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UK Police Want DNA of 'Potential Offenders'
mrogers writes "British police want to collect DNA samples from children as young as five who 'exhibit behavior indicating they may become criminals in later life'. A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers argued that since some schools already take pupils' fingerprints, the collection and permanent storage of DNA samples was the logical next step. And of course, if anyone argues that branding naughty five-year-olds as lifelong criminals will stigmatize them, the proposed solution will be to take samples from all children."
If you've nothing to hide...
Deleted
Unbe-fucking-lievable.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm moving to America! ... oh shit!
Hey, I'll be the first one who is a law & order type of person, but this one scares the crap out of me.
Tin foil helmet sales surge!
If they want my DNA, they can bend right over and I'll happily give it to them.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Are they almost done with their 1984-like obsession in becoming a police state?
Ooh, look, little Johnny is acting a little weird! Quick, get a DNA sample from him, he could be a future criminal!
It doesn't even make sense!
To avoid stigmatizing specific children, DNA samples at birth could be taken. All the benefits, none of the stigma.
The UK has problems if anyone in power takes this police request seriously. God, I hope it isn't that bad. Five year olds? Do all five year olds who act out become criminals?
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
the fundamental problem with the collection and access to personal identifying information is twofold.
one is that it can start an unfair judgment on a person that can follow them unfairly thru their life.
Wasn't it Einstein whos teacher said he would never be any good at math?
If you don't fit what is considered the norm by the party making the judgement then its ok to abuse you?
And what of the information tied to the personal identifying data? We are human and fully capable of being corrupt or in error and using such information against a person, wrongly.
When you treat children as criminals, they'll be hard pressed to avoid meeting your expectations.
What if this follows the same rules as most juvenile records? I know in the states, you get a "second chance" of sorts when you become an adult.
If they're truly criminals, you'd just recollect the sample when they commit another crime, but you still get the DNA and the scare-the-bad-out-of-them factor.
Now, if cloning is involved...
Face it, complete DNA sampling of the population is inevitable.
Mind you, I have to ask - if they are so worried about a 5 year old turning into a criminal, why not spend the money sorting the kid out while there 5 rather than dealing with their adult crime?
Find out everyone in an elected or police position that supports this. Sack them for abuse of their position.
Seriously. Criminal tendencies in pre-school and elementary kids? Considering the howling terrors all kids at that age are, what the fuck are they playing at?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Providing we do the parents too, the GCSE science project of 'how much dna do I share with my parents' should be awesome fun.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I know someone who was in prison for a non-felony, got a job through a temp agency was a great worker for Amerigas that people enjoyed. When his temp agency stint was up, they were to consider him for an official hire. Problem? Oh he was a criminal once so even though he was a great worker, they fired him, and wouldn't rehire him through the temp agency.
God spoke to me.
One is compelled to wonder _exactly_ what sort of behavior they are talking about here that might indicate the kids will become criminals later in life.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
We should be allowed to abort the kid until it's 18. After that you got the death penalty. Win-win.
What?
So the police want to use this sort of system as a way of predicting future criminal activity, which may or may not happen, the interpretation of which is by necessity highly subjective, and would represent an open-ended means of "justifying" targeted monitoring of specific individuals before they're even legally considered responsible for themselves? What a fantastic idea! Let's be sure to include ways to hold the parents retroactively responsible for breeding in the first place, or not drugging their children since they were obviously criminals in the making, or not putting them through intensive "preventive" psychiatric treatment for their future wrongdoings. It's just like Minority Report, only they're not even bothering to claim definitive knowledge of future events. Outstanding work, gents!
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Taking DNA samples from all children is probably a better and more just solution than taking it only from some. That way, society as a whole has to face GATTACA-like issues. If you only take it from children that show "suspicious" behavior, you know that this is going to result in mostly minority children being stuck in databases, and it means that mostly those kids will be exposed to the risk of false DNA matches.
Maybe someone more knowledgable about forensic genetics can help me here, but my understanding was that at the current level of sophistication, the main value of genetic fingerprinting (which is less specific than full sequencing, but also more robust in the face of contamination, degradation, etc.) was in excluding known suspects (i.e., ruling out the butler) rather than in identifying suspects prospectively (which would be the main reason to set up a database like this). In a country the size of the UK, wouldn't this produce false positives that could be used to argue against the validity of the system?
Yearbook and school photos are already being used for targeted investigations.
How long before police start scanning in school yearbooks en masse into some giant database, then use data-mining and age-progression to match with crimes caught on video.
It's probably already happening on a small scale but in 20 years it will be the norm. Right now, cost and bang-for-your-buck, rather than privacy issues, is keeping this out of the police arsenal.
On a related note, within 20 years birth certificates and other official IDs will include biometric data. This will be to prevent identity theft, but the same data will be used to mark people from birth. Forget 1984: Revelations 13 anyone?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Did I read somewhere in the article about these five-year olds being evaluated for their future criminal propensity by three submerged psychic women?
Looking at the UK it's clear why so many of their youth have alcohol problems; hell, why so much of their society does. When a culture shows their young so much disdain and mistrust it's quite clear why this sort of thing happens.
If you grew up with people hating you simply because you're a kid how would you react?
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
You have it backwards. It shouldn't be "justify not letting us have your DNA." It should be "justify why I should give you my DNA." Remember, the theory goes that the Government is a servant of the people, not the other way around.
- The race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. -
If you say you have not then you are probably either: utterly boring; or lying.
All this ''record mistakes and label someone for life'' is stupid. It means that huge numbers are regarded as potential crims and becomes useless.
George Orewell was wrong - he chose a date 25 years too early.
This is an outrage. Apart from the obvious and genuine privacy concerns here this would do the very opposite to what the ignorant Gary Pugh is expecting. Hasn't he ever heard of a Self fulling prophecy?
There are many proven psychological reasons why this would cause a vast amount of harm to the development of these children This article especially illustrates published studies that showed the effect of positive and negative expectation has on children's academic performance
For some, it's the slippery-slope:
First they collected DNA from sex criminals.
Then they collected DNA from felons.
Then they collected DNA from all criminals.
