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FBI and States Vastly Expand DNA Collection, Databases
Mike writes "Starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial, and will also collect DNA from detained immigrants. For example, this year, California began taking DNA upon arrest, and expects to nearly double the growth rate of its database (PDF), to 390,000 profiles a year, up from 200,000. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts, however law enforcement officials are expanding their collection of DNA to include millions of people who have only been arrested or detained, but not yet convicted. The move, intended to 'help solve more crimes,' is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent."
No such thing if you're in the system. Otherwise you wouldn't be, would you?
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
Scary how we are quickly moving towards the society depicted in GATTACA.
Lets start taking DNA from all illegal's before sending back. If they cross over a second time, then a year in prison.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why is this a problem? If your DNA ties you to a crime, whose fault is that?
If your DNA is at the crime scene you're guilty until proven innocent. Duh.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
For example, This year, California began taking DNA upon arrest and expects to nearly double the growth rate of its database, to 390,000 profiles a year, up from 200,000. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts, however law enforcement officials are expanding their collection of DNA to include millions of people who have only been arrested or detained, but not yet convicted.
Err... They have been collecting DNA from the Military for a while now...
Just sayin
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
If I'm arrested can I just show them my teabag to avoid having my DNA put in the system?
The UK has a huge DNA database including large numbers of minors and people subsequently found innocent.
The much maligned European Court is protecting our liberties by declaring this illegal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/04/law-genetic
Such a shame that the mother of democracies should come to this.
Be warned by our bad example
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
Unless it's for rape/murder, does anyone else find this extremely disturbing?
And what if you're innocent, do they erase this data out of the system?
"Voluntary?"
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
...the "criminal gene" yet. :)
What happens if the person isn't a criminal? What guarantee do they have that the DNA taken from them has been disposed of?
All records should be destroyed when the person is proven not guilty and released. WIth this ability they can just randomly detain people for questioning about some random crime that has no connection, get their DNA, and release them.
For *innocent* people this is a clear violation of the 4th amendment. ( and perhaps others )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yes Voluntary.
As in "Would you like to give us a sample of your DNA to put on record for identification purposes?"
For some reason a significant amount say yes... I can't understand why one would if they have already committed some terrible crimes, but they seem to.
There is definitely no coercion or strong selling, but having said that, the lure of cigarettes turn hardened criminals in to teddy bears.
. . . a search for a female serial killer, whose victims were in Austria, France and Germany, was ended recently, when police discovered that the DNA of the suspect belonged to a women who packaged the cotton swabs used for testing:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iEPt22F_xcWatGRrX5ludZOsSM5AD976HRM00
So, how reliable will these databases be?
It's a hoot and a half to read all the different crimes associated with this case, and think how all those police profilers were totally baffled by this killer.
It won't be too funny, if a lab mix-up incriminates you.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Victims rights should always be more important than that of criminals, who are often scum.
You're horribly naive. The difference between a victim and a criminal is who did what; they're still human, they're still breathing, and there's still a few slips of paper in the framework of most nations that say that rights are something called unalienable. You're born with rights and you die with rights. Such harsh punshments, not only are cruel and unusual, but also fling themselves against probability issues. What if you were wrongly convicted of (for sake of example, et cetera) murder and sentenced to 120 years of "State-endorsed labor" or some other euphism for legalized slavery of criminals and innocents-deemed-criminals, and what of the scapegoat? The victim of circumstance? Or what if it was someone you knew? And what of the precedent? If we can take away the rights of convicts, why not suspects? And who really is a suspect? I don't want to sound like I'm spreading FUD here, but that's fire and playing with fire is going to get you burned badly. I'll stick with treating criminals like they're human so I can make sure I can be treated like a human too.
As far as I am aware, the voluntary is stored indefinitely because it is voluntary. The forced, where the person is found not guilty is destroyed.
The DNA is stored by a separate agency to those prosecuting.
This is my country though, I'm not sure what happens elsewhere.
Remember folks, it's okay as long as it's happening to someone you don't care about.
And by the time it's happening to someone you DO care about, it's too late.
I doubt whether it is ever possible to describe the response of a person already in the hands of the police to a question like this as "voluntary" in any meaningful sense.
