House Votes To Expand National DNA Arrest Database

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from CNET: "Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the US House of Representatives on Tuesday. By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults 'arrested for' certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory. ... But civil libertarians say DNA samples should be required only from people who have been convicted of crimes, and argue that if there is probable cause to believe that someone is involved in a crime, a judge can sign a warrant allowing a blood sample or cheek swab to be forcibly extracted."

Comments

Action:

[Ethanol-fueled]

Rep. Teague's proposal would extend DNA sampling and testing to anyone arrested on suspicion of burglary or attempted burglary; aggravated assault; murder or attempted murder; manslaughter; sex acts that can be punished by imprisonment for more than one year; and sex offenses against minors. The attorney general would be required to report to Congress which states have and have not signed up for the DNA database.

You know what to do, guys. Call into the anonymous tipline and accuse all of your neighbors of burglary.

Re:Action:

[plover]

I read that as "sex offenses against morons". It doesn't read the same after that.

Re:Action:

[characterZer0]

You know what to do, guys. Call into the anonymous tipline and accuse all of your Congressmen of burglary.

FTFY

Re:Action:

[OhHellWithIt]

I didn't read through the entire bill, but the part I read talked about people arrested for sexual crimes and murder -- nothing about burglary that I could see. The biggest problem I have with it is that while it has a process for expungement of people who are acquitted or whose guilty verdict is overturned, I didn't see anything in there requiring states to initiate the process when one of these events occurs.

Re:Action:

[Ethanol-fueled]

The law dosen't apply to white-collar crimes. Guess that means we can steal all of our neighbors' money as long as we don't break into their houses.

Re:Action:

[Vinegar Joe]

Call into the anonymous tipline and accuse all of your Congressmen of buggery.

Fixed that.

Re:Action:

[Kreigaffe]

So, acquitted or an over-turned verdict and you can get off the list... but simply being arrested and the charges later being dropped? Is there a process for expungement in that situation? This is slashdot so I haven't read the article or the bill but if you read that far and didn't see anything about that it very well could not be in there.

And that's kinda frightening.

Re:Action:

[The Archon V2.0]

The biggest problem I have with it is that while it has a process for expungement of people who are acquitted or whose guilty verdict is overturned, I didn't see anything in there requiring states to initiate the process when one of these events occurs.

In other words, it's like the TSA banned flyers list. Easy as hell to get onto, impossible to get off of. Throw in "poorly maintained" and "prone to errors/misfiles" and we'll have the TSA list all over again, except one that juries believe because they saw something about DNA on CSI.

Re:Action:

[camperdave]

Bonus points for getting wax imprints of your Congressman's fingerprints and leaving them in the victims' blood at a crime scene.

Re:Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

No read history, call in your neighbors, likely they have done nothing wrong but there are so many errors in th DB that it will be decades before they are releases(if ever) you know those that don't cut their lawn frequently enough are terrorists,

Read that history of how the SS operated = DHS, different letters same name, same concept. report your friends, neighbors to advance yourself in the party (tea party in this case)

Re:Action:

[Platinumrat]

In Australia recently, all DNA evidence was thrown out of court because of the "poorly maintained" thing in the State of Victoria. It appears the forensics lab got caught with bad paperwork and contaminated samples. Following from that is a High Court challenge to DNA evidence being allowed as the sole claim for guilt. The upshot of that, is that police will not even be able to get arrest warrents on DNA evidence alone. They might have to do some good old fashioned detective work.

Re:Action:

[commodore64_love]

I really hate Congress. Is that wrong?

Re:Action:

[SomeJoel]

I really hate Congress. Is that wrong?

Well then you shouldn't have voted for them.

I'm just fucking with you, it doesn't really matter who you vote for.

Re:Action:

[TheRaven64]

Does that work anymore? I thought if they were a Democrat it was expected, and if they were Republican it was expected but they were required to lie about it.

In happier news, the coalition government in the UK is imposing stricter constraints on when DNA information can be retained by the police, cancelling the national ID database, brining in stricter controls on where CCTV cameras are allowed in public, and introducing a new IT procurement policy to favour open source and small businesses. Seeing my government do a string of sensible things is quite a novel experience (and a little unnerving) - it's not happened before in my lifetime.

Re:Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

Call into the anonymous tipline and accuse all of your Congressmen of burglary.

Oh, fuck man! Where have you been? Those bastards have been stealing from everyone long before I was born. The IRS is their apparatus of choice,

Re:Action:

[The Archon V2.0]

I really hate Congress. Is that wrong?

Wrong? I thought it was the default.

Re:Action:

[slick7]

Camping Tip: Bear bells provide safety for hikers in grizzly country. The tricky part is getting them on the bears.

You're doing it wrong. The bells announce dinnertime.

As for the DNA database, ALL politicians should automatically be sampled (this should be mandatory) just to have the samples on file when the crooks er... I mean politicians get busted for the crimes they obviously perpetrated.

Re:Action:

[Shakrai]

In other words, it's like the TSA banned flyers list.

I'd like to know how the "no fly" list passes Constitutional muster, when the 5th amendment requires that due process be provided before one is deprived of life, liberty or property. It doesn't really seem compatible with the spirit of that amendment to deny people their rights and then provide them with an appeals process.

I'd also like to extend a big fat middle finger to the idiots that are whining about the "terror gap" and the need to prevent people on the no fly list from purchasing guns. One wishes that they could see past their hoplophobia long enough to realize that they are advocating for a policy that would allow the US Attorney General to deprive American citizens of their civil rights without needing to go before a judge or jury. Scary stuff.....

Re:Action:

[street_astrologist]

Read that history of how the SS operated = DHS, different letters same name, same concept. report your friends, neighbors to advance yourself in the party (tea party in this case)

The Tea Party (the original movement, not the FOX News bandwagon/smokescreen) is as opposed to these sorts of abuses of privacy as are most of the rest of Slashdot's posters. Their entire premise is the reigning in of a government out of control.

I believe you may have intended to refer to the Democratic Party, the party currently in power and whose president and congress is nominally controlling the DHS.

Re:Action:

[street_astrologist]

This is slashdot so I haven't read the article or the bill but if you read that far and didn't see anything about that it very well could not be in there.