Then they collected DNA from people who get speeding tickets.
Then they collected DNA from people who drive.
Then they collected DNA from everyone else.
Most people have someone in their family who has a speeding ticket if they don't themselves.
People value their privacy. They want to know that if they get a speeding ticket today, and there is a crime at a restaurant next year, the cup they drank from won't be used as evidence that they were in the restaurant at the time of the crime. What if the guy on the videotape was seen drinking out of a similar glass and he happens to look just like you. You will have been framed by your own DNA.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Which moron modded the parent Troll?? - The comment was probably intended as sarcasm. Should be Insightful imho. Oh and anyone with tag privileges, tag this one Nazism, beucase that's exactly what it is.
Jesus was an invention of the Romans - watch "The Pharmacractic Inquisition" for something more credible...
Once again, we see the common pattern of people being targeted not because of anything that they've done, but because they are a "bad group". The proposers of things like this, and those people who make those "if you've nothing to hide..." arguments, always believe that THEY are GOOD people. Their plans are for BAD people, and will never affect them. Their kids will never be slightly ill and cranky, and throw a tantrum in kindergarten. Their kids will never be blamed for something that they've never done. Never!
Notice also that this plan is for identifying people -- who someone is. This is a good thing if you are trying to identify the evil "them". However, its not much use for stopping crime, is it? After all, the 9/11 conspirators had perfectly correct and valid visas, so its hardly the case that better means of identification would be useful.
I'd like to get in before too many people start throwing around the term "1984" as if this had anything but the most tenuous connection to the book 1984. Have any of you actually read the book? Not every erosion of privacy is "1984", you know.
Sigh. Anyway. The matter at hand.
I am a former criminal myself, so this matter hits close to home. When I was in my adolescence, I was arrested for breaking and entering, and there was a lot more I did that I didn't get caught for, of course. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm quite successful now, if I say so myself. In my opinion, there are two major reasons why I'm not dead or in jail right now: the John Howard Society (prisoner's rights organization in the Commonwealth), and the Young Offender's Act (which helps keeps the under-18 out of jail).
Being branded as a "criminal" is a big deal. Through the two entities I just mentioned, I spent less than a day in jail and got mandatory counselling and restitution in lieu. I think one of the biggest factors in me turning my life around is that I wasn't branded for the rest of my life. I don't have a record; I don't have to report myself to neighbours. I'm just a regular citizen. It's quite empowering being a regular, fruitful citizen.
What I'm getting at is, even though I avoided it, I recognize the power of stigma. Even if there aren't any concrete restrictions on these kids, just knowing that you're one of the "bad kids" will fuck you up for life. There's no way these kids aren't going to find out they're one of the "bad kids", and once you're branded, it's a really hard uphill battle to get out of that stigma. Everyone looks at them differently; everyone treats them differently. I wouldn't envy them.
Please, won't somebody think of the children?!
However, if you execute someone for a political crime, you might make him a martyr and encourage others to break the law in support of whatever it was he stood for.
The same goes if you execute him for a non-political crime but you do so for political reasons or people think you did so for political reasons.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Let's declare independence and have a separate country.
Come to think of it, I'm surprised no one's thought of that already.
Every time people complain about things like collecting fingerprints from innocent civilians, some idiot comes along and argues that it's perfectly fine and doesn't represent a slippery slope at all. The sad part is that now that it's spelled out (very nearly) entirely, most people are probably still just going to shrug and ignore it.
The boiling frog analogy kind of breaks down when the frog is quadriplegic.
Violent tendencies in males tend to peak in the late teens or early 20s.
Other criminal tendencies change over time also.
If someone committed a crime at age 19 and the "profile" says most people who commit that particular crime at age 19 and who go X years after release without committing any new crimes are no more likely than you or me to commit a new one, I say when he hits the "X years clean" mark, seal his record unless there's a darn good reason to think he's still at risk of re-offending.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That's a large part of the issue.
The UK database contains the DNA of people who've been arrested even when then they're later released uncharged or acquitted.
It is almost impossible to get your record deleted when you are acquitted in England and Wales (but not in Scotland).
So unless you believe that the police only ever arrest the guilty, perhaps you will begin to understand what's making people jumpy.
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
Get out your masks.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
I currently working on my Masters Thesis, touching, among other things on issues related to totalitarian societies.
Even very quick research shows that Great Britain already resembles the grim visions of '1984', 'Brasil' or 'A Clockwork Orange'.
CCTV is widespread, despite showing little or no effect on stopping crime, its usage is spreading.
Old people are already testing the high-frequency buzzers, to annoy and scare teenagers (it's a prime example of being guilty by default).
A visit to any UK international airport terminal leaves no doubt either - you are a dangerous terrorist until proven otherwise.
And now this, which isn't really new either, just a development on what's been going on for some quite time already.
And worst of all, most UK (or US for that matter) citizens don't seem to mind or care. This is very much reminiscent of a pre-WWII Germany.
I don't mean to sound radical or anything, but remember:
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"
For all the people claiming that the US is turning into a fascist state and we're losing all our rights and privacy etc... I, for one, am just damn glad I don't live in the UK.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I think you are right, but since I have karma to burn, I'll provide a counter argument to the idea of collecting DNA for population studies. Profiling people for crime is a rotten idea because it may provide unintended negative outcomes. Profiling people in general, however, might be an interesting experiment into the roles of nature vs. nurture. Maybe there are biomarkers that promote aggressive, submissive, intelligent, funny, etc behaviors. Knowing what markers someone has might enable society to cultivate that person to their fullest potential. The argument about whether we should study these traits, and how to setup comprehensive outcomes measure, shouldn't be dismissed because it is such an emotionally charged issue. Maybe our focus shouldn't be on what makes us bad but what makes us better; you'll notice that there is less of an issue in dealing with genetic treatments for obesity. Sadly, this topic is ripe for abuse by even the most well-intentioned individual. I think that the first question must be, "Should we do this and what are the moral implications?" not "Can we do this?".
genetic discrimination is near....sorry bob we cant hire you, your dna indicates you have a 70% chance of cancer...thats too expensive for our health care premiums
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
In a possibly futile attempt to influence the government, I have created a petition (not up yet, pending approval), that shall be found here when it is accepted:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/dnacollection/
If any British citizens/expats could sign, it'd do us all a whole lot of good
What I wouldn't do for the ability to mod "-1, Plain Wrong"
Demand DNA samples from the entire population or get a real fucking job. This fuckin' around isn't kidding anyone, except the people who want to be fooled, and it's annoying the hell out of anyone with a brain and basic reasoning ability.