"Voluntary" would be an innocent member of the public turning up spontaneously to the police station to give a DNA sample.
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
People are going to knee-jerk and say this is bad, but:
At one time in history, there was no way firm way to verify who a person was. If you happened to ride into town and look like a wanted person, you might end up hanged, even though it wasn't you, it was your face. Fingerprints helped to stop this.
In addition, a number of people have been cleared of murder in recent years because of DNA evidence. There is definitely a good use for this stuff.
So how are police officers going to use this? They are going to use it to help them narrow down the suspect list. Imagine there is a murder, and you get a thousand tips: you have to go out and investigate them all. On the other hand, with this, you only have to investigate one or two people, because the rest don't match the DNA.
It will be used to find people. If we'd had a database entry of the unibomber, we might have saved the lives of a lot of people by catching him earlier. But we didn't. This WILL help solve crimes. If you deny that, then you haven't thought about it enough.
What are the disadvantages of this? Privacy? What, don't you want people to know what your face looks like either? It's not really a privacy issue: if I want to know what your DNA is, I can find it. Steal your keyboard, sit next to you in a restaurant and take your cup, punch you in the face, whatever. It's not hard. If you think your DNA is private, you're wrong. You leave it everywhere.
What are you REALLY worried about then? That the government will use this DNA database to discover that you're an enemy of the state? That you will be suppressed because of it? What is your favorite conspiracy theory?
Or are you worried about the Gattaca scenario? Gattaca isn't an American thing: if we found someone has bad DNA, we'd probably end up giving them parking spaces close to the entrance. Our society is heading the OPPOSITE way of discrimination, which is a good thing.
So think about this, before you start saying how bad it is, at least have a reasonable opinion about it, don't make yourself look like an idiot.
Qxe4
Now I think we can all see (at least at an intellectual level) why they want to try this. In theory, at least it'll allow for faster and more accurate convictions.
The problem is, the UK, who has the largest DNA Database in the world, is having some problems with accuracy. And the Germans spent 15 years hunting a serial killer who didn't even exit.
Furthermore, juries are lead to believe that DNA is perfect evidence. While in theory the probability of two non-twins matching is very low, the issue is there is absolutely no way to prove how exactly that material got there. What if you were in a car, and two weeks later someone else is shot in it? Or worse, what if you and your girlfriend did some dirty business in the back? Your DNA will be in the back, and it's going to be hard fighting that off in court, because the Jury believes that DNA is full-proof evidence.
Criminals are often scum.
Arrested people are often innocent.
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
"Voluntary?"
Yes. Voluntary as in "Voluntarily provide us with a DNA sample so we can use it to determine that you're not involved in this rape-murder."
If you're not guilty then providing the sample gives pretty conclusive evidence that you weren't involved. Like 100 million to 1 evidence or so depending on the type of testing they're doing.
If you're so concerned about your privacy that you don't want to give DNA that's your choice. Just be aware that your choice may lead to an ever greater violation of your privacy.
Fail to provide them a DNA sample and they then have to spend time investigating you. You may spend quite some time talking to the police. Your friends and family and employer and coworkers may spend time talking to the police. The police may search your house a few times.
That's all up to you however.
To some extent a methamphetamine addict for example, is no longer exactly on the right emotional level to really be classified as human by the way you explain it.
In my country though most murderers are out of prison after 10 years. A person can commit hundreds of burglaries and they are being treated harshly if they get even a year in prison. From that perspective, criminals are getting off pretty lightly as is.
Having said that when you compare a prisoners rights in respect of search and fingerprinting, how is compulsory DNA after arrest any more invasive? Once arrested their person can be searched pursuant to arrest, there homes and vehicles even if the circumstances are such. Their finger prints are automatically taken and not disposed of... That is all accepted and has been for decades.
I fail to see how a DNA database is more invasive than a fingerprint database.
The trouble is trolling through a large enough database will randomly create some false positives. Even if you assume the DNA data is reliable, which it isn't, then you still have the problem of "I bumped into this person, and through some strange series of events my skin cells contaminated the sample." There was already a case of the police desperately searching for a serial killer for 6 murders, only to later realize that the suspect was a technician who was accidentally contaminating the samples. Check out the story here, here or here.
