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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."
Scary how we are quickly moving towards the society depicted in GATTACA.
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.
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!
Just because DNA trace is found at a crime scene doesn't mean that you have been there at the time of the crime, it may be that you were there moments before or did unknowingly have a brush with someone involved. This is especially important in areas where public transportation systems are frequently used.
It's important to consider how the DNA was collected and the conditions at the time to determine how relevant it is.
More interesting would be if DNA is missing when it would be expected.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
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?
Mistakes happen. If the woman in this story had been in that database, she'd be in prison for a crime she didn't commit.
It is unconstitutional. DNA is personal property and protected. A person is INNOCENT until proven guilty, not the other way around. The act of being arrested is NOT proof of guilt, and in no way removes the rights of the individual being arrested (except in the eyes of The Man, no one seems to have any rights but them).
So go ahead and collect DNA. You may eventually have everyone on record, but that's no big deal for most of us.
Who decides that it is no big deal? Who decides if you are a criminal or not (or me, or the guy down the street)? When government is allowed to take even the smallest step, it never stops and only uses that small step to build a long path to no rights for the People and more power for government.
If a person is found guilty of a felony, then and ONLY then can ANY of their rights be forfeit. In addition, the loss of rights must fit the crime.
PGA
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 ----
. . . 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.
It's only 1 in 36 billion if DNA is randomly distributed. In reality, your DNA is passed down from your parents. The odds of a match go up if the perpetrator has your ethnicity. They go up even more if the perpetrator is in your family. They go up yet again if the perpetrator is a sibling.
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.
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.
Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.
...in no way removes the rights of the individual being arrested...
Great! I want my time back after I have to prove their accusation is false.
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
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!
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?
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"
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)
Real safety is teaching your wife or daughter to protect herself. Protecting herself is a multi-stage process: Knowing where she is, and the dangers present, knowing the people around her, learning self defense, being willing to use deadly force to protect herself - basically, being able and willing to defend herself.
If your DNA is incapable of protecting itself, why should society be burdened with doing so? You should have married a tomboy who could kick your ass all over the street to ensure that your children would survive.
"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
DNA holds several orders of magnitude more personal information then a fingerprint. The 2 things arent even comparable. A fingerprint is a physical imprint of the pattern on your fingertip, DNA tells every single genetic medical fact about you.
Good-bye
They only test 13 markers on the DNA, not the whole genome, in fact 99.9% of your DNA is the same for every person. While everybody is unique genetically, they only test a small subset so the identification is statistical, what I'm waiting for is a proven false match using DNA profiling.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Although I agree in general with what CAN BE DONE with DNA, versus what actually happens with DNA.
I think that Mendel called and wanted his genetics back.
DNA misses many genetic facts about you, identical twin obesity, Mitochondrial DNA, Gene Imprinting, your body can turn on and off genes, etc
Ergo I would say "DNA tells every single genetic medical fact about you." is a bit of a stretch.
Cotton Swabs are the Prime Suspect In 8-Year Phantom Chase
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 26, @12:10AM from the mom-always-said-to-wash-your-hands dept. Biotech
matt4077 writes "For eight years, several hundred police officers across multiple European countries have been chasing a phantom woman whose DNA had been found in almost 20 crimes (including two murders) across central Europe. It now turns out that contaminated cotton swabs might be responsible for this highly unusual investigation. After being puzzled by the apparent randomness of the crimes, investigators noticed that all cotton swabs had been sourced from the same company. They also noted that the DNA was never found in crimes in Bavaria, a German state located at the center of the crimes' locations. It turns out that Bavaria buys its swabs from a different supplier." biotech slashdotted csi weird swabdotted science biotech story
DNA sequencing is very error prone, particularly when performed by the minimally educated techs working in crime labs. Furthermore the whole system of using "DNA markers" is flawed. To speed the workflow the fewest markers possible are tracked and this has been shown to be not enough to positively identify someone.
It is entirely possible for a your DNA to be wrongly sequenced or contaminated to produce false match to a criminal already in the database. Every entry in current DNA databases is also suspect of being flawed and another potential source of a false match. If this happens for a serious crime like rape or murder you're looking at being greatly inconvenienced at the least and you may end up with your public reputation tarnished permanently even after the issue is cleared up with the authorities.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
No. Laws are not made to convict the guilty, or to protect the innocent, they are made to administer justice in an otherwise unjust world. There is no such thing as security, and to remove rights and freedoms from the majority in the pursuit of more security from the few scum in society is a fools errand.
The true victims are those that believe all these "security" measures are indeed that.
Take DNA after convicted. Take fingerprints after conviction. Otherwise, leave them alone.
PGA
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
Ergo I would say "DNA tells every single genetic medical fact about you." is a bit of a stretch.
You clearly don't watch enough TV.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
as well as details about one's ancestry (potentially revealing infidelities, for example).
The UK is already making use of this - so-called "familial searching". Even if the criminal's DNA isn't in the database, chances are one of their relatives is thanks to the UK police routinely taking DNA on arrest and keeping it on the database forever. (Especially if the person in question is black - 27% of black people, and 42% of black males are on the database according to TFA.) This includes arrests of kids and arrests for minor crimes.
Looks like the US is heading in the direction of the UK already, at least in terms of DNA collection and retention. Scary, isn't it?