to think that there was something special about the US before the '00's.
Go read http://www.thought-criminal.org/ and http://www.info-warriors.com/ ... They cover fingerprinting in schools ... And please don't come back with a comment about their credibility, they generally link to the actual articles. None of it is forced, but they absolutely ARE fingerprinting students. Without parental permission.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Right when the original fingerprinting became routine.
DNA (the genetic fingerprinting) is no different... It helps law-enforcers and is not any more invasive, than the long-accepted practices.
Whether we should've accepted the original collecting (and archiving) fingerprinting of suspects (rather than convicts) is another story. Maybe, those cleared by the trial should have their fingerprints (and any collected DNA-samples) destroyed. Or, maybe, there is nothing wrong with police having them — how can that be abused?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
In Michigan, when a child is born, a government official comes in with a card including all identifying information and takes 5-6 samples of blood and places it on the card. Some are used to test for various rare genetic diseases (which could also be done at the hospital).
Then the card is placed on file at a "secret location" where security includes a "locked gate", and kept until they're 21 1/2, although I don't think the program has been active that long, so no actual destruction of records has taken place.
Luckily, when my child was born, I was able to get them to certify that they had destroyed the blood sample, but they really resisted it.
I tell people about this and they think I'm a nut, but I don't want my kid's DNA in a government warehouse for mass importation into some database.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
I've got a better one:
Capitalism is two wolves haggling over how much a lamb costs.
Democracy is three lambs voting to make eating lamb illegal.
Historically, that's a little closer to the truth. People who hate democracy and want to replace it with "market based solutions" scare the crap out of me. I'll be damned if I'm going to let the people with the most money make all the rules.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It is much simpler than that. Our government wants to spend YOUR money.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
WTF? It sounds great. Collect all the DNA from criminals (or those accused), but what good is collecting DNA if you never compare it to a crime? There are thousands of rape kits that are not processed because the local districts do not have the money to send off the kits to be tested.
I am sure other crimes will be the same...so what does this DNA database do? I think its primary function will be data mining. Maybe not at first, but eventually through something like the freedom of information act or something similar I bet all that DNA will end up in a companies' database.
The second function will be to solve crimes where the victims are either rich or the cases are so high profile that the departments have to be looking like they are trying something.
So where does that leave the lowly victim in a minor *cough* crime of rape? If the person is poor or not a celebrity, then I'd say that DNA database isn't going to be used. The rape kit will sit on a shelf waiting until the department has enough spare money (when do they have that?) to process the kits....and then it'll be tested against the database (when hell freezes over.)
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Pick a European country (and yes I know Europe isn't a country but the original post wasn't being specific) and let's compare and contrast those free speech rights.
My point was that the original post lamented about how horrible things were getting in the US while ignoring the fact that many personal rights are more restricted in the majority of European countries.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
> Yeah, who would imagine that illegal immigrants had also committed other crimes. Illegal immigrants must be great upstanding "citizens" who only break the law whenever it suits them.
Just because you're so desperate for food and money that you'll risk your life to cross an invisible line in the sand instead of hoping to be one of the very, very few to win the green card lottery (yes, lottery--your chances of winning aren't very high and the people are chosen at random) doesn't make you a rapist or murderer.
Imagine we used this logic for, oh, say, speeders? Copyright infringers? (Hope you didn't watch the Super Bowl on a TV larger than 55 inches! See 17 USC 110.) Jaywalkers? Yeah, who would imagine that those who endanger others to get somewhere a few seconds faster would commit other crimes? Speeders must be great upstanding "citizens" who only break the law whenever it suits them.
Conversely, your automatic dismissal of certain sites based on mentioning things in a "non-ironic manner" decreases your 'credibility of having an open mind' enough that I no longer care to provide you with such link because you would simply dismiss it if you did not agree with it. :)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Wait, did you specify OUR government ONLY? :)
(Goes back... Yes, you did...) Hmm.... That's frustrating.
Of course, most UK measures eventually come to America.
But wait!m ent-schools-an-early-indoctrination-into-the-polic e-state
http://www.thought-criminal.org/2006/08/28/govern
Frustratingly, the link to the original article has expired. I hate that shit. If you're a news organization, every article should have a static URL that works for perpetuity!
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
While they're at it they could check to see if we're related to renegade Roman soldiers.
One of the biggest concerns on privacy is that the computers can spit out near hits. You have a brother who has been previously arrested for a crime and is in the database. Just say you were in the apartment of somebody who later was murdered. You used a razorblade shaving. They take the DNA from there, and discover that a very close relative of this criminal was in the apartment. You will be getting a visit very soon. They don't need to get everybody's DNA. They just need enough people closely related by blood to everybody to get a good idea about it. Every single piece of your body that secretes DNA is good enough to near identify you now as long as you have a close relative in the system.
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
Now that's an interesting right.
So how exactly is that enforced/guaranteed by a government? Did they arrest everyone who called for the death of the Mohammed cartoonists? (I believe calling for the beheading of someone would certainly be considered a threat to bodily harm.)
How about all of those household injuries and car accidents?
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=434683&in_page_id=1770
I expect some spin like "We bought the equipment but decided not to use it"... But I don't buy that.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com