The problem with modern DNA techniques is they can be too sensitive. They light up anyone who ever came in contact with the sample. Even if this is through accidental contact.
Good Luck if you actually had sex with the girl, and the rapist used a condom. Your going to be a suspect no matter what you do. Hope you have a really good alibi, a really good lawyer, and that the girl swears that you are a nice guy. Your going to need that alibi for the next 100 years.
Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.
If you were accused of a crime but your DNA record could clear you, would you want it on record? Many people have been cleared of crimes after having been found guilty, due to DNA evidence after the fact. In some of these cases wrongdoing by law enforcement was found and itself prosecuted or at least corrected.
If someone committed a crime against you or yours, and having their DNA on record would help catch and prosecute them, would you want it done?
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin. Unfortunately those constructs are absolutes and do not exist independently in real life. Life has always been a balance between the two, including being a matter of survival. Look again at those two questions and consider the fact that you might have one answer in the theoretical sense but when faced with an actual situation could have a very different attitude.
And, the benefits to having such a database are not restricted to questions of criminal activity. If a loved one came up missing, and a body was found, and their DNA record taken without arrest or even suspicion could prove that it was or wasn't them, would you want to know if they were alive or dead? Same if you were lost and your loved ones were trying to find you or might have you decreed dead.
As for references to GATTACA, that movie had far more to do with access to DNA evidence showing probability of genetically mediated disorders, something related to health care and especially in the US, insurance. We already have laws in place preventing prejudice in availability and cost of care based on genetic proclivities. On the other hand, such evidence is available to the individual. Having your DNA tested can tell you things about your possible future, and you might choose to live differently if you knew these. You might also be able to benefit from alterations to normal treatment based on your specific genetics. Having your DNA on record would allow for advanced testing for such eventualities.
These don't change the fact that being sampled without volunteering might erode privacy. But then being sampled, no matter the context in which it is done, could protect your privacy, freedom and even life. Besides, Ben Franklin gave up some freedoms to be a citizen of the country he helped form, and gave up more when he became a part of the government. I doubt he would have agreed that he didn't deserve whatever liberty or safety he had left.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Just because your DNA is at a crime scene, does not mean you are considered guilty. It doesn't even make you a suspect.
It does mean the police may have questions for you, if you were not quite a long ways away and the DNA just happened to be there from a long ago visit.
DNA collection is one of those things that sounds scary but I have trouble seeing what the real problem is. Police have an easier time finding people to ask questions about a crime and get to the solution? That's not all negative, and the presence of DNA at a scene is not much different than your car license plate being remembered by someone as you drove past. It's all public information about where you were.
DNA can also reveal information about private links between individuals because DNA can travel, but again this is something the police would dig up anyway if there's a crime from cell phone records or what have you. It's more of a shortcut to get to information they would get otherwise through other means anyway.
So anyone up to a rational non-fear based debate to talk about the true negatives of DNA collection?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Victims rights should always be more important than that of criminals, who are often scum.
What about the rights of innocent people who are victims of the state?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Because people have some strange belief in the infallibility of:
#1. The people taking the DNA sample at the crime scene.
#2. The database keeping the DNA tags.
#3. The people taking the DNA sample to enter it into the database.
#4. DNA samples being completely unique.
Instead, DNA should be used to clear suspects. Not to find them. It just isn't reliable enough.
But that's not how it is shown on TV. And TV is where most people get their education.
To some extent a methamphetamine addict for example, is no longer exactly on the right emotional level to really be classified as human by the way you explain it.
Dehumanizing is the first step on the road to atrocities.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Because they have been arrested, not convicted. They can not take a blood sample from you in NC in the case of a DWI unless A) you agree, or B) they get a warrant. If a person is convicted, then it might be legal, but IMNSHO, immoral. Fuck, convicts have it bad enough once they are released. There is a BK in my town who hires work release inmates. All well and good, until they get released. At that point the BK fires them, because they don't want felons working at their store. And it is perfectly legal, but of very questionable morality.
What are the disadvantages of this? Privacy? What, don't you want people to know what your face looks like either? It's not really a privacy issue: if I want to know what your DNA is, I can find it. Steal your keyboard, sit next to you in a restaurant and take your cup, punch you in the face, whatever. It's not hard. If you think your DNA is private, you're wrong. You leave it everywhere.