And that's kinda frightening.

It's ok, your representatives in the House likely didn't read it either.

Re:Action:

[MoeDumb]

Our lives are in the authoritarian hands of idiots, bureaucrats and bumblers. Frightening, really.

Re:Action:

[ishobo]

The biggest problem I have with it is that while it has a process for expungement of people who are acquitted or whose guilty verdict is overturned, I didn't see anything in there requiring states to initiate the process when one of these events occurs.

I would not expect them to require it.

California already takes DNA from any adult that is arrested of a felony or a crime that could be charged as a felony. People that have been arrested during politcal demonstrations and released with no charges have had their cheeks swabbed. To make matters worse, a person must wait three years before they can request an expungement, which a judge must order but a prosecutor can veto. That is right, no charges have to be filed and the state could keep your DNA forever. The ACLU has filed suit and they asked for a preliminary injunction. The prelim was denied in federal court in December 2009 with the judge stating that DNA is just like fingerprints and it helps soolve crimes. The lawsuit continues.

Let us not forget, California shares their DNA database with the federal government. There is no requirement that the national DNA database honor an expungement.

Californians can blame themselves for this. Direct democracy in action. Happy times in America.

Re:Action:

[jimicus]

IANAA (an American), but I imagine they decided that being allowed to fly was a privilege rather than a right. You're still free to get from A to B some other way, and the fact that flying is the only practical way in many parts of the US - and for that matter if you want to go to most places outside the US - is neither here nor there.

Re:Action:

[serviscope_minor]

and introducing a new IT procurement policy to

That is actually a great shame. So far, EDS have been the number one saviour of British civil liberties by taking billions invested in IT and pouring it down the drain. Given that sooner or later most goverments will try ti implement an evil spying computer system, I'd rather they kept buying them from staggeringly incompetent large vendors. Hey, the money's wasted but in this cast, that is perfereable to it *not* being wasted.

Re:Action:

[wgoodman]

yeah.. "happy"

Re:Action:

[Shakrai]

I've read the entirety of the US Constitution and I can't see anything in it that would permit the Federal Government to deem that air travel (or anything else for that matter) is merely a "privilege".

Re:Action:

[jimicus]

Arguably, however, the constitution was drafted in much simpler times.

A similar effect to the No Fly List could be achieved by informing airlines that the government would no longer enforce it however they could (if they so choose) check their passenger list against the no-fly list and not let anyone who's on the list fly.

Entirely optional, of course. Though the airline would be obliged to pay in full any restitution as a result of a terrorist incident out of their own pocket.

Re:Action:

[Shakrai]

Arguably, however, the constitution was drafted in much simpler times.

If only there was a process by which we could amend it..... Nah, why do that when it's easier to just ignore it?

Re:Action:

[tmosley]

Accuse them of child rape, then.

Re:Action:

[Omestes]

Not everything in life is a "right". You don't have the "right" to drive a car. You don't have the "right" to junk food. You sure as hell don't have the "right" to air travel. I'm sick of the abuse of the word "right", it has become an egotistic term of mindless entitlement.

How is flying not a right? It is a minor surface phenomena. Travel might be a right, but HOW you travel isn't. If I, as an owner of an plane, tell you your not allowed on my plane, for whatever reason, am I violating your rights? No.

I agree the no-fly list is bad, and very dubious, but conflating it to a violation of your "right to fly in a privately owned airplane" is silly.

Re:Action:

[Shakrai]

If I, as an owner of an plane, tell you your not allowed on my plane, for whatever reason, am I violating your rights? No.

We aren't talking about the airlines telling you that you can't fly. We are talking about the Government doing the same. When the Government deprives you of liberty without due process we have a problem....

Re:Action:

[Thunderstruck]

So, acquitted or an over-turned verdict and you can get off the list... but simply being arrested and the charges later being dropped? Is there a process for expungement in that situation?

Generally, yes. In South Dakota, for example, we already have automatic DNA sampling imposed upon anyone *arrested* for a felony. It is part of the booking procedure. If the felony charges are dropped, dismissed, or you are acquitted at trial, you can send a copy of the dismissal order to the state lab and the sample must then be destroyed. This has been the rule for about two years now. (The tricky part is, for cases where the charges get dismissed early-on, you sometimes have to go ask the judge to sign a separate order documenting the dismissal, just so you have something you CAN send to the state lab.)

Re:Action:

[Omestes]

. When the Government deprives you of liberty without due process we have a problem....

I completely agree, but this doesn't mitigate the fact that flying is not a right. Due process is a right (or should be considered as such), flight still isn't.

Re:Action:

[OhHellWithIt]

Let us not forget, California shares their DNA database with the federal government. There is no requirement that the national DNA database honor an expungement.

The bill that passed has language requiring the federal government to expunge the DNA record upon receipt of official notice of acquittal or overturned conviction. That, at least, is something to say for it. But it still gets my goat that one has to *ask*.

Re:Action:

[ishobo]

I was talking about the California statute. You do not have to be charged in California for DNA to be obtained.

Re:Action:

[Anonymous Coward]

California, the land of left wing politics run amok. The majority of /.ers think the conservatives are the ones wanting to take their rights away, but it's actually the socialists/progressives who are wanting to deprive the individual of their rights and create a government with even more power than it already has.

President Wilson was a progressive(left wing) and his administration was the most repressive administration in US history. He jailed people for up to 20 years for criticizing his administration or even its policies. He shut down newspapers that opposed him. He spent us into a major depression(just like Obama is doing). He thought our Constitution was too restrictive because he wanted to centralize power in his administration(just like Obama wants).

FDR, another major progressive, was the President responsible for "relocation" camps during WWII. He refused to close the camps even though it was proven those whom he was incarcerating were no threat to the US.

Wake up America. It's the political left that wants to deny you your rights. It's the conservatives who believe in individual rights, not the rights of classes of people. And, it's your individual rights that guarantee your liberties, not the rights of classes of people.

Re:Action:

[toddestan]

What we have here is that the government is maintaining lists that say certain people cannot partake in certain activities. Anyone can be added to these lists by the government without due process or even a stated reason, and once on a list, there is no appeal process to get ones named removed from the list. That's the problem. The fact that it's about flying is really only a minor side detail.