As for the people in the States that actually believe the beloved Constitution prevents this sort of thing, remember that NatSec can supercede almost any damn thing. Yes, that includes your right to privacy.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
I've never seen anything good come from that site. It pretends to be useful, but a while ago I went through and signed about 300 petitions, and I've had responses from the PM's team for most of them by now -- all just make excuses!
Much more useful is writing to your MP: http://www.writetothem.com/
It need only take 10 minutes. I think a badly written letter to your MP would be worth much more than ticking a box on the petitions site.
Remember, the theory goes that the Government is a servant of the people, not the other way around.
Whose theory? A bunch of rebels declaring their independence from the British government?
-- Support a free market in the field of government
a) The US political system is heavily biased towards those who claim to be Christians.
b) There's a demonstrable negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief, for an intelligent person to be a successful politician in the USA they mostly have to lie about their religious beliefs (eg. Pres. Clinton).
Conclusion: The US political system is biased against intelligent, honest people.
No sig today...
Sure it the idea sounds scary that the government could potentially plant DNA evidence, but in this case I think the positive outweighs the negative. Imagine if they could have caught deranged serial killers like Ted Bundy or Ed Gein before they killed so many innocent people. Sure there are evil people in the government but I think most intend to help and not hurt the public.
When does hate week start? Anyone? I lost my calendar, and my digital watch hasn't come back from the prole repair shop yet. Anyone?
I have read in various places, including /. that most corporate leaders have extreme anti-social tendencies.
Perhaps this is to identify our future managers. We are not very good at this here. Don't believe all you hear about the British "Class System". The class war died out in the late '70s - nobody could be bothered. It has restarted in the last 5-10 years but has not been anything except the politicians trying to gain votes.
If this system helps us identify the nasty people, we can train them to be professional suit wearers and run multinationals for us!
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Obviously, the Police are not only interested in children who "exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life", as it is impossible to decipher a 5 year old's behaviour to such an extent.
The British Police - and indeed the British government - are creating numerous excuses for their wish to acquire the DNA and fingerprints of every citizen in the UK. They are now aware that many adults have the awareness to fight against their inclusion on a database run by a government and police force which simply can't be trusted, so now they are attempting to target children who aren't aware of what inclusion on a British DNA database entails.
Everyone in the UK should move to China. They would then live in a relatively free and open state.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Ha ha, oh wow. I can't even think of something to say to beat down that kind of attitude, the suggestion is so flabbergasting. It's like a credit card company told me that to pay off my debts my mom should become a whore. Not an analogous situation, but it causes the same kind of "wtf" attitude.
Sadly, if the UK implements it there will be more reason to do so as well in the US. If it does happen, it likely won't be in place before Bush leaves office, but I have little reason to believe the next President won't do the same (exception of, perhaps, Obama). It would just take longer to implement because they would have to do it more under the radar since we still have guns.
I wonder if he wants to practise some phrenology while he's at it.
...because the child will have a similar genetic profile to a terrorist/serial killer/mugger?
Oh, and GG UK citizens. They have taken away your guns, your knives, your toys, and your fire extinguishers. Now they will take the blood of your children.
And still you do nothing.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
This DNA database is more of a threat to society than all the criminals put together.
Whatever happened to *REAL* police work? Every time they come up with some way to "control/solve" crimes, it winds up being a way to make the job of a cop as easy as pushing a button. Plus, it turns into something that is wayyy more intrusive, as if everybody is a criminal (or potential criminal, in this case):
1) CCTV cameras lining city streets.
2) Self-defense devices (Handguns, knives, tasers, stun guns, pepper spray) are either illegal or heavily regulated to the point where they are defacto illegal.
3) RFID tags in Passports can be used to track whereabouts of the holder.
4) Automated toll tags (like FasTrack) record road/bridge uses.
5) Traffic Cameras automatically cite "violators", doing the job of the police officer instead.
Why don't cops spend time tracking ACTUAL CRIMINALS and solving ACTUAL CRIMES, instead of grouping everyone together and tracking them as "potential criminals" and waiting for potential crimes?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Will someone please think of the kids!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
They could set up a civilian program to do amniocentesis on pregnant mothers, and simply abort those fetuses that show any propensity at all to become nosy fucking police later in life.
Absolutely. This news is horrible for several reasons, but your point is likely to be ignored over the din of the privacy issues (which are grave, of course).
The fact is, predicting the kind of choices people will make based on the way they act in school is sort of like a psychology approved version of astrology. You can't.
As a former teacher, I can say that even the sharpest, most well-trained, professional teachers struggle with separating personal conflict that naturally arises between teacher/student and serious issues of behavior. In the context of the classroom, the observer of the behavior is biased. It's the same principle that leads some research that has found (and since been proven wrong) that girls are better students than boys at a certain age. It's a child development issue, boys at a certain age learn best kinestetically (by doing) while girls at the same age learn more verbally (sitting in a chair being talked to). However, elementary teachers (mostly women) report that boys have more learning disabilities at that age b/c they are less likely to sit still and be quiet.
So, in the best case scenario, the best teachers are biased...but consider a worst case scenario! What about the average elementary or middle school teacher? We can expect to see
1. boys and girls who are centrally kinestetic learners to be targeted by ignorant teachers
2. gifted and talented students who exhibit 'non-standard' behavior that some teachers interpret at 'disruptive' will be targeted
3. teachers and administrators will exaggerate student behavior to weed out students that they find difficult
4. students will ues the fact that a particular student has had DNA taken to ostracize them (and don't think for one minute that police and administrators will be able to keep it confidential...not even half the time...that kind of information travels fast around a school, especially a smaller school)
5. in 40 years when the results of this kind of policy is analized, it won't have any predictive effect on behavior choices...socio-economic factors tell us as much as possible now, and crime rates will not be effected
IWAT (i was a teacher)
Thank you Dave Raggett
It is easier to take people's rights away when they are children and have limited rights to begin with. It makes perfect sense to me.