This argument is specious. The question never was if my privacy could be compromised, starting from the assumption that it is both super-secret and some sort of inviolable right. The point that applies here is Reasonable Expectation (of Privacy). Have a look at this, or consider that the cops have to have probable cause to search you. The same thing applies to looking into your DNA files.
Sure, I leave my DNA everywhere, but I also have no reason to expect people like you will be collecting it. And no, that isn't my mistake, that's the mentioned reasonable expectation.
Sure it will be used to find people, and of course examples like the Unabomber, and (for heaven's sake, let's not forget to) think of the children, etc.
Similarly, it's horribly easy (per your example) to leave or plant DNA evidence at a crime scene, both for cops and for people who want to fuck with you. Because that kind of abuse will also be happening soon, if it isn't already.
That's one of the things I'm worried about, and it has fairly little to do with conspiracism. DNA evidence is already considered "very dependable", but it's also potentially very easily abused, especially once it really goes mainstream. I wouldn't want to be the one to go into history as the person whose trial created the awareness that ultimately resulted in the discrediting of DNA evidence; Would you?
So yes, thought about it (while writing this post). Also, i'm glad you're so optimistic about american society. those GOP people had me worried last year when they started whining about mexicans.
for this out of control data collection? because upholding the fourth amendment seems like an excellent economy measure.
What the founders of the USA are doing right now. Could anyone make a cohesive argument that if we could bring G.Washington and crew back, that the first thing they would not do is start a revolution?
Considering bad cops, good criminals, and other assorted people that would like to either frame you or draw attention away from them are hardly few and far between (especially in the future, once DNA evidence checking becomes more commonplace through databases such as this one), how long do you think it will be before this is a marvellous way to implicate innocents?
Just be aware that your choice may lead to an ever greater violation of your privacy.
Then it's not really a choice, is it?
Yes but the dna collected is by law only available to identify a body incase the tags are missing.
The Navy Motto "IF it ain't broke Fix It" "A day is wasted if you don't learn something new"
I'm sure the Feds and others think they can do this as standard operating procedure. I don't give a rat's patootie what they think. If I was ever arrested, I'd sit there chanting "Get a warrant!" through my clenched teeth. At least I'd have some basis for later demanding that they expunge me from their database. Its ridiculous to justify this data collection by saying, in essence, that I might be guilty of some future crime that hasn't even occurred yet.
Victims rights should always be more important than that of criminals
What about the rights of an innocent person who was arrested and later cleared? Should their DNA remain in the system in perpetuity?
Aren't bullets a lot cheaper than DNA tests?
These people don't have a right to our justice system.
Mother of democracies? Hmmmmm. Perhaps I've been mistaken about England. I always thought England was a monarchy, that had spread an empire around the world by force of arms. Liberties, rights, and democratic freedoms have been wrested FROM that monarchy by force of arms. Maybe I should google the Magna Charta again, and see how that really went down. Yes, I see. The King decided that it would be a good thing for his subjects to exercise some freedoms, and to be secure in thier persons, so he unilaterally offered the terms of the Magna Charta to his subjects, despite everything his advisors counseled.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
False positives with my name on it.
Right, a "false positive" on some DNA collected somewhere that there's also other evidence of you being, or even within a 100 mile region of.
Do you live deep underground in fear of meteorites as well?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The point that applies here is Reasonable Expectation (of Privacy).
That to me is far more specious.
You leave DNA everywhere. The fact someone identifies something you leave all over, like footprints in a snowstorm is hardly "private" data. And the only people accessing these databases are doing so as part of an investigation, giving them just as much right to correlate DNA as to examine phone records.
True expectations of privacy rest more in terms of you giving someone something else you expect to be kept confidential. Thus there might be some expectation of privacy around something like an email sent to someone (though honestly anyone considering email a private medium is a fool), and certainly a conversation held behind closed doors. But data you are randomly and unconsciously leaving everywhere you go? Not reasonably private at all, nor can it be.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, he apparently is using/spelling the word correctly.