Re:Action:

[Omestes]

I agree. The real problem is the violation of due process, but why muddy the waters by making up rights?

Re:Action:

[Shakrai]

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Re:Action:

[Omestes]

Wow, I have a right to Blue Bunny Strawberry ice cream now! If a store refuses to sell it to me, they are infringing on my rights! I also mysteriously aquired the right to buy heroin at 7-11, the Constitution doesn't specifically bar it, so therefore it must be a right!

Which just goes to say I find the very term "rights" to be completely meaningless. They are a useful social construct, useful, but ultimately nothing more than a complete fiction with absolutely no basis in objective fact. A right is only that which you can convince other people that you have. It also goes to explain how we completely misuse the term so often, and often completely forget the actual basis of the term in Western political philosophy.

Your ability to fly freely only applies to the level where it doesn't squash others ability, and is completely limited by what the owner of the conveyance wishes (which to me throws the whole "flying is a right down the tubes", since when do rights affect such trivial things as other people's specific property). If there is a perceived risk that you may harm others, I have no problem with barring you from flight. There is a level of acceptable risk, and that is something open to public debate, and public standards, but past that level you should be barred. This is fine, and is completely in line with our intellectual traditions.

You conflate a minor particular with the set that contains it. Travel can be construed as a right, but not the particulars (this driving isn't a right, nor is flying, or boating, or...). The real problem is the violation of due process, which is a recognized, and enumerated, right.

The government is violating your right to due process, not your so-called "right" to use an airline's property.

Re:Action:

[Shakrai]

Your splitting hairs. You have the right to do whatever the hell you want, as long as it doesn't harm others. The Government has no right to tell you otherwise without according you due process of law.

The airline is perfectly free to refuse to do business with you (I have never maintained otherwise throughout this discussion) but I take issue with the Government telling them they can't do business with me.

Re:Action:

[Omestes]

ou have the right to do whatever the hell you want, as long as it doesn't harm others. The Government has no right to tell you otherwise without according you due process of law

We agree completely on that.

but I take issue with the Government telling them they can't do business with me.

I see no problem with this, if there was due process, and the methods for compiling the list were as open as possible (keeping in mind valid security concerns).

Not right

[Antisyzygy]

I dont believe that this is constitutional, or at least its not of the same spirit as the constitution.

Re:Not right

[characterZer0]

So, what are you going to do about it? Nothing? Yeah, the government figured that out. The constitution is irrelevant.

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe want to point to an amendment here? I'm guessing the assumption is that it violates the 4th, but by definition if someone has been arrested for these types of crimes then probable cause has already been established. I'm not saying the law is right, but I don't think it's unconstitutional. What I take major issue with is that it was passed under suspension calendar which seems extremely inappropriate.

Re:Not right

[broken_chaos]

As the summary pointed out, it's doing an end-run around the requirements for warrants (and I believe that's what the 4th Amendment pertains to -- I'm Canadian, so I'm going on some vague memories here). Imagine if all the police had to do to search you, your home, and all your belongings was to arrest you -- no judge involved at any point -- and then are able use anything they find in those searches against you at any point in the future. Not a good situation from my perspective, but that's what this is setting up with DNA.

Re:Not right

[Bigjeff5]

It is exactly the same, if more invasive, as fingerprinting. You get arrested, you get fingerprinted. Period. It stays in the database forever.

I'm not sure how many people have tried to fight fingerprints, but there has obviously never been a successful constitutionality challenge against it. DNA is simply a more complete, and more invasive, fingerprint.

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure they stopped caring about that a loooooooooong time ago.

-david z (nothirdsolution-com)

Re:Not right

[kd5zex]

I'll do something about it tomorrow, American Idol is on tonight...

Re:Not right

[Antisyzygy]

I will genetically modify myself every few months and go on a crime spree.

Re:Not right

[Antisyzygy]

Im not against fingerprinting because people don't necessarily see it as definitive proof of someone committing a crime. People, that is potential jurors, tend to see DNA evidence as conclusive.

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont believe that this is constitutional, or at least its not of the same spirit as the constitution.

Congress can send money to the states with just about any rules it wants. Now, you might be able to argue it would be unconstitutional for the states to follow these rules, but I don't see how this law could be unconstitutional. No one is forcing the states to do anything. Maybe none of them will ever take this money. I hope my state doesn't.

Re:Not right

[blincoln]

DNA is simply a more complete, and more invasive, fingerprint.

It's really not. Can a fingerprint be (reliably) used to indicate your ancestry, diseases you are genetically likely to develop, etc.?

Re:Not right

[Mr. Slippery]

So, what are you going to do about it?

Personally, I'm going to inform any cop who tries to take any part of flesh that I regard that as sacrilege and as the moral equivalent of rape, and will resist by any means necessary and available. Yes, I will quite likely be beaten while resisting; that doesn't change my duty to resist heinous crimes.

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to grab the officer's gun and shoot him in the goddamn face is what. The constitution is irrelevant. I'll either spend the rest of my life in prison or be shot. Those are the options I guess.

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

You should just get one of your own, much easier to deploy.

Re:Not right

[Paracelcus]

Wasn't it GWB who said that the constitution is "just a piece of paper"?

The only time anybody pays attention to it is when doing so serves their own purposes.

You can get my DNA from the saliva I spit in your face!

Re:Not right

[commodore64_love]

>>>So, what are you going to do about it?

Organize patriots and pass this amendment to the Constitution in order to give Member States of the Union power to nullify Congresses' stupid laws. It may take 40 years but I think it will pass eventually, because it is the only way to provide "checks and balances" between the Union government and the State governments:

The "Protect the 9th and 10th Amendments" Act.
----- Proposed Amendment XXVIII.

Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-half of the State legislatures declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed. ----- SECTION 2. The Supreme Court will have the authority to review cases, and as part of the ruling declare these cases constitutional or unconstitutional, however the decision by the States (section 1) shall be superior.

.