Everybody is entitled to their viewpoint, this is mine. I realise that it might not agree with some of the /.ters here - but its what I think.
Suppose there is a technology that the police can use that can identify people from the minutest detail left at a crime scene? Suppose it promises to reduce crime and make the world a safer place?
I really do not buy the "privacy is everything argument" because I really do not believe there is a case to answer to here. Suppose the UK went ahead and ordered a mandatory ID card and DNA samples for all. What then? Do I really think that my move would be monitored by an evil government agency intent on watching my every moment? Of course not.
The simple fact is that is some Orwellian agent wanted to monitor my every move in the UK then he could anyhow, if however he wanted to solve that murder up the road the he probably could not. Any effective security for any given population generally comes from one of two things: education and control. I do not believe education as a society is an effective practical answer, so that leaves control.
DNA sampling is a tool. Nothing more. The police would not take samples and say "its you! you were on the scene! you're the killer" - they would take samples and use them to locate people *then* they investigate people on their own merit. Eliminating them from the inquiry and then moving on.
What do we have to lose with a DNA database? Already computers track our purchases, cars, mobile phone - to kid ourselves there is something worth protecting is insane. Yet some of the knee jerk reactions are just unbelievable in the this one instance.
Lets look at some hard facts on the existing 4.5m people on the database (out of ~65m population). Already there are over 5.2% of the entire population of the UK on the database - its coming people whether you want it too or not.
In 2005 45k matches were found from crime scenes and directly solved, these included 422 homicides and 645 rapes, and these numbers are going up. The police were able to identify the perpetrators and then confirm they were the criminals by additional means. Without the database how many of these crimes would of been solved?
The recent rape and murder of Sally Bowman was solved via the database, the murderer got in a fight at a bar nine months later and would found with a positive match from the crime scene.
The 5 prostitutes killed in Ipswich last year were solved by the DNA database.
From the home office documentation this is their sample case "In Canterbury in 1988, an 11 year old and a nine year old girl were raped and indecently assaulted. In Derby in 2001, a shoplifter was arrested and a DNA sample taken. His DNA matched the 1998 crime scene samples. The offender pleaded guilty to the 1988 offenses and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment."
Face it the system *IS* finding criminals and matching them to their crimes.
Currently only people convicted or arrested and detained are added to the database - but given the compelling results so far a compulsory scheme seems only a matter of time.
The point is that there is much to gain from a compulsory scheme, and not so much to fear. I'm not going to state the trite argument "if you have nothing to fear" - I simply don't think there is a vast evil conspiracy obsessed with my every move. Sorry if this is a bit rambling!
I am commenting on urine or DNA testing in general here and the hypocrisy of it all.
I remember when Federal employees of some sort all had to start taking random urine tests. Ronald Reagan, president at the time was the first Federal employee to pee in the cup. So are the cops in Britain going to step up to the plate and submit their own babys' DNA? Somehow I imagine that all politicians, police, etc children will be exempt from this in Britain.
One more step down the road of total control of the citizens.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The logical place to collect DNA is during the metabolic screening ALL children undergo near birth (at least in developed nations), looking for diseases such as PKU, hypothyroidism, and around 16 other metabolic conditions. If you've got the blood already, it's just a case of adding a step in the process. Then you would get everyone, and wouldn't be singling people out using COMPLETELY unscientific "profiling" techniques.
Hey I used to be a real brat - even stabbed another 6 year old in the knee with a pen because he was bugging me too much. I remember punching someone out at 7 for trying to bully me. He lost a tooth, if I recall. I can still see him crying on the floor of the gym, blood all over his mouth. That felt good. Boy did I get into trouble. But he left me alone. I rarely did my homework, as a teenager I often cut classes. I started smoking at 14. I used marijuana at that age too. Wow, quite the little "criminal" I was shaping up to be. Did I mention I started raiding my dad's liquor cabinet at age 9, and his porn collection at age 11?
Funnily enough, now at 40 years old I have no criminal record, my biggest "crime" has been the odd speeding ticket, and as a successful doctor I actually save a few lives and make my corner of the world (hopefully) a better place. I wonder how the shrinks would explain THAT one. Oh - perhaps it's because psychology is not "scientific" at all? "It sounds good" does not make a theory true. Oh yeah wait I must be the "false positive" right? Exactly how many false positives are we going to get? And why should people pay for this?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If this isn't a perfect example of a slippery slope in action and why you cant trust the government, i don't know what is.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ya know, Hitler's Nazi party did very similar things as they began to come to power and take-over everything.
Remember this quote well, "Hitler rose to power because good people did nothing to stop him"
...is to call the United Kingdom what it is: a police state!
and start organising protests for this. They seem to do a better job than most people can at getting the protest ball rolling.
This sounds like a way for a few thousand people to control the subservient millions and remove those that do not conform, especially those of above average intelligence that can question things.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
The police want to do crazy things all the time. Mostly to make their jobs easier (and, to be fair... almost every profession is guilty of this to an extent).
Fortunately for us, most nations today heavily regulate their police force, and control their government through a voting parliamentary body, along with a system of checks and balances.
If this notion gained the support of a large portion of parliament or the population at large, it would be legitimate cause for concern. Fortunately for us, this is not the case.
Come on slashdot. Prove that you're better than some Left-Wing version of Fox news, and stop posting flamebaited articles that have little to no real significance.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
It were 2 weeks later. And this post would be just another April fools. But, I guess, Britain is Britain. They lead the charge. How long before Brits start asking for political asylums in China? Sigh.... Does this article really need commenting? Has Britain not pretty much resigned to being a parody of itself?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Serious question, if you currently live in the UK and are capable of immigrating to a country that isn't so freakishly totalitarian, why haven't you? Or do most Brits approve of their government's actions? I'm just absolutely bewildered. I'm seriously contemplating leaving the US for similar reasons, and afaict the UK is magnitudes scarier.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
Is it, perhaps, time to write to your congressman and demand that we start imposing sanctions on Britain for human rights abuses?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
And, seeing as much the same is happening everywhere, of western civilisation.