From the link:
Etymology
From Middle English *voluntarie - Old French volontaire - Latin voluntarius ("'willing, of free will'") - voluntas ("'will, choice, desire'") - volens, ppr. of velle ("'to will'"). [...]Derived terms
* voluntarily
That one also tripped my grammar flag and my spel czekker, so I checked. :-)
BTW, I was going to reply to an earlier post of yours when that side tracked me.
LOL! That was well done, sir. [see below]**
From earlier...It made me think. *ouch!*
**
Funny how all three of us close cousins seem to be in a neck to neck race to the bottom. You pull ahead, then at the next turn, we pull ahead...ad nauseam. Australia, obviously is the third. My northern, Canadian cousins seem to be in the race also. Just wondering why, mind you...WTF?!?!?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
We should execute every pot-smoker and prostitute in America and bury them in mass graves. Fuck yeah!
This:
In my country it is voluntary or forced for certain crimes...
and this:
There is definitely no coercion or strong selling, but having said that, the lure of cigarettes turn hardened criminals in to teddy bears.
...make me have to ask which country are you live in. It is not obvious to me from either post where you are from. :-)
I'm just curious, no troll or flaming intended. Really, just curious.
BTW, I also wondered about 'Voluntary' as did 'bargainsale (1038112)', but you are completlyon-target, and correct.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
People will oppose the enforcers and enforcement measures taken by systems that they deem to be immoral and in opposition to them. That is the simplest explanation; so many people engage in civil disobedience that there will always be resistance to these sorts of proposals.
Note that in the case you report, it's actually the DNA typing showing the suspect was NOT THE ONE THEY WERE LOOKING FOR. So a DNA result would HELP, not HURT, those people.
It's exactly the opposite of a false positive. You don't need DNA to have police cover up inconvenient evidence.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just be aware that your choice may lead to an ever greater violation of your privacy.
Then it's not really a choice, is it?
Of course it is really a choice. Just because the result of a choice isn't to your liking doesn't mean it isn't really a choice.
There's Hobson's Choice a.k.a. take it or leave it. Then there's choosing the lesser of two evils. Then there's getting laid by one beautiful chick or having a threesome with a beautiful chick and her gorgeous sister. OK, to be quite honest, that last one doesn't really happen often. They're still all choices.
Even something like deciding to hand over your ATM code or your car or your wallet with a gun at your head is still really a choice. You can always choose not to hand it over. Might be a fool's choice to not hand it over but the choice is still yours.
I am saddened more by your comment than any other I've seen on /. in a long time. To find you moderated Insightful actually scares me. I'll paste the text of the Fourth Ammendment below and ask you to find the Exception clause. You know, that one that provides for contravention of the ammendment when the person is guilty. (I feel dirty having typed that last phrase).
You do remember that a person is not guilty until found so by proper judicial proceedings. Right? Right?!
Ammendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I suppose you meant that it's a violation in any case but especially for those who are never found guilty.
But that is not what you said.
I'm just going to copyright my DNA; at lest then I'll have the RIAA on my side if strands of it turn up in future super-soldiers.
Bwah-ha-ha-ha haaa!
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
The Phantom's list of accomplices showed no pattern, ranging from Slovaks to Serbs, Albanians to Romanians, and her territory stretched throughout Germany and into Austria and France. No one had ever seen her, no security camera had ever captured her image. But when witnesses described her, they sometimes said she looked like a man.
Yeah, sure as hell police knows that you can't trust DNA samples right? Which is why dozens of police officers searched for the phantom for years despite these obvious contradictions. Even a 100.000 Euro bounty was offered...
It turned out to be some DNA pollution on the q-tips the police used: the DNA came from an employee of the cotton-wool tip manufacturer the police used. By the way, the q-tips (which are German polices standard DNA evidence seizure tips) were never supposed to be used for collecting DNA evidence by the manufacturer.
The only problem is the system isn't perfect in distinguishing said criminal from an innocent bystander.
People get arrested by mistake all the time.
And giving carte blanche to DNA collection at arrest instead of conviction will give jerks an incentive to then plant your DNA.
Yes...the "random asshole who wants to fuck with the system to get you in trouble" routine. Jealous lovers do it routinely, and would do so all the more if they knew they could pull it off.
1. Make up a bullshit report to get someone arrested and his DNA in the system
2. Plant his DNA at a crime scene.
3. Call the cops and have him arrested again
4. Laugh your ass off as he gets railroaded
5. ???