With our current system, you first have to wait until some government arrests you for a crime (for example: owning a gun in Washington DC). Then you have to file in court to defend yourself against this unconstitutional law. In most cases you'll lose, but if you're lucky it can rise to the level of the United States' government court who may or may not declare it unconstitutional. ----- That process took ~30 years to overturn D.C.'s unconstitutional banning of guns. With my proposed amendment, there'd be no need to wait. You (and your neighbors) could collectively instruct the State Legislature to declare the law "unconstitutional". Once 25 other legislatures have done the same, then the U.S. law would be voided.

My proposed amendment would simplify the process, shorten the time that an unconstitutional law sits on the books (2-3 years, not 30), and most-importantly, not require citizens to sit in jail or waste time in the courtroom.

Re:Not right

[DM9290]

It is exactly the same, if more invasive, as fingerprinting. You get arrested, you get fingerprinted. Period. It stays in the database forever.

I'm not sure how many people have tried to fight fingerprints, but there has obviously never been a successful constitutionality challenge against it. DNA is simply a more complete, and more invasive, fingerprint.

In canada it was challenged and as a result you can request to have your fingerprints removed by the police after you are acquitted and they will be removed once they confirm there is no outstanding warrants or anything against you, that you have no criminal record and you were in fact acquitted, and that you aren't a terrorist or something else like that.

this practice probably does not include any of the special national security databases that are secret and nobody knows about, but almost certainly exist.

Re:Not right

[Antisyzygy]

I pay attention to it all the time. Its sad we even need a constitution to spell out common sense rights, but I love that "piece of paper" for the common sense it spells out for morons like politicians. Unfortunately politicians are either half brain dead or self serving greed mongers so they fail to interpret it the most rational way.

Re:Not right

[dunng808]

I thought being arrested got you finger printed and photographed, and that data is retained forever. How is gathering and storing DNA different? Now if every woman who has sex can sell a sample of collected fluids to a communicable disease database I think some married jocks would worry about leaks. Nobody on Slashdot, of course. And if you want to out a Republican Congressman just extend the offer to underage boys.

So are we against retaining finger prints and mug shots? Or only DNA?

Re:Not right

[Antisyzygy]

I against Police keeping anything after a person has been cleared of a crime beyond things directly pertaining to the court case for documentation.

Re:Not right

[robi2106]

Since when will Constitutionality stop the current Administration from grabbing more power for the federal government?

Re:Not right

[Mr. Slippery]

It is exactly the same, if more invasive, as fingerprinting.

It's not "exactly the same" precisely because it is invasive.

The sovereignty of the state ends at my skin. Period.

You want to put me in a "clean room" for a bit and then pick up any bits of hair and skin I leave behind? Ok, I won't resist, assuming it's a legit arrest. You want to take a microgram of living flesh from me? Fuck you, buddy. That's stepping over a bright, clear line.

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck the government of united snakes, i am a sovereign nation of one, on occupied territory. The U.S. is property stolen by guns, germs, lies and steel. It has not jurisdiction over me. Anonymous cowards rule!

Re:Not right

[falconwolf]

Since when will Constitutionality stop the current Administration from grabbing more power for the federal government?

TFA does not sway if the Obama admin is behind this, where did you get your info?

Falcon

Re:Not right

[falconwolf]

I thought being arrested got you finger printed and photographed, and that data is retained forever.

Fingerprints and looks change, unless it's damaged (or engineered) DNA doesn't. It can't be determined what race or nationality a person by their photo or fingerprint either. Ethnic/national groups can be determined by DNA.

So are we against retaining finger prints and mug shots? Or only DNA?

Anything and everything if the person is not convicted of a crime.

Falcon

Re:Not right

[Yez70]

It's not constitutional and will never withstand a court case challenging it.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that:

"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 Warrants shall not be issued, 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."

Re:Not right

[unwastaken]

That's a good amendment. However, I've been reading a bit about the topic lately. I'm not sure the founding fathers thought you even needed such an amendment for the states to nullify federal laws.

Another good start would be to repeal the 17th Amendment (direct election of senators). This would give the governments of the states back their voice in the federal government.

Of course, repealing the 17th won't happen, since people don't understand the purpose of letting the states choose their senators.

Re:Not right

[Shark]

Most people born in the US after 1970 have a blood sample taken at birth. These are filed somewhere and if not in a database already, pretty easy to put in one. Too late to protest them having your DNA, the key point here is that DNA being associated with your behaviour.

Re:Not right

[Shakrai]

You get arrested, you get fingerprinted. Period. It stays in the database forever.

Actually that depends on the state. I got fingerprinted when I was arrested. When the Grand Jury refused to indict me I received a court order compelling the relevant police agencies to destroy any and all copies of my fingerprints, photograph, DNA, etc.

Of course I later had to give up my fingerprints to the state to get a pistol license, but there you go.....

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll be shot. This move is popularly known as "suicide by cop".

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get my DNA from the saliva I spit in your face!

Which would constitute assault, so they'll definitely have it afterwards one way or another :)

Re:Not right

[Dr Damage I]

"they will be removed once they confirm there is no outstanding warrants or anything against you, that you have no criminal record and you were in fact acquitted"

What if you are arrested, but never charged? Does no acquittal mean the fingerprints stay on file?

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what are you going to do about it? Nothing? Yeah, the government figured that out. The constitution is irrelevant.

Damned right. And the rest of the silly fucks in my state of California actually voted this shit into law two or three years back.

Sure, there's a thing in the law where, if not eventually convicted, you can "request" that the sample be destroyed.

First off, that's a request (which, by definition, can be denied), not a fucking demand or a default must-take action by the state. Second, prove to me that it will actually be destroyed. Third, if it doesn't get destroyed, but is later used against you for something unrelated, you know in your heart that the pussified courts will allow it into evidence because, despite the "mistake" of not destroying it, it was all done "in good faith".

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

I got my fingerprint card BACK (NY state, felony forgery, charges dismissed, 1990).

Is this really that rare? You're saying all 50 (49?) keep fingerprints?

(Also, before someone tells me that I got it back since it was scanned and their giving up the card was no big deal to them, that someone should think REALLY hard about what happens when the state comes up with my prints that at the time they were not permitted to keep, by statute, after charges were dismissed)

Re:Not right

[selven]

It shall be as if the law never existed? So the law just gets revoked and it can get passed again with no penalty? I propose something a bit harsher.

