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.

Comments

dna is cool

[operato]

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.

Re:dna is cool

[StuckInSyrup]

I live in a post-communist state. I believe in democracy. I allready learned not to fear the governement, but I definitely don't trust them.

Re:dna is cool

[toQDuj]

Another aspect is that people do not necessarily trust the police.

DNA gives them a device with which they can point at you and say: "He did it, his DNA was found on the scene". How are you going to disprove that? Perhaps you visited in the past, perhaps not at all. Maybe the wind blew a hair in.

Now suddenly, everyone with his or her DNA in the database is a suspect. Irrespective of the likelihood that you were in the area, otherwise engaged, or involved with the subject of the crime. Your status has been instantly degraded from "free citizen" to "potential suspect in ALL crimes".

Moreover, everyone with his or her DNA NOT in the database is much less a suspect. Think about that for a while.

A DNA test is a "closest match" test, and is only right about 99% of the time. People forget that, juries especially.

B.

Re:dna is cool

[pubjames]

This doesn't have anything to do with not trusting democracy.

Collecting extensive information about people and a "hand over your papers" style government, are more akin to fascist states and dictatorships.

Re:dna is cool

[Mr. Slippery]

i don't think keeping a dna database is much a problem.

I think that in a free nation, any citizen not convicted of a crime who is confronted by a government agent trying to remove any part of his or her flesh, ought to be encouraged to break said agent's arm.

The sovereignty of the state ends at my skin. No medical procedure, no matter how trivial, can legitimately be forced on an free innocent adult.

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.

In the United States, democracy was never trusted. That's why we have a Constitution instead of straight-up mob rule, in theory at least.

Of course this will be abused. The United States government is the organization that brought you COINTELPRO, MK-ULTRA, the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam debacle, Iran-Contra, the Iraq debacle (part I and part II), Gitmo, and extraordinary rendition, to name a few of its most recent and greatest hits.

They sacrifice our freedom in the name of "safety"

[spineboy]

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".

scary quote from the article

[toQDuj]

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.

Re:scary quote from the article

[spellraiser]

Another frightening stereotype that's drawn up to justify these measures seems to be the idea that illegal immigrants are generally sexual predators:

The 2006 amendment was sponsored by two border state Republicans, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and Senator John Cornyn of Texas. In an interview, Mr. Kyl said the measure was broadly drawn to encompass illegal immigrants as well as Americans arrested for federal crimes. He said that 13 percent of illegal immigrants detained in Arizona last year had criminal records.

"Some of these are very bad people," Mr. Kyl said. "The number of sexual assaults committed by illegal immigrants is astonishing. Right now there is a fingerprint system in use, but it is not as thorough as it could be."

Now, in my book this is just plain racism. Scary shit alright.

Re:scary quote from the article

[Tim C]

Facts are facts, but this is unsubstantiated opinion:

"The number of sexual assaults committed by illegal immigrants is astonishing."

The implication is that illegal immigrants commit a huge number of sexual assaults; worded that way it sounds as though they commit a disproportionate number, perhaps even the majority of them.

Yet there are no figures given to back up that statement, and "astonishing" is a subjective (and emotive) term. It's FUD at the very least, if not outright racism.

Re:scary quote from the article

[m0rph3us0]

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.

How is it racism? I didn't see him mention race anywhere, it can only be racism if you believe illegal immigrants belong to a particular race. The foundation of your accusation of racsim underlies your own racism.

We have two evil trends converging here

[$RANDOMLUSER]

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.

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".

/me puts tinfoil hat back on and crawls back under the bed.

What are "riders" doing in 2006?

[Eivind Eklund]

Dear americans,

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.

Re:What are "riders" doing in 2006?

[Afecks]

Given your use of power internationally (both diplomatic and violent power), we would prefer if you had a better functioning democracy.

If you want to draw a line down the middle and say "only your side of the house is on fire" then by all means have at it. You could pitch in too if you wanted though. Simply by voting in your own country (lead by example) and educating everyone you come in contact with online about the dangers we face from giving up our privacy and freedoms. I'm sure pissing in our faces and asking "how's the weather" isn't the right way to go about it though.

Re:What are "riders" doing in 2006?

[Ihlosi]

If you want to draw a line down the middle and say "only your side of the house is on fire" then by all means have at it.

It's not just that your side of the house is on fire, you're also making everyone else pour gas on their side.

Do you think my country can do anything about the ever-increasing loads of crap that I get shoved down my throat everytime I enter the US ? I'm still putting up with it because of family over there, but once they revoke the visa waiver program ("security experts" are in favor of this measure, or so I've heard), I'm going to call it quits.

My wife doesn't get fingerprinted or otherwise harassed when we return from the US.