6. Profit!
What amazes me is how merciless the monitoring of everyone is becoming. DNA is a good example of this. DNA is such an extremely private part of us all, yet even here they want ever more ways to get access to it and then slowly, ever more mercilessly exploit it. Its endless feature creep.
Scary how we are quickly moving towards yet more monitoring of society. So much for political change. Problem with all politicians is that regardless of which party they are in, they are all seeking a job which gives them power over people. So in this one core respect, they are all the same. They all have to know how to use power otherwise they wouldn't last long in their jobs. If they didn't know how to use power, others would push them out. Therefore the strongest power seekers naturally get selected towards the top. Knowledge is power. With ever more knowledge you can do ever more things with it. Knowledge gives ever more power over others. Politicians of all parties cannot resist any move with gives them more power. Its why we are getting so many feature creeps towards ever more monitoring of everyone in every country in every way.
The point is, the minority of relentless power seekers in every country can't resist seeking new ways to gain ever more knowledge and therefore power. Even our DNA is becoming ever more open to them. Ironically they have to keep seeking power or they loose their jobs to others that do seek more power and ways to out maneuver them. So they are all relentlessly seeking power over others and the best get to the top. Therefore they have to be determined to grab and use as much information as they can, ultimately for their own gain at the expense of their opponents. So even if they say they are going to use this and that data to help us, ultimately they are looking out for what each political chess move gives them in return. Thats also why they will not take political moves which risk undermining their position. They always have one eye on their own position, so to speak.
It therefore means we will not get fairness from them in this one respect of any subject relating to power and knowledge is power. That is why there's endless small steps towards grabbing and exploiting ever more knowledge and the power that gives. Ultimately for all their words, they actually don't want fairness, believe it or not. After all anyone who seeks power over someone else, seeks to dictate their views to someone else. For all their self righteousness and well meaning words, they are relentlessly determined to look out for their own positions, to prevent others beating them to new sources of knowledge and therefore new sources of power and so prevent others from maneuvering them out of their jobs.
Therefore the move towards a Big Brother isn't as such intentional or even conscious. Its a collective emergent end result of lots of people all competing for power over each other, each gaining ever more bits of power for themselves. The point I'm making ultimately is that the book 1984 was right. It is ultimately about power. The relentless inexorable pursuit of power.
We therefore all need to move the conversations on from arguing about each new move towards power. DNA, phone taping, Internet taping, car tracking, automated CCTV data mining, etc.. Whatever it is, each is just a symptom of a central cause. The individual moves towards power isn't the core problem. Its the collective effects of so many moves towards power. We all need to be united behind the understanding that regardless of which new power grab symptom we are faced with, that behind it, is ultimately the relentless inexorable pursuit of power. The relentless pursuit of power is the core problem. Until we all stand against and finally rein in the relentless pursuits of power, we are all going to be dragged ever nearer to Big Brother. Currently there is so much FUD used against us all to convince us we need to give up almost our entire privacy all to help protect our safety, that the lessons of history are being ignored. We need to finally sa
Lol, stop by a couple of carwashes, steal the bags from the vacuums, mix them up and dump them at the crime scene. If you leave no fingerprints, you are good to go, because you had washed your car at the carwash where the bags where stolen. Fucking idiots just want another biometric to try and control the sheep.
Wait, WTF?! Do the idiots running the BK somehow think they're not felons while they're still in jail?!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I flew United, Milwaukee>Ohare>Austin for the Netroots Nation bloggers convention last July.
Landing, 2 bags out of 66 passengers were not on the carousel, mine and agnostic's, another raucous Dailykos poster. We were told they'd been mistakenly sent to Scranton, would be delivered to out hotel around midnight. Actually arrived 4:00 the next afternoon, with 2 pieces of tape, one from TSA, and another from Homeland Security. Missing, my hairbrush, and Ms. Agnostic's scarf.
As I connect the dots, when our dossiers were run, an alert HSA drone noticed empty datafields for our DNA. No longer empty.
(I have history, going back to the Nixon enemies list.)
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
And it surprises anyone that California is taking dna samples from those merely arrested, not charge or convicted of any crime ? Violating their basic civil liberties ?