Section III

Politicians supporting bills that are found unconstitutional are given strikes, and after a politician accumulates 3 strikes he must immediately leave office and cannot assume elected office for 15 years. Any of the following constitutes a strike:

1) Initiating a bill that is later found unconstitutional.
2) Approving of such a bill as President when the possibility of rejection is available.
3) Voting for such a bill.

That way the politicians won't try to approve anything that looks like it might possibly tiptoe on our constitutional rights.

Re:Not right

[ckaminski]

I think said 3-strikes ought to include a little bit of jail time (1 year) for treason.

Re:Not right

[commodore64_love]

>>>>Another good start would be to repeal the 17th Amendment

You would immediately labeled "anti-democratic" or possible even "racist", so while I support the idea, I'm afraid it would quickly die. Besides even when the Senate was the States' House, unconstitutional laws still passed. Look at the Alien Sedition Act or the Fugitive Slave Act.

Re:Not right

[commodore64_love]

Good idea but would not pass the Congress. You'd have to pass Amendment 28 first, and then the "punish Congressmen" amendment at some later date. Baby steps.

Re:Not right

[DM9290]

"they will be removed once they confirm there is no outstanding warrants or anything against you, that you have no criminal record and you were in fact acquitted"

What if you are arrested, but never charged? Does no acquittal mean the fingerprints stay on file?

The courts never ordered the police to destroy any fingerprints. The police merely told the courts that they do on request and described the reasons they would refuse. The courts said, well it seems that although the law is silent on that matter - it is in fact being applied in a sensible way, so there is nothing really to do here.

I'm sure if and when the police refused to destroy someones fingerprints it would need to go back to court. but I don't see why they would want to waste the time unless they had a good reason. i.e. if a convict tried to get their fingerprints destroyed, I'm sure the government would go to court to fight against that.

it seemed to be the sense that in general the state probably doesn't have unfettered rights to simply keep fingerprints forever without any limits. the question was not formally ruled on however because the crown did not try to assert such a right.

I merely wanted to point out that in some jurisdictions at least it is recognized that fingerprints have special value and the state doesn't just get to necessarily keep them forever on anybody that happens to be arrested.

Re:Not right

[Anonymous Coward]

Your proposal would also give political appointees (state governors, state legislatures, etc.) a power that is normally reserved for employed-for-life Supreme Court judges who are not supposed to serve at the whim of political tides-of-the-moment. (They are supposed to defend the constitution) Your proposal essentially amounts to expecting half of Congress to "check" the other half, when both halves were put in place by the same political parties.

More to the point, members of a state legislatures are not required to have any legal training whatsoever, and are definitely not schooled in Constitutional law. They aren't qualified to declare something constitutional. Not that that would be much of an issue, since they would happily claim that various things were unconstitutional when pressured to do so by whichever political party was in power at the time.

This is, in short, a terrible idea which would short-circuit the very essence of the checks-and-balances system. There are reasons why the court system moves slowly: It needs to gather evidence. Legislators can move more quickly exactly BECAUSE the court system will eventually check their excesses. This is not a bug -- it's a feature.

The house needs more rebels

[RichMan]

I would like to add a line amendment that anyone running for any government elected position also be required to submit DNA to the database.
What is good for the goose.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Naturalis Philosopho]

I'll go further. Anyone taking any public position at all should have to "submit"; including (especially) all law enforcement types. Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Ethanol-fueled]

Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

Mistrustful alarmists like you are part of the problem. You should be much more worried about the Wall Street schmucks bilking you out of your wealth.

"As we feel guilt for delegating increasing amounts of parental responsibility to daycare workers and the like, we tend to compensate for our guilt by treating the public at large with mistrust and hostility. A monster must be careful in these paranoid times, even a monster as indifferent to children as Hannibal Lecter."

Paraphrased from Thomas Harris novel Hannibal. Wish I had the book here, the actual quote is much more eloquent.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll go further. Anyone taking any public position at all should have to "submit"; including (especially) all law enforcement types. Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

All Census takers are fingerprint screened against the FBI's database. It's not taken lightly, either. Fingerprints are taken on the first day of training after the administrative paperwork is taken care of and the oath of office given.

The prints are Fed Ex'd that night, one copy to the Census and one copy to the FBI. If the prints come back as unreadable (and it's common that they do; the fingerprints are generally taken by other enumerators and the crew leader, who had one afternoon's training on it) the employee is hauled back up to the local census office for reprinting by an actual fingerprinter.

Just about any positive return, no matter how minor, gets the employee fired. There are, in fact, civil rights lawsuits pending on the grounds that this is unfair to minorities.

How would DNA testing augment this? It wouldn't do a better job of connecting census employees to arrest/conviction records, and I'm not sure what connecting an employee to an open crime would achieve. It wouldn't be legal to give that information to a law enforcement agency, and canning someone because their DNA happened to share a few alleles with a sexual assault kit from an alleged rape sounds like a great way to get sued.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[mrchaotica]

Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

As a census worker, I did have to submit a full set of fingerprints (all 10 fingers) to be kept on file.

In fact, I almost walked away from the job instead -- even those who work for the government ought to be protected from it!

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Anonymous Coward]

I applied for the census, they do a background check... but not a drug test. Hooray for smoking crack before work!!!! (sarcasm)

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

That's faulty logic. Just because they haven't been caught doesn't mean they aren't criminals.
You can not rely on a database check to prove that someone is anything other than not in the database.
There are plenty of criminals that have not been caught, for example nearly 40% of murders go unsolved in the USA.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you let Census takers (or anybody else for that matter) into your house if you don't know them? Answer the questions at the door. If they have a warrant let them in.

Security, doing it wrong.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Shark]

Ah but this is the beauty. With enough samples, you can use genome analysis to figure out which of us are genetically predisposed to crime and do preemptive arrests and executions!

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

That and I think something like 95% of child molestation victims are molested by people the family know, that should help you worry less about the scary anonymous census workers.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Convector]

A lesser person might have just filled out and mailed the original census form.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

See, I think that would be utterly useless. Most politicians would have no trouble doing this. I mean, if a person cares about their privacy, then becoming a politicians is the absolute worst job you could ever apply for. They already have 99% of their life on show for everyone to see, and they aren't generally so stupid as to commit a crime traceable by DNA, so why would they care if their DNA is on file?

