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DHS to Begin Collecting DNA of Anyone Arrested

Posted by samzenpus on from the and-so-it-begins dept.

Foobar of Borg writes "The AP is reporting that the US will soon be collecting the DNA of anyone who is arrested by a federal law enforcement agency and any foreigner who is detained, whether or not charges are eventually brought. This begins to bring the US in line with the UK which, as discussed before on Slashdot, is trying to collect DNA of 'potential criminals' as young as five. DHS spokesman Russ Knocke stated that 'DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool.'"

2 of 483 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Shred and Incinerate by Richard+W.M.+Jones · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not hard to collect fake evidence from someone else's trash, to place at the scene of a crime.

    Don't bother with a particular person's trash, just go to a bar or a bus stop in a poorer area of town and pick up cigarette butts. Those poor people are probably on the database and are unlikely to have good, believable alibis. They'll go to prison instead of you.

    Rich.

    --
    libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
  2. Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse by Peter+Mork · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "rich" ... who make up about 5% of the population pay the vast majority of taxes in this country.

    You, sir, have a strange notion of "vast majority". According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 5% (for whom the average income is $457,400) of the population account for 41.4% of all tax revenue*. That percentage is a far cry from a "vast majority." Perhaps you meant the top quintile (average income = $214,500) who account for 67.2% of the tax revenue. The effective tax rate for this group is 25.2%.

    How much blood do you expect to extract from the lowest quintile (average income = $15,800) anyway? Sure their effective tax rate is only 4.3%, but increasing their tax rate to 25% won't have much impact on the massive deficits to which we've grown addicted.

    *Like so many tax critics, you have forgotten that income tax is but one source of tax revenue. Once you account for the additional sources (social insurance, corporate income, and excise taxes), the picture changes considerably. The upper quintile account for 58.5% of income tax revenue, but only 41.4% of all revenue.