It has been a very long time sense California was a bastion of civil liberties.
If as the old saw goes..."As California goes, so goes the nation ".. we should all be very afraid.
Oh boy, do you got a LOUSY understanding of the legal system. You are convicted when it is decided that you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. NOBODY claims it is proven you are guilty except the prosecutor perhaps. It is presumed, beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a difference.
Proven not guilty? Sorry, that only happens on tv. Not guilty really means, there is reasonable doubt. Although often it could also mean we don't doubt it, but we can't present the evidence that would nail you to the wall because of legal idiocies.
Anyway, you shouldn't have to be proven non-guilty since until you are convicted YOU are supposed to be presumed innocent. I know I know. Thing of the past.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So, what exactly are you saying? That techonology fouled up but the people using it realised it and did NOT arrest this woman whose only crime is to contaminate sterile materials (would you want her in charge of handling medical equipment used on you) and break down her door or start a case against her?
The system, slowly, worked is what this story really is about.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The problem is that a lot of people are afraid that one day, the nature of crime changes. Should rapist be caught by their DNA being recorded. Sure. But what if someday, they outlaw being a halfblood. Should then these people be rounded up by their DNA being on file and gassed? Oh godwin, you sneak, got yourself into another discussion.
But that is the point. In nazi-germany being the wrong race was outlawed. Suddenly the "harmless" census database became a tool for prosecution people who well actually were guilty. If I make it against the law to have blue eyes then all blue eyed people are criminals after all.
That is what some people fear. What if say 10 years after everyones DNA has been sampled a goverment decides to outlaw prosteting and arrests everyone present at a rally by sniffing their DNA? Sure sure, future tech paranoia but what if?
Not that we need tech, the huttu's and tuttu's didn't need tech, all they had was big knifes and a deep hatred and 1 million dead. Split evenly on both sides granted, if only one side had tech they could have had a proper massacre I suppose.
Another fear people have is simpler. Most people know they are criminals. Date rapers? Wife beaters etc etc? Slashdot is filled to the brim with them. Laws of averages after all. If you are at risk of being caught by a system then you are going to be against it.
So yes, the system has merits, to the innocent who has absolute faith in his/her goverment never abusing such a system. To the guilty or the paranoid/realists there are risks.
Personally, I think the paranoid are wrong. They worry about the wrong thing. Do not fight to keep tools of potential abuse out of the hands of goverment, fight to make sure you goverment will never abuse them. That is far harder and some might say impossible task but as the holocaust in ruwanda showed us, you don't need tech to cause a nightmare. Remember that DNA sniffer? Far simpler would be for a goverment to simply gundown everyone at a rally. Who needs DNA when you are a goverment on the loose? Keep the system honest and then the system can have all the tools available.
That is infact the theory behind the freedom to carry a gun. Don't ban guns, keep people from wanting to kill each other because if someone wants to kill they don't need a gun.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You're not collaborating, and you're not yet in the database. You obviously have something to hide, and they're glad they caught you in time before you .
Kids, it's waaaay too late - like the UK with its CCTV coverage, it is highly unlikely you will ever get this turned back other than with straight forward revolt, which is what nobody can afford right now and as a *decent* member of society you would hesitate to engage in anyway. Rather convenient, that crisis, no? Under Bush it has become acceptable to create a database of millions because it may catch a couple of people - that it creates the potential to trample the rights that the US started with for the entire population hasn't even given them a second's pause. Oh yes, that goose is thoroughly cooked.
Welcome to the Panopiticon - joined by a common language..
OK, that's no problem then. I'll replace your DNA with mine, go on a crime spree and see you hang for it. Remember, computers are never wrong, the database is always right and even if it isn't so we'll hide it because it would otherwise become politically painful.
Apart from the fact that you start treating people like criminals before they have done anything (you're back to proving your innocence - they love that) you should also ask yourself just how the hell you're supposed to secure a database like that. Remember, a government likes the lowest bidder, regardless of what else they may say, and it's not like there are many governments that have a good track record in keeping secrets - even in Liechtenstein it only took one criminal..
If you think a bit beyond the pointy bit in between your eyes and mouth you'll see that this is a BAAAD idea and has, in fact, already been disproved in the UK.