Our nations are taking desperate measures to survive. Anything is acceptable in the face of the Great Enemy who wants to destroy it. But this simply ignores the questions of why a nation deserves to survive.
My father, like most daily mail reading old men in this country, was complaining recently about young people who have a 'lack of respect for authority' and it made me chuckle inside. Human beings haven't fundamentally changed - so if there is less respect for the government now than there was decades ago then it must be because the government isn't worthy of respect. But nobody seems to think about that. We live in the assumption that parliament, the Queen, and the UK itself are permanent institution and require no more justification for them. Their existence is justified only by their own desire to persist, and as such the people of this country have no real use for them.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
SATIRICAL COMMENTS FOLLOW However, I fully respect the right of an employer to base the hiring decision on criminal history (or the lack thereof). I have the additional benefit of being active duty military, and have some insight into the "reasons why" these background checks can be so critical to the hiring process (yes, the Navy is a job, just one with unique lifestyle requirements). And while we're being completely batshit ridiculous, I'm going to go out on a limb and make the assertion that companies should be allowed to (actually, according to what my friends in the US Army tell me, continue to) avoid hiring former military personelle for fear of angering anti-war and foreign customers, whether these individuals are qualified for the job or not. Drug use, criminal activity, etc are personal choices Absolutely. Military service is a personal choice. Nobody has ever been forced into it by circumstances beyond their control, and everyone who has been in the military has been a rabid fan of all wars he (or she) has fought in, gleefully slaughtering their enemies and, I don't know, feasting on the flesh of their children. Yeah, you're all a pack of bloodthirsty mercenaries, just like anyone with any sort of criminal record is a psychotic murderer and pedophile.
And, like criminals, military personelle do not change, even long after their service has ended. Those who hate them are completely right to treat them and their families like shit for the rest of their lives.
END SATIRICAL COMMENTS
There's a reason many Western nations (I'd say "we", but I have no idea where you're from or what the laws outside my own nation are) have privacy and anti-discrimination laws, beyond recognizing basic human dignity - it allows people to put their past behind them and work towards being judged on the merrits of what they are right now. Reversing that trend is going to cause society a lot of pain as we marginalize more and more people, forcing them to "personally chose" either crime or perpetual welfare. Is that the society you want to serve and protect? Your comments regarding drugs indicate it isn't. Companies can be (and have been) held liable in civil suits for the damaging actions of a dishonest employee in situations where the employer "should have considered" the employee's criminal background. Obviously, there's a rational case for keeping people who have a serious enough record out of high office and other positions of trust, but this sort of thinking is often taken far beyond protecting such positions from abuse. In the case the GP mentioned, if the guy was good enough (or the position sufficiently unimportant) to hire him on a temporary basis without a background check, then why should it be a problem later on when someone finally bothered to do some extra paperwork?
I mean, I get the whole "employer's freedom" thing, but there's a point where social stigmas become too damaging (to everyone) to just appeal to the goodness of people's hearts and trust the issue to solve itself.
City police recruits getting lesson at Holocaust Museum
01:00 AM EDT on Friday, March 14, 2008
By Gregory Smith
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE The days are gone when city police recruits were trained mostly in the laws, in subduing suspects and in handling weapons. Nowdays they get an extensive grounding in the theory and concepts of law enforcement, too.
Which brings them to the study of the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
In a sharp departure from past practice, Police Chief Dean M. Esserman yesterday sent a busload of recruits on a field trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., for instruction tailored to law enforcement officers.
Weve changed training, Esserman pointed out. The proud traditions that weve had, weve built on them. One of the most noticeable changes is that all probationary officers, once they graduate the Providence police academy, spend at least a year in training on the streets under the supervision of a sergeant.
According to museum and city police officials, there is a local lesson in the Nazis rise to power in Germany in the 1930s.
Adolf Hitler and his minions won over the provincial police forces, tapped into the esteem in which the police were held by the citizenry and used that association to gather legitimacy in their ultimate rise to power. The Nazi dictatorship led to the mass extermination of millions of Jews and others.
Were talking about legitimate power and authority that was co-opted, Esserman said. Its a story that young officers need to know. Police officers are given enormous power and they must consider that power within a historical context, he added.
Said Deputy Police Chief Paul J. Kennedy, What does it say to cops, soldiers and others? Your oath is to who? Its to the people. Its not to any politician, not to any commander-in-chief. Its to the people.
The 65th Providence Police Training Academy, which runs for 22 weeks, the longest of the three police academies in Rhode Island, includes 15 recruits. Long-distance field trips, until now, have not been part of the curriculum.
The recruits already have heard from Esserman, who spoke to them about the U.S. Constitution.
Every officer gets a copy of the Constitution from me, to let them know I am no king. And they dont take the oath to me, Esserman said.
For four or five years, Providence academies also heard a presentation about Operation Plunder Dome from now-retired FBI Special Agent Dennis Aiken, who led the investigation of City Hall corruption that brought down Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. in 2002. Aiken addressed the 2007 Police Department retreat, too, and Esserman said he hopes to have him back in the future.
In public ceremonies, Esserman repeatedly makes a point of thanking Mayor David N. Cicilline for returning the Police Department to the public and to its members. The reference is to Plunder Dome and related cases that exposed interference in hiring and other police decisions by Cianci and Frank E. Corrente, his director of administration.
Some police officers believed it was necessary during the Cianci era to make political donations to further their careers, but the current city leadership insists that practice is nothing more than a bad memory.
I look at this training program as a cautionary tale about abuse of power applicable to all police departments, Esserman said yesterday.
Its the story about police being co-opted and the rule of law being subjugated to the will and the rule of an individual, he said. But Esserman does not directly link Plunder Dome with what the museum and academy courses have to say about the abuse of power.