I think the only resistance you'd see is from token efforts to cosy up to the pro-privacy crowd ("Hey, we hate DNA databases too!").

Re:The house needs more rebels

[mpe]

I'll go further. Anyone taking any public position at all should have to "submit"; including (especially) all law enforcement types. Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database,

Any such screening is likely to show the actual false positive rate for the techniques. Which could cause problems for "forensic" use in future.

I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

What you have to let census takers into your house in your part of the world...

Re:The house needs more rebels

[mpe]

That's faulty logic. Just because they haven't been caught doesn't mean they aren't criminals.

It's the "logic" behind lists of "sex offenders".

You can not rely on a database check to prove that someone is anything other than not in the database.

Even knowing someone is in the database may not be of much actual use for determining if someone is actually any kind of "threat".

There are plenty of criminals that have not been caught, for example nearly 40% of murders go unsolved in the USA.

It's also quite possible for a murder to be thought something else. e.g. there have been cases of serial poisoners who are only suspected once several people connected with them have died in the same way (or there has been a matter of luck in a nurse or doctor recognising the symptoms). There are plenty of ways in which someone could literally "get away with murder".

Re:The house needs more rebels

[RMH101]

What do you think Monica Lewinsky was for?

I'm here all week, try the veal.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's the "logic" behind lists of "sex offenders".

While I am no defender of those lists, that is incorrect.

Those lists are not intended to make people feel safer because someone they interact with is not on the list.
The intent of those lists is for people to avoid (and ostracize) the people on the list.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[street_astrologist]

Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

Mistrustful alarmists like you are part of the problem. You should be much more worried about the Wall Street schmucks bilking you out of your wealth.

And what reason, pray tell, has our government given him to trust them? Why should we not be concerned about *both* scenarios (among many)?

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia, a local congresscritter was busted and outed for visiting a gay sauna club for 2 hours with media and a quick resignation followed. Before a seemingly normal married family man.One month of stalking for a front page headline is something the newspapers can afford.

Now the good thing about DNA is that close matches can also pinch members of their family.
So the next time a congress critters son or daughter gets into trouble, someone who finds partial unsolved DNA matches can be handsomely paid for a 'lead'.

I suppose a co-conspirator could transplant some DNA evidence .

Indirectly, the congress critters who lead double secret lives, will - give it time - are going to find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Nukenbar]

Since most are lawyers, you already have to submit finger prints to get your law license in most if not all U.S. states. Probably within ten years you will have to give a DNA cheek swab as well.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[overlordofmu]

No Census taker should ever enter your home as part of their job. They do the job from the doorway. Here is the reference:

http://2010.census.gov/2010census/privacy/more-security-topics.php

If one does ask to enter your home, close the door in their face and call the police (or get your shuriken, whatever applies to you).

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Luke has no name]

I don't give a damn if they're willing to submit themselves to DNA donations. They've proven they're willing to let their entire lives out to the public. I DO NOT WANT IT.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.

Or you could have just mailed back the damn form and not had to worry at all about them.

Re:The house needs more rebels

[Anonymous Coward]

This line of reasoning has a poor track record in United States government. One example that springs to mind is "microstamping," the idea that guns must be manufactured so that they imprint a serial number on each cartridge case as it is fired so that you can numerically match fired cases to the gun that fired them.

In every version of this law that I've seen (and I think one may be on the books in California now), police firearms are SPECIFICALLY EXEMPTED. Does that make sense at all??? Wouldn't you specifically desire all use of police firearms to be accounted for?

When you start examining "citizen audit" laws like these, they always seem to weakly (or even ineffectually) address one legitimate issue by levying unreasonable costs on some party, whether it be loss of genetic privacy of citizens or increased manufacturing costs for firearms manufacturers (in these examples).

Cheek swabs

[Locke2005]

Wouldn't the results from a DNA test of a cheek swab of someone arrested for prostitution be, uh, somewhat confusing?

Re:Cheek swabs

[hattig]

Only from the types of service provider that you go to! You know, the ones' whose tubes are clogged with viruses, worms, and the like. ;-)

Seriously, I'm sure that such foreign DNA doesn't hang around in the mouth for long.

Re:Cheek swabs

[b4dc0d3r]

Care to explain your methodology?

Whatever happened to

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to "Innocent until proven guilty"?

Re:Whatever happened to

[dgatwood]

That went out the door with the USA PATRIOT act. Now we're guilty, period.

Re:Whatever happened to

[oldspewey]

Somewhere in the Middle East, there is a group of Al Qaeda operatives sitting around smoking hookah under a banner that reads "Mission Accomplished"

Re:Whatever happened to

[bill_mcgonigle]

Darn, the 'insightful' meter stops at 5.

Re:Whatever happened to

[BigSlowTarget]

Oh you're still innocent. It's just being innocent of a crime is not a defense any more. See the article about the little girl shot in the neck by the police, the lap dog gunned down as a threat, the spread of taserings, the shootings of disarmed unresisting suspects caught on Youtube, the rise in cost of legal defense to the point where even a charge will bankrupt a person, the imprisoning and waterboarding of anyone of the wrong skin color in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc.

On the other hand being guilty is no longer a reason for being punished if you have enough pull or cash (at least until you run out).

Re:Whatever happened to

[fnj]

I'll fix that. +1000, damn straight.

Re:Whatever happened to

[s0litaire]

It's now:
  "You're guilty of something; We've Just not decided what it is yet..."

Re:Whatever happened to

[CBob]

Regrettably correct.

Re:Whatever happened to

[Chris Burke]

Somewhere in the Middle East, there is a group of Al Qaeda operatives sitting around smoking hookah under a banner that reads "Mission Accomplished"

And in the corner is one lone jihadi, the one who went to the notoriously liberal University of Tehran and who everyone says thinks too much, muttering "But this is but one small victory in a long and costly war! That banner and its declaration are completely inappropriate and premature!"

