DHS to Begin Collecting DNA of Anyone Arrested

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.'"

Comments

Balance of power.

[h4rm0ny]

If you let the balance of power fall too far to the state, it's grossly naive to think it wont lead to use of that power over you, your friends and your children. History supports that as do numerous social studies.

Re:Balance of power.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you let the balance of power fall too far to the state, it's grossly naive to think it wont lead to use of that power over you, your friends and your children.

Since DNA will first be collected from foreigners, whose stay in the country is dependent on the government's good graces, it's not hard to imagine a Gattaca style future where, if the government has your DNA on file and you might have some unpleasant genetic predisposition, your application for residency or citizenship suddenly falls though.

Re:Balance of power.

[zappepcs]

You are absolutely correct.

"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool." and this might be true, but it also remains true that standard policing is proven, as is forensics.

There is yet to be ANY evidence that infallible ID of every citizen leads to better security, better safety, or in fact anything better.

In the end, its ONLY use is control.

Criminals with no record, no arrests, and perhaps no citizenship fall outside the view of such a system creating yet another situation where only the innocent are inconvenienced.

REAL ID and biometric IDs have only one purpose, control of the citizenry. period. anytime. in. history.

I could spend days figuring out several ways to defeat any system of ID presented, and if I can you can be absolutely certain that criminals will. In fact they have much better resources than I do and would probably do a much better job. When you have networks of 'friends' to help you out on both coasts, and on other continents, it's easier to fake things etc.

When criminals want to do something the phrase "papers please" do not stop them. These ID schemes will in fact ONLY harm citizens and their rights to do as they constitutionally are allowed.

Re:Balance of power.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

If you let the balance of power fall too far to the state, it's grossly naive to think it wont lead to use of that power over you, your friends and your children.

The question is, is this really true.

Consider for a moment. Do the supporters of oppressive regimes actually suffer under them? Is it not the case that those who tacitly or overtly support this kind of power imbalance actually benefit? Certainly a minority of top supporters do, but what about the silent and not so silent majority that prop up the regime? Does their support not in fact, pay off?

Are registered Republican voters who attend church every sunday, protest against abortion, call for lower taxes and "family values" really going to suffer under these DHS policies? I invoke Godwin because it is inevitable. Look at 1930's Germany. If you weren't communist or jewish, then you, as a german, probably did rather well under the Nazi's. Why wouldn't you support them? It's not like you valued abstract concepts like "freedom" and "democracy" now did you?

Most americans, no, most people in the western world, do not value these concepts. They support internment, executions, secret trials. I'm not being rhetorical here. As long as you mention the right groups; terrorists, pedophiles, minorities, lower classes, etc, the average joe will not see their freedoms as something worth valuing anymore. People do not believe in universal rights for all, only in rights for the right people, which of course includes themselves. It's sad, but that's the way it is.

Re:Balance of power.

[metlin]

That is perhaps one of the most insightful comments I've ever read on Slashdot.

Most people don't quite look at it that way, but you've got a point there - folks automatically assume that just because people support a regime that does bad things, the same people will suffer under that regime. That is not necessarily true. The reason they select the regime is because bad things happen to "others" that they've been conditioned to hate (brown people, Muslims, immigrants, whatever).

The Christian right is no different. The average Joe Republican is probably rejoicing at Gitmo and the fallout of our human rights, because hey, he's not affected - it's "someone" else. And if he does get pulled over, he feels proud that he's helping the system further its goals.

It is usually the powerless ones who are always affected - Jews, minorities and in today's America, the non-citizens. And I am particularly riled up about this because I'm typing this from an airport in Texas, where as a "brown man", I was "randomly selected" to be searched. Yet again. I told the guy that I travel twice a week, and that in the past couple of weeks, I've been "randomly selected" at Texas almost every single time. His answer? "Do you tell the cop that you've never gotten caught speeding except when he's patrolling"

I was at a loss for words, and this is the irony of it all.

perhaps I'm missing something

[techpawn]

anyone who is arrested by federal law enforcement agency

How is this different than getting your prints taken when your arrested? Or do they only take prints when your charged where as this wants DNA if you're charged or not...?

Re:perhaps I'm missing something

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is DNA is more than an identifying trait. DNA defines your physical characteristics - the basis of you.

I'm not sure about *you*, but I'm a little uncomfortable with ANY government agency being able to tell me more about myself than I myself know.

This road leads to a Police State - plain and simple. Perhaps your comfortable living in a police state - I'm not.

What's next? Refusing you the vote cause your DNA shows a tendency to irrational behaviors or mental disease? Perhaps denying you a federal student loan cause you have genetic tendency of lower mental function? We aren't there yet - but moves like these are the first step

The government does NOT have the right to collect and store my DNA without my permission - PERIOD.

Anon.

Re:perhaps I'm missing something

[bhima]

That still does not make me feel any better.

Re:perhaps I'm missing something

[F�an�ro]

DNA profiles are more like an md5 hash of your data DNA profiles are a lot more than that.
Depending on the type of profile, you could for example calculate blood relationship between people. You do not need tthe whole dna for that, close relatvies will also have close matches for the indicators used for profiling.

Some ways to abuse this:

"The crime DNA does not match this person exactly, but he is probably a close relative of the criminal, detain and question him!"