Re:What are "riders" doing in 2006?

[Eivind Eklund]

I *do* vote in my own country, and I *do* spend time educating people. I even spent a bunch of time attempting to set up a political party working for the primary difficulty I see for my own country (low education level for the politicans, distance between scientific knowledge and the ruling politicians), though that never really got off the ground.

However, at this point the major problem I see isn't local: It is global, and it is that the US is slipping with fear. This brings the major democratic problems of the US to the foreground, and "riders" is one of these. The other primary problems are disenfranchment of the voters, IMO primarily due to indirect effects of the election system (winner-takes-all giving a two-party system instead of the plurality of parties typical when using a more proportional system of voting) and the use of paid advertising for candidates, thus giving the impression that only those with money can win (which may or may not be right, there's reasonable economic arguments that it isn't.)

Anyway, since you did not like my way of attempting to humourously highlight these problems: How would you highlight them? How would you point out, in this forum, that the US has large democratic issues and hopefully get some of the people living there riled up about these issues enough that they start to do something about them? How would you get you yourself riled up enough that you start to actively work to get the US to have a better democracy?

In all friendliness and with the hope of a better tomorrow, Eivind.

Bahumbug

[Bandraginus]

Given how easy it is to culture, grow, and then plant somebody else's DNA this is a truly sobering initiative. No jury will every entertain the fact that DNA evidence could be wrong... it's so well drilled into us by TV.

How many criminals wear gloves? That's how many criminals will potentially carry a bottle of somebody's cultured DNA.

Fingerprints are bad enough

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.

Re:This has been done for a while over here.

[bri2000]

Those who have actually been arrested (Lord Levy et al) should already have been added. It always amuses me how the politicians give the police their unconditional support when they're, for example, pumping bullets into some guy's head in down in Stockwell tube station but start whining about the presumption of innocence and police heavy handedness the moment these powers start being used to investigate the politicians' own criminal behaviour.

keep your siblings out of trouble too

[mrpeebles]

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.

6 degrees

[caudron]

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/

This is just another part of the camel....

[argStyopa]

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?

Re:This is just another part of the camel....

[TubeSteak]

You're confusing/conflating State power & Federal power.

While my State legislators may be a pack of bastards, they're an accountable pack of bastards who have to live where they plan on shitting. The damage they can do is limited to one state.

Guess what, if my legislatures fuck up my state, I can leave it. Within an hour I can be living in any of three other states. It would suck, but I could commute until finding a job closer to my new home.

The reason I despise intrusive legislation at the Federal level is because leaving the country is not something that can be quickly done, compared to moving 100 miles.

As for calling people hypocrites, I fail to see how demanding X, Y, Z logically leads to extensive surveillance. You left out that part of your argument.

Then pick a country

[TheConfusedOne]

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.

Re:Enough with the damn wolves and lambs quote!

[spun]

You are ignoring the truth that markets can be manipulated with money as easily as with political power. In a free market system wealth invariably concentrates in fewer and fewer hands. Even if you don't buy that, you must see that wealth is distributed so inequitably that there will exist some class of people for whom the only good economic alternative is to sell themselves into slavery.

When all the world is owned, those who do not own the means of production become the slaves of those who do, as otherwise they have no means of supporting themselves. The owners are the wolves, the people who do not own and must sell themelves into slavery are the lambs. Get it?

I aqree that there must be limits on what the majority can do. In business as well as politics. I fail to comprehend how so many people can think that domination, extortion and control are okay if carried out through economic means but not if carried out through political means.

In regards to free market types scaring the crap out of me, I am refering to people who think that the unregulated free market is a more equitable and fair way of excercising control than democracy. As in the ancient Greek kyklos, people in a Democracy are free to elect a tyrant, and often do. It makes no difference whether that is a political or economic tyrant.

Syndicalism, as practised by the Mondragon Collective, a large group of Basques in Spain, has done far better than capitalism by any objective measure. Look them up and get back to me if you disagree.

Re:This battle's been lost long ago

[SpectralDesign]

* Yes, it's possible to obtain DNA in ways equally (or less) invasive than collecting finger prints.
    * Yes, a catalog of finger prints seems rather bening.
    * Yes, there is a difference between a finger print catalog and a DNA catalog.....

DNA can show if you are a carrier for a variety of genetically based health problems, and as has been mentioned already, the chances are that this information would most likely be managed if not also obtained by the private sector at the behest of the government. Now, how much do you think insurance company "A" will pay DNA warehouse "B" for access to such records? Is it okay to be denied health insurance for a genetic fingerprint?

There are certainly other similar issues that could arrise, not to mention that we're still learning just what the DNA can tell us... who knows what they'll be able to gleen from your DNA in 5, 10, 20 years...