Cianci, now a radio talk show host, has belittled the museum trip on his show.
In Washington, the recruits will attend a program called Law Enforcement and Society: Lessons of the Holocaust, in which more than 36,000 officers from 12 police agencies in the Washington area, including the FBI, have participated. T
There will never be another Nazi state but the same mistakes can be made in new forms and you won't be able to tell the difference. Surveillance societies are the mechanism of tyranny and that always leads to mass murder. The point of control is profit and it's directed to private companies. The same thing happened in the USSR with individuals who controlled state companies. Those who obey are rewarded. Those who do not are punished. Everyone wants to be the top dog so societies like that alternate between purge, aka reign of terror, civil war and war of aggression. Make no mistake, when opposition is impossible, the abuse goes lawless and things get ugly fast.
The DNA portion has lots of Nazi potential. The samples and studies on them will fuel all sorts of crackpot eugenics as well as cure disease. Insurance companies will start discriminate against those with incurable disseases right away, mirroring Hitler's euthanasia program. Yes, the same stupid studies can be used to justify mass murder too as ordinary ethic clashes are given a new false footing in science but real tyranny will use any excuse for murder if it makes a buck. The most awful use of DNA is the intended one, ID. The thing which most uniquely identifies each human being as an individual will be treated like any other dehumanizing prisoner ID number. A cheap, impossible to remove ID just like everyone else's that can only do you harm.
The important thing being taught to children is that is that they are all suspects and property of an infallible state. Stand up and be counted.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Vaporizing the UK won't eliminate the rich and powerful people who promote this kind of thing. They are your neighbors who think they can get away with it. Their weapons are fear and economic punishment. They must be fought with ridicule and love.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I suspect that a DNA database of "future possible offenders" would be skewed heavily toward children of lower income families with substandard educational background and a history of breaking the law. No one is going to swab a DNA sample of a member of the royal family or the children of the rich and privileged because they'd scream bloody murder. In other words, the database be a misguided attempt to explain societal ills through physiology. We've been down this road before and the result has often been mass genocide as "superior" individuals deem it time to cleanse the world of "inferior" folk.
Besides, a database of likely offenders will not do anything to prevent a crime. It will simply provide a pool of high-risk individuals that the police will regard with greater suspicion after the event. The legal system has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to wrongfully convict people because of prejudice, sloppy police work and a poor representation. What chance does an innocent kid have if he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and has already been labeled as genetically dangerous in the police database?
Similar thing happened to me recently. My son was 'interviewed' (cough) for some incident that he was not involved in, simply because of some other kids saying that my son hung around the suspects. We're in the detective's room, telling him that not only does he have an airtight alibi for the date in question (he was with me) the suspects -- and the implicators -- were not even people that my son chose to hang around with. This from both me and my son.
Officer Krupke then says "So who ARE your friends?"
I stopped him.
"We've established that my son wasn't involved, my son has no association with anyone you named, and therefore he's not a material part of the investigation. If you insist on knowing my son's friends, who we've also established are not part of this group, I'll have to ask to step out while I discuss the legality of your request with my lawyer."
In a sudden outbreak of common sense, the good gendarme reconsidered his request.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
But if people are no longer criminals how are we going to control them.
You can't reasonably trust that free man walking down the street beside you.
He very well may decide it is his freedom to rob, rape and murder you.
I don't know about angles, but it's fear that gives men wings. -Max Payne
And apparently has never watched the series. At least not the British Police.
To watch the series, it's astounding that yes, you can see threads in people's lives, and the child at seven never completely disappears, but you also see an astounding power to mold your live as you go and turn what might have been called lousy behavior as a child into an asset as an adult. Tony, for one is where he is today due to his strong will and risk taking, which looked questionable as a youngster but is a big advantage as a successful adult.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
When governments go bad, good people have everything to hide.
Justice moves swiftly now they've abolished all lawyers!
I drink to make other people interesting!
In many rape cases, the perpetrator is known, but it is difficult to impossible to prove that what happened was rape and not consentual sex.
In many crimes, there either isn't DNA evidence - maybe a condom was used. Or something as simple as a robber or burglar wearing gloves to prevent leaving easy to find fingerprints.
Or the DNA evidence is inconclusive - for example, who would be surprised to find the husband or boyfriend's sperm in a woman? Or the DNA of a family friend in the house?
The other concern with this database is that it becomes more difficult to search through the more you have in the database. For example, take fingerprints - already the FBI database in the USA takes HOURS at the least to perform a search. Imagine what it'd be like if you had all 300 million citizens and millions more immigrants, known visitors, etc...
It's already happened with the firearm fingerprint databases in the two states that implemented them - the police departments have asked to dismantle them, as they've never gotten a hit leading to conviction on them - at a cost of millions. Last time I checked, one of the database had only ever had two hits - neither conclusive. At a cost of millions per year.
I don't read AC A human right
An excerpt from Sundiver....
Uncle Jeremey was telling about how the old Bureaucracy had decreed that everyone alive would be tested for "violent tendencies" and that all who failed would from then on be under constant surveillance -- Probation.
Jacob could remember the exact words his uncle had spoken that afternoon, when Alice had come sneaking into the library, excitement radiating from her twelve-year-old face like something about to go nova.
"... They went to great efforts to convince the populace," Jeremey said in a low rumbling voice, "that the laws would cut down on crime. And they did have that effect. Individuals with radio transmitters in their rumps often think twice about causing trouble to their neighbors.
The opposite could also be true. We don't know how accurate the samples they are searching could be. The subset of people who provided DNA would be subject to more thorough and frequent searches for matches against criminals than those that did not volunteer. The chances of errors resulting in a false positive could end up with all those law abiding families being accused of crimes they didn't commit. Certainly higher than if you were not in the database and simply didn't commit a crime at all.
I'd like to point out that he says universal sampling is not reasonable... Not because of privacy concerns, but because "[It] is currently prohibited by cost and logistics." I feel so much safer.
Bastards, why don't they just come out and demand that everyone have an effing barcode tattooed onto the back of their necks?
Boost me up with nanites. Get my cells a'breathin' get my blood a'flowin'.