"This person is closely related to several convicted criminals, keep watching him"

"This person is related to a charged terrorist, deny him the goverment job"

"This person is related to several people who died early, let's raise his health premiums and offer him life insurances"

Shred and Incinerate

[giafly]

Some criminals already plant cigarette butts in stolen cars, to confuse the evidence and implicate innocent people, and I predict more of this. It's not hard to collect fake evidence from someone else's trash, to place at the scene of a crime.

To avoid identity theft, not only should you shred everything with your name and address, but now you also need to flush or incinerate everything with your DNA on it.

"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool."

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool." Yes, and removing hands prevents stealing. It doesn't mean it is a good idea.

Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse

[polar red]

The more you cut taxes, the more the government will collapse. In the real world however ... taxes gets cut for the rich, and the poor pay for the infrastructure, education, military, ...

Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse

[EaglemanBSA]

I would argue that the rich get tax cuts, the poor get social support and the middle class gets the shaft.

A question of trust

[Xian97]

While on the surface it may appear to be no more onerous than the fingerprinting system in use today, a DNA database would have far greater potential for abuse. What happens if they decide to use the DNA to detect ancestral or genetic heritage? Not to Godwin the thread, but technology like this would have clearly been misused in the not so recent past.

With the recent abuses of the Patriot Act, I don't trust the government not to overstep the stated purpose of this policy either.

Tourism

[sherriw]

As a Canadian living close to the border, I'm feeling less and less welcome, and much less likely to pop over to the US to spend my dollars shopping or sight-seeing, given the growing risk that I'll be detained, finger printed, DNA stolen, laptop hard-drive taken or copied, and given a terrorist risk rating.

Really, "welcome" to the land of the free.

Here's hoping the coming election brings SOME kind of change.

Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse

[Firethorn]

Just because you can barely afford the payments for your Ferrari and 500k square foot house, not to mention the monthly trips down to the caribbean for hookers and blow doesn't mean that you aren't rich.

There was a similar discussion on another board I frequent. Part of the difficulty in defining 'Rich' is that many try to use income to define it, but in reality it's more a statement of wealth. For example, a sole proprietor of a business could have a gross annual income in the millions, yet not be 'rich' because 99% of that is immedietly spent as business expenses.

Still, one guy made a general rule of thumb that I liked:

Poor - Income at or below basic expenses; IE unable to save
Middle Class - Has the ability to save money/live better.
Rich - Independent of work; capable of living indefinitly off of assets.

Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse

[PopeRatzo]

Exxon pays more in taxes than the bottom 50% of American taxpayer.

And they pass whatever they pay directly along to the consumers. Who do you pass your income tax bill along to?

And the figure that Exxon supposedly pays in taxes never seems to include the money they get back in "incentives" for drilling for the oil that they then sell to us at inflated prices.

What we have these days in the US is socialism for the richest Americans. When Morgan Chase was able to buy Bear Stearns with the 29 billion that the government gave them, it was one of the biggest handouts in US history.

And last week the Fed announced plans to loan money to banks (which include brokerages that are not banks) at 2.5 percent, and then turn around and allow those banks to loan OUR money back to us at 30 percent credit card rates, that sure sounds like a handout to me.

George Bush has presided over the greatest transfer of wealth in our history: from the working class to the rich.

Re:Fingerprinting in Texas

[JasterBobaMereel]

Has your children's teacher ever been arrested for being involved in a protest against the government ...

Note you won't be told *what* they were arrested for they just won't be teaching anymore ...

So if you want to be a teacher don't protest ..If you want to work for the government don't protest .. ... If you want to work for a large company don't protest.. .......

Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse

[Artifakt]

Corporate taxation is always voluntary. Any company that doesn't like its taxation level can simply disolve as a standard corporation and become any of a number of pass through entites that don't pay corporate taxes but pass all taxes on to the people who were once their shareholders.
        For a huge company like Exxon, with many, many foreign investors, corporate investors, etc, this would admittedly take about three to five years to fully transition, as it couldn't just remain monolithic and declare itself a single S-Corp or LLC . There would have to be a number of staged pass through entities which separated stockholders ineligible to join S-corps from ones who were, for example, until all stockholders ended up members of an S-Corp, partnership, LLC, or even a sole propritorship that had contracts with other parts as needed. But, the corporation itself would avoid more and more taxes every year of the transition.
        So why not? Corporate immunity. Whatever taxes Exxon pays, it thinks are worth it to reduce its shareholder's liability for 'incidents' such as the Exxon Valdez. If those taxes were ever too high, as determined solely in Exxon's own opinion, they could pick from several of the many alternatives and transition.
        This doesn't stop corporations from complaining that their voluntary taxes are too high just like an individuals non-voluntary ones.

Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse

[fyngyrz]

Exxon pays more in taxes than the bottom 50% of American taxpayer.

Followed by...

How are you comparing a corporation's income to a private citizen's income?

You both came close. A considerable amount of Exxon's income (doesn't matter if it's moved to the CEO's pocket or part of a new drill bit or tanker) comes from what? -- selling gasoline, of course. And who is it that pays for that gasoline? The private citizen.

Corporations pay taxes, sure, but everything they pay is built into the price of the items they sell, and you should keep in mind who pays that: The consumer. Who also pays their own taxes.

When someone says "corporations pay XXX and the consumer doesn't have it so bad because they only pay X", they're blowing smoke. Those corporations got a good proportion of that money from the consumer.

For every item you buy, you're paying built-in costs for income tax (and other taxes in some cases) that went into the materials, manufacture, transport, marketing, retailing, etc... of that item. This is with the money you have left over after paying for your own income taxes.

The bottom line is that the tax load on the average consumer is much higher than you think it is.