Re:Whatever happened to

[boarder8925]

Reminds me of Catch-22:

"Chaplain," he continued, looking up, "we accuse you also of the commision of crimes and infractions we don't even know about yet. Guilty or innocent?"

"I don't know, sir. How can I say if you don't tell me what they are?"

"How can we tell you if we don't know?"

Re:Whatever happened to

[westlake]

Whatever happened to "Innocent until proven guilty"?

Nothing.

The police have the right to arrest and confine you if they have a credible reason to believe you have committed a crime.

They don't always have to be particularly gentle about it.

They don't always have to go out of their way to spare you any embarrassment.

The judge in responding to a request for a release on bail can consider the risk of flight to avoid prosecution - and the danger you appear to present to yourself or others.

These interim decisions imply that you can be treated as guilty as charged - or cannot be trusted to behave responsibly until that final determination has been made.

Re:Whatever happened to

[sincewhen]

Nice image, but the even more insightful truth is that there is no such group of Al Quaeda operatives, yet this has still happened.

Re:Whatever happened to

[Anonymous Coward]

It's now:

  "You're guilty of something; We've Just not decided what it is yet..."

That is actually true, but the law does not concern itself with trifles. Well, it shouldn't.

Re:Whatever happened to

[Anonymous Coward]

It's now:
    "You're guilty of something; We've Just not decided what it is yet..."
http://feeds.feedburner.com/egypt-panorama

Re:Whatever happened to

[jimicus]

Nice image, but the even more insightful truth is that there is no such group of Al Quaeda operatives, yet this has still happened.

More likely that there was no such group of Al Quaeda operatives. Until we sent a bunch of soldiers over to Afghanistan and then Iraq to fight a guerilla war.

Sensible

[KarlIsNotMyName]

Sounds about as sensible as registering as a sex offender some 18 year old who had consensual sex with a 17 year old.

Re:Sensible

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds about as sensible as registering as a sex offender some 18 year old who had consensual sex with a 17 year old.

Sex is not even necessary. Guys are registered sex offenders if they get nailed for going outside a bar and taking a piss in the adjacent alley. They are charged with "indecent exposure" -- just because they had to drag forth "the naughty bit".

Is there a move among police to "go warrantless"?

[TheSpoom]

Seriously. Where is all this pressure to bypass warrants coming from?

Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you ever knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say thank you for being a friend.

"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Vinegar Joe]

Sometime in the middle of the night, Karl Rove had the Democrat representatives kidnapped, cloned and their brains replaced with aging Republican brains so they could vote for this fascist law.

The original Democrats were then sent back in time thru a secret NSA time portal where the were placed on airliners and crashed into the WTC and the Pentagon.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Anonymous Coward]

You can vote right wing or you can vote left wing but both wings are on the same bird.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[rsborg]

You can vote right wing or you can vote left wing but both wings are on the same bird

That Uncle Sam is flipping you.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[rdtreefrog]

I've never heard this said better.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Anonymous Coward]

Only two groups of people would naturally vote against this law: Anarchists, as a group, and ideological non-surveillance-believers, as a special interest group (by definition).

For all other political movements, as much surveillance and total control as possible is fucking great. There is NO political movement that isn't well served, when having power, by surveillance.

Obviously in your view republicans are fascists, which makes them likely to vote for this. How funny that at least some voted against. May I also point out that modern Democrats are not to any extent anarchist - in fact, your US Democrats seems to be to have been inspired as of late by European social-democrats. And for a social-democrat, which is pretty much inspired by socialism with lighter touch and the view that people must be educated into the egalitarian communal society under the care and guidance of the wise state rather than pushed, an all-encompassing state is as natural as drinking water.

May I point out that in the modern Germany, they were going to ban a nazi party, but couldn't because the illegal material had been written by a cohort of infiltrated special agents acting in-role. In the EU, they are now implementing a directive that details of all internet traffic and emails must be logged. Wake up and see the world - every country in the entire world is moving towards far greater surveillance than in the past.

Anarchism has about 0 supporters on the modern political stage. The few remaining who oppose surveillance are funnily enough more the 'the only fair society is where everyone fends for themselves' and 'the state is always bad' conservatives.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, if 100% of voters were to vote for Libertarians or Greens, they'd be simply throwing their vote away. Because the other 900% of voters or so will vote for the top two parties. (I said what I said.)

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Ramley]

The thing I don't understand is:

What happened to the 60's democrats who were so anti-establishment, etc?

At what point, exactly did the Democrats want to build a HUGE, unsustainable government, and the Repubs (or conservatives) decided to create a movement (tea party) complete with protests and anti-establishment marches and rally's? Does something seem to have shifted here? What happened?

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I can't call a bill that more than half of the opposition voted for anything but bipartisan, so why word the results in a partisan way? The blame should correctly fall on *all but the 32 who voted no*.

The wording is partisan, but not the way you think. It is expressing disappointment with the democrats for not living up to their public image of being pro civil-liberties. The republicans have an image of being anti civil-liberties, so it's no surprise they would vote for such a thing.

Of course, anyone paying attention for the last few decades knows that the democrats' public image of being pro-civil liberties is mostly false, if for no other reason than in recent years it has been promulgated by the republican party looking to use it as a way to denigrate the democratic party for being 'soft on crime.'

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[salesgeek]

You haven't noticed: They are in charge now. And screwing things up the way their parents said they would.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[marco.antonio.costa]

*all but the 32 who voted no*

Which were all Republicans.

Seriously, I understand the affection americans have for one party over another. But the time for this cheerleading is long gone. Just realize that they're both trying to kill you.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[street_astrologist]

Leftists, anarchists and so forth tend to end up quarreling about the proper way to fix things by creating new structures and procedures, until the point where everyone goes home and joins the establishment.

This happens time and time again, and usually Left movements don't even build enough steam to get national press as a result (media blackouts on left-organized war protests notwithstanding). The Democrats exist as a pressure valve to allow these groups to feel like they're able to "work within the system."

The old school conservatives tend to agree on the way to fix things (generally by simplifying), and have just got fed up enough with both major parties that they decided to start their own movement.