It's the circuitry within me that keeps my body goin'.
Got some choice implants that light my synapses like winter's tender.
Upload memories through the psy-jack keeps my mind in a blender.
Maybe I'm spliced, cut right down the middle.
Genomes baked onto my grid like egg on the griddle.
I'm all hacked up, but I prefer it this way.
Plugged up directly to the game; That's the only way to play.
That's the only way to win.
Stay jacked in.
This is why to me the Fourth Amendment implies that there should be a legal requirement to destroy biometric information collected on anyone who doesn't meet some kind of legitimate criteria (such as being convicted of a crime of at least a certain level of seriousness.)
The only thing that's holding them back right now is that it's expensive to book someone... you have to pay everyone involved, from the arresting officer to the officers running the facility, and pay for a larger facility if you're going to process more people.
If they had more resources, they'd undoubtedly be trumping up more charges to get more data. Data is power, and who doesn't like power? The only countervailing force is the Fourth Amendment and the courts' commitment to enforcing it.
My truck is like a series of tubes.
I have known police all my life, and let me tell you. A more stupid, ignorant, corrupt, belligerent, and disgusting group of people you'd be hard pressed to meet. In Connecticut a man sued to be on the state police force, he was denied. What was his offense? He was too smart. The fact that he scored quite well on their entrance exams was too much for the state police. They said he was too smart to be a police officer, the court agreed. hat about sums it up in my book.
Furthermore I have relatives in the police force, some very high up. One a head of a policeman's union. Calling them corrupt would be an insult to corrupt people everywhere. Calling the stupid would be an insult to stupid people everywhere.
Police do not solve crimes. They have no clue about scientific method or actual research. This is the truth, and think carefully about this, they "guess" who they think "did it" and then cherry pick the evidence to build a case. There is no intellectual work being done here. They guess and fit the evidence. It is a good thing that criminals are about as stupid as the police and most of the time this method works.
It is obvious that the DNA database would be helpful to the police. If they accuse you, there is more of a chance they will have "evidence" to convict you. "The accused has an obvious biological pre-dispensation to violence, you must convict!"
The U.S.A. and the U.K. are crumbling. Once shining examples of freedom and democracy, now imploding into surreal 1984-esque police states.
I think it should be this way: They should take all kinds of identifying biological information, including a DNA sample, from every single baby that is born, and store this information in a worldwide database. The database should also, later in that person's life, hold every type of information that is collected by any government agency, health institution, bank, etc. Governments and law enforcement personnel will have access to this information, as will corporate subscribers, and it will be protected by UNBREAKABLE ROT-13 encryption on a publicly accessible URL in order to compromise everyone's privacy, increase the occurrence of identity theft, and thereby give governments another hot-button issue to endlessly promise to fix, a la American Social Security, border security, illegal immigration, and abortion, all problems which will never be solved, ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor's_fallacy/
between citizen privacy and government intrusiveness has nothing to do with whatever I might want to hide. -
damaged by dogma
It's a jungle ~ kids develop a natural pecking order, and teachers fit into it, too, unfortunately. Kids are affected first by how they are treated at home, and second, by how and what they eat. These are the two main contributors that affect a child's behavior. Sugar and artificial food coloring, and other chemicals, cause kids to 'act up' and traumatic situations at home cause them to 'act out'. In this way a child who has a chance to be a normal, contributing member of society can be formed and then marked as a 'problem', and of course can come to believe the label must be true. Let's not forget how many successful and 'genius' level people had problems with the structure 'provided' in our schools, and were considered disruptive and lacking potential!
Is this all because of the post-9/11 scare? Do people really want such police states? Isn't the few thousand dead people now and then actually a little price compared to the price of all the lost freedoms?
Perhaps this is because there are more potential crimes than there are real crimes, and the current policy allows for a great number of salaries on the payroll, all in the name of Law, Order, and Justice?
-- arstchnca
--
- amidst all the lame jokes and the general mistrust Americans have to government.
Society, when you get right down to the bare bones of it, is a simple extension of the primitive 'clan' that we know from the other apes, especially the chimpanzees. A group like that is only stable if the members trust each other at some fundamental level. Yes, there will be squabbles and cliques, and they may steal from each other and bully the weakest, but everybody has a fundamental trust in the group, which they don't have in strangers. The same is true about human society - it is built on trust; if this trust is lacking in a society, it will simply fall apart. Perhaps this is happening in America? I don't know, but seeing that America is still one nation I'd say that the fundamental trust is still in place.
Anyway - the question about DNA is one about trust. The government is irrelevant here, governments change all the time, at least every four years; but the people around you don't - the people who will have accecss to your information will be more or less the same. If you trust the society you live in, you shouldn't really mind letting others know your DNA. Having everybody's DNA profile, and indeed all other personal information, in one, central database does offer some objective benefits. It will be a lot easier to identify a person, of course, and it would potentially be possible to identify a number of disease risks etc. On the downside is the fact that not all members of society are worthy of such trust, and they will use this information to exploit people.
I'm am not wise enough to see whether the benefits are great enough to justify the risks; but that is what it all boils down to: trust or no trust.
You often become what other people view you to be. If you cannot get a job because you have criminal DNA, guess what you will become.
This would have been a decent comment four years ago. But then the knuckledragging retards voted for another four years of GWB. Your right to complain, let me show you it.
That Mark Twain fellow sure was a bad speller, for all his virtues.
What if it costs even one live ?
Ok, it's over now. Everyone go home.
Admins, you can shutdown this thread now: by Godwin's law, this discussion has terminated.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
for Police to actually do some real policing & solve crimes without relying so heavily on DNA. Yes, DNA proves the DNA material came from one person, but police rarely bother to investigate how the DNA arrived at the scene. If I shake hands with someone, and they then pick up a knife & stab someone, my DNA will be on the knife as well as the criminal. Police are lazy & have DNA as their "silver bullet" to prove guilt without any effort.