You see, there is another problem: resolution. A bit like what you have with fingerprints. The sheer volume means you'll start to run into the probability of duplicates (assuming for a start someone hasn't used an already contaminated sample). To simplify this, assume you classify people by hair color. When you have 3 people, you may be able to tell them apart, with 10 you already have duplicates. The same with fingerprints and ditto (albeit it a bit later) with DNA. This increases the chance innocent people will get accused of crimes they have not committed - leaving them to prove their innocence.
Some DB manager doesn't like you? Heck, let's swap your DNA entry with some criminal. The next time your bank gets robbed you may have a problem. In summary, you are preparing the ground for well connected criminals to get away with murder. And the government.
*Not* good, under any circumstances.
Why the fuck is this modded Troll?
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
So what would it take to get sections of your DNA copyrighted? Enough where they can't verify your DNA but also enough where you could at least have some fun going to court for copyright infringement if they put it in a database.
The entire rationale for the existence of a police force is for it to act as an instrument of the state to use coercion where the state regards this as necessary. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it most certainly isn't supposed to be an easy thing. Any time a politician (or slashdot poster) makes a speech calling for more laws to "make the job of the police easier" what they are actually calling for is to make it easier for police to forcibly interfere in the lives of people who are legally considered innocent (prison guards deal with people who are no longer legally considered innocent).
The police already have the power to make any given individuals life a misery regardless of that individuals guilt or innocence if they wish to do so: This move not only gives them the capability to involve any individual in random criminal investigations purely because that individual had been at a given crime scene but provides an incentive for police to make arrests for trivial offenses, often of completely innocent people, creating police records and damaging the lives and aspirations of countless individuals solely for the purpose of expanding the police DNA database.
The phrase "you have nothing to worry about if you have nothing to hide" assumes that every single police officer and public official never acts officially in bad faith or acts for personal or outright malign purposes.
If this is the case then providing incentives for police to make numerous arrests for the purpose of expanding police DNA databases and expanding the ability of police to harass citizens going about their lawful business is totally unnecessary. You're suggesting that police should be able to collect DNA regardless of a criminal conviction for no better reason than to provide a shortcut? Take the long way. The job of a policeman ought to be a difficult one because of its nature. In any case, what's to respect about someone with an easy job?
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
What about when the DNA of an innocent person matches the DNA at the crime scene, and that innocent person is in your system, but the guilty person is not? How does your country prevent convicting the innocent person?
DNA tests for criminal identification only compare a subset of bases, not sufficient to actually uniquely identify a person. There are two correct ways to use these tests. First, if the DNA does not match, you can rule out a suspect. Second, if you have identified a small number of suspects through traditional police methods, and THEN you do a DNA test, and one of them matches, you can conclude to a high degree of certainty that is the criminal, by using bayesian reasoning.
If, however, you start out by getting DNA from the crime scene, run it through your non-comprehensive database, and find a single match, and then you make that match your main suspect, and make the DNA the centerpiece of your case--you are not practicing science. You are practicing witchcraft, and that has no place in the criminal justice system.
Lecture by Dr. Bill Deagle, discussing many things including health industry. After you're done with the lecture, here's a more recent interview of Dr. Bill Deagle by the people behind Project Camelot...enjoy ;)
~ awaiting spiritual enlightenment ~
... and this is under Obama's watch.
I wonder... (thinking out loud)
I should have my full DNA sequenced (paying for it myself), then register a copyright on my own DNA. I can create my own derivative works (through reproduction). If someone wants fair use, they can use up to 10% of my DNA, and maybe get around to constructing a malformed bacterium or something. Parody use would be difficult, since you can't easily lampoon something that's already a joke... ;)
Anyway, I could then serve papers on anyone making unauthorized copies of my registered work!
I remember my Dad saying about 20 years ago that the government will take away more and more of our rights under the guise of terrorism or crime prevention. I'm realizing more and more all the time how right he was. They now have warrantless wiretaps, web and email monitoring, cameras on the streets, police checkpoints ostensibly for drunk driving checks but they stop everyone and ask for your license and insurance information (whether you are suspected of DUI or not). I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of things and this is just what we know about. When are we going to stand up and say "enough"?