Profile all the DNA of all the kids and the ones who have markers for "good" or "awesome" should get special drugs to make them even more "awesome" and more "good" and the ones that have DNA markers for "bad" and for "suck" should get drugs to make them no so "bad" and not so "suck" and to not mind being subservient. Then we should take the "awesomes" and give them special schools and special treatment. They should be the elite. The "suckers" can be used to help the "awesomes" too to make the most use of them! You would put... say 5 "suckers" assigned to one "awesome" and the "suckers" would have to do what the "awesome" person said... or die. Yes, thank you DNA profiling it's a brave new world.
My son is 11. He was punched by a 12 year old girl. He reflexively slapped her on the knee and yelled at her to not hit him. He now has a police record. To be fair the girl also has a police record now too and both children were interviewed by police in a gang violence investigation. I'm told it is routine now for the police to interview and take statements from children when any violence occurs in US schools. Everyone in authority has told me not to make a fuss over this.
My son has now been branded as violent for having made one out burst in response to violence. He has been severely punished for this and will be severely punished for any violent behavior. You'll just have to believe me when I say that he has never done anything like this before.
Should his DNA be profiled? Does this outburst indicate a potential to join a gang? Is this what happens to white children in white schools?
We are entering into a society where every action and every statement will be recorded. Every thing you do will point back to you. I don't think this is racism. I think this is fascism. When I was a boy I was beaten and less happened to the people that beat me than what has happened to my son for asserting himself.
You actually said... that? And not "hell no, ask my lawyer"?
I mean, I've always wanted to be able to give spontaneous, eloquent, and formal speeches but usually don't make it past "yeah, right!" Good for you if you can pull it off.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
But there's a difference between people who screw up - land in jail or with a record, then take it as a wake-up call to change their life - and those who are repeat offenders with little desire/ability to change their ways. If the justice system worked more towards recognizing and possibly dealing harder with or segregating repear offenders instead of allowing the first major screw-up to basically become a self-perpetuating cycle (record=no decent job, no decent job=less legit opportunities, less legit opportunities=illegit/criminal "opportunities" become more attractive).
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=474092&cid=22639320
How many DNA samples would they need before the gaps could be plugged ? For example, if you have Mom and Dad's DNA, surely you can infer quite a lot about Junior's DNA. It troubles me that DNA is seen as the final argument settler. No-one is having their DNA sequenced here, can the Elecrophoresis tests really be that accurate in showing a DNA match ? How hard would it be to fake one - no-one would ever question DNA as proof of guilt, it's not possible to defend against the match. There are some great stories of recovery from a life of crime here - I wish they could be modded up higher than 5, just for sheer courage.
Nullius in verba
Why don't they just go the whole way and lock them up now? Not much use in spending money to teach, house or feed them if they are just going to turn out bad. Actually why lock them up? jail space is at a premium and costly...injections are probably much cheaper.
If the government want further info on how the policy should work, then I suggest they start reading the Judge Dredd strips in 2000AD. But then again they probably already do. As it looks like Judge Dredd and MegaCity 1 has already become the ideal utopia the UK government is aiming for.
They'll need to get over their fear of skyscrapers in cities though, and they'll need to rollout ID cards pronto...with a much larger all encompassing database than they were planning.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
... but isnt this a violation of personal freedoms and rights? I may just be an ignorant Canadian, but shit like this scares the crap out of me. I don't trust any government that requires DNA or any biometric sampling (unless I commit a crime).
With all the new changes to Britan, and similarities to the USA, I am becoming increasingly wary to travel to such countries. If the government doesnt trust the people, then it's time for a new government (since it is FOR the people BY the people).
We need a time machine and the problem is solved.
Gatica, Tomorrow's Children, and other movies I'm sure are good ones to watch if you want to see a good reason why NOT to do this.
I work at a US hospital IT department and while I think there's plenty of information that is sent without thought to many questionable places (both corporations and public agencies), I have never heard of the wholesale grabbing of DNA info on patients. As far as I know, gathering and reporting of DNA info doesn't happen in our birthing center or indeed anywhere in our hospital (and it would be hard to hide from me--I'm the network admin who sets up communications to various third parties).
I admit that I don't know much about DNA and how law enforcement uses it. But how do DNA databases prevent crime? It seems to help more with catching someone who has already committed a crime, which isn't really a form of prevention.
The only way that I see this preventing crime is by instilling fear into those that might commit a crime. Fear of being caught, which from what I have observed doesn't seem to be the best form of prevention either.
And *not* by the right of free people to conduct their business without any interference from the state???
I say, if the politicians *want* to do this, then they should go first -- publicly. What do you want to bet that we'll catch a few of *them*? (And let's not forget doing all the cops too -- like this Pugh fellow. As we've seen from the Spitzer, Cunningham and Craig cases here in the US, it's always the ones who want to *crack down* that are the dirtiest.)
(Just a coincidence -- but the CAPTCHA wants me to enter the word "felony" to post this message. Hmmm...)
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
How about screening children for tendancies for phrenmology or eugenics and denying them roles in setting public criminal policy?
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I thought Orewell just picked 1984 because it was a future date where he flipped the 48 of current date to 84. The issues are human and therefor his work is timeless.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The "eugenics" part.
The idea that the state can improve society as a whole by compulsorily forcing people to participate in genetic assessments, and that those people may then be dealt with differently by society according to how well they scored, regardless of what their actual abilities are.
It reminds people of the points systems that the Nazis used to categorise degrees of ethnicity and supposed genetic inferiority.
If we thought that social ills were significantly genetic in origin, and that the "solution" was to identify individuals with a particular genetic pattern and do something about it, we'd tend to end up with social eugenics, and the most familiar example to a European of social eugenics as public policy, with enforced participation by the general population, was Nazi Germany.
So the idea that someone's suggesting a scheme where people who haven't done anything wrong have the state mandatorily taking samples from them, for use in some study into some possibly eugenics-related research, it doesn't go down well. Because, again, when people in Europe think of state-enabled doctors doing things to patients without their consent that may not be in the patients interests, they again tend to think of Nazi Germany. The idea that you as an individual don't have the option NOT to participate and don't have the right to decide what you do with your body then ticks the additional entries on the wiki list for "collectivism", "opposition to political liberalism" and "totalitarianism".
Eric Baird