The Republicans have merely sunk their fangs into this movement in order to salvage what votes they can, after eviscerating both the Bill of Rights and the Middle East. They deserve no credit for the Tea Party - at least, the current crop of neocons doesn't. "Old school Republicans" like Barry Goldwater are still Tea Party heroes by most accounts.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Dragon Bait]

Sometime in the middle of the night, Karl Rove had the Democrat representatives kidnapped, cloned and their brains replaced with aging Republican brains so they could vote for this fascist law.

Your problem is assuming that the Republicans are the only neo-Fascists in the game. As a libertarian Democrat, I was appalled when the Republicans voted for the Patriot [sic] Act with a sunset clause. I was stunned when the Democrats passed [effectively] the same bill with no sunset clause.

I remember the neo-Fascists Republicans calling anyone who disagreed with their president unpatriotic. I now see the neo-Fascists Democratic president trying to rip up the first amendment to silence his critics.

I guess I'm just not a good enough partisan whore to think that only the Republicans are shredding the constitution -- and this DNA database is just the latest evidence that the neo-Fascists are running the Democratic party as well.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Anonymous Coward]

We should be allowed to vote "NO."

enough "No" votes and the office stays empty, nothing gets done until the next term. It might risk throwing away your vote, but it could lead to a shakeup of the alleged "two-party" system.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[psiogen]

As long as Democratic politicians can get the shit kicked out of them in elections for being "soft on crime" or "soft on terrorists", there is not going to be any serious civil libertarian constituency in Congress, even if liberal citizens are all for it.

There will always be a few anomalous libertarian-flavored Republicans, but they'll never be a majority, because the force that makes conservative politics electorally viable is not libertarianism (as much as we all might want it to be) it's cultural resentment of liberal values.

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was implying that once upon a time Democrats were supposed to be the party that protected your civil liberties (ACLU for example).

Re:"Not one Democrat voted against"

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we go again, with Vinegar Joe trying to smear the right with what the left has had in mind all along. Pretty soon the government will get to do whatever it pleases and us peons will all have to ask for permission because the government is going to give us everything, all under the guise of "socialism".

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[girlintraining]

Seriously. Where is all this pressure to bypass warrants coming from?

An apathetic citizentry kills democracy faster than any group's ambitions.

Here we go

[markdavis]

This is just a horrible, horrible idea. And once the government gets a hold of your DNA:

* You will have no idea what it is used for, by whom, nor how often
* You will never really be able to get that data removed
* You will be put in a position to have to prove innocence instead of being assumed innocent
* You are giving up yet more control over your life and privacy to the government
* The data WILL be used to make assumptions about you
* Your DNA data WILL be unreasonably searched, every time a search is done, and without probable cause
* The data WILL be shared with other agencies- state and fed
* The data WILL be leaked in one way or another
* The data WILL be used to also implicate others in your family with "close" DNA profiles

There are lots of other ramifications, these are just the ones that pop into my mind immediately. Perhaps it is time to Email/Fax/Call your Senator and tell them what you think before the House gets its way... http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Re:Here we go

[yenne]

Playing the Devil's Advocate, everything you just said is already true for fingerprints, except the bit about implicating others with close fingerprint profiles.

Anyone with serious objections to this new law ought to have a response to this comparison, or show evidence for how fingerprinting has been abused to do more harm than good.

Re:Here we go

[camperdave]

The data WILL be shared with other agencies- state and fed

The data WILL be shared with other agencies- state, fed, and international

There. Fixed that for ya.

Re:Here we go

[Hatta]

You know, I'm usually really strongly against any increase in government power at the expense of civil liberties. I'm having trouble coming up with how this is an infringement on them though. It's not like they're keeping your entire DNA sequence, just information on the frequency of some marker sequences. They won't be able to search your genome for any useful information. The analogy to fingerprinting is apt here:

Once the government gets a hold of your fingerprints:

* You will have no idea what it is used for, by whom, nor how often
* You will never really be able to get that data removed
* You will be put in a position to have to prove innocence instead of being assumed innocent
* You are giving up yet more control over your life and privacy to the government
* The data WILL be used to make assumptions about you
* Your fingerprint data WILL be unreasonably searched, every time a search is done, and without probable cause
* The data WILL be shared with other agencies- state and fed
* The data WILL be leaked in one way or another

Except for the last point you raise, this isn't really any worse than fingerprinting. Family members coming under suspicion because of partial matches would be pretty bad. But I think that's an abuse that can be dealt with. Since your closest relatives are unlikely to share more than 50% of your DNA, that should not amount to a finding of probable (>50%) cause. So that's a fairly limited case for abuse. What else makes this worse than fingerprinting?

Re:Here we go

[markdavis]

Oh, I totally agree with you. Fingerprinting of innocent arrestees is also a serious problem and I STRONGLY oppose it for many of the same reasons I strongly oppose collection of DNA from non-proven-guilty felons.

DNA, however, is even worse. Like fingerprints, you leave it around everywhere, but unlike fingerprints, DNA gives them a huge wealth of information about you in the DNA, itself. Fingerprints say almost nothing about someone, they can just be used as an identifier.

Re:Here we go

[markdavis]

You are assuming they are only going to take a small portion of the sequence (which at this time is probably true). BUT, at the rate computing is advancing, it will not be difficult to get an entire sequence in the future. And once sampling becomes mandatory and "accepted" they will sequence more and more of it as technology improves.

You are also assuming they are ONLY storing the small sequence. What if they store the sample, itself? Then it can be resequenced, more fully, at a later time. It doesn't take much physical space to store a dried drop of DNA-containing material.

And... I am strongly opposed to the collection of fingerprints of non-proven-guilty-felons, for many of the same reasons. Just because it is "accepted practice" doesn't make it right.

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up - Fingerprint databases have existed for decades for the purposes of assisting law enforcement. Fingerprint data is collected at the time of arrest, and that data is never expunged even in the event of acquittal of charges or dropped charges. Fingerprints not perfect, no identification system is, but the probability of false positives in fingerprint analysis is outweighed by the sheer volume of true positives.

I can see the potential for abuse of this data, but the government already has plenty of data about every citizen that they could abuse if they chose to - adding DNA collected from people who are suspected of serious crimes does not make me any more worried than before.

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

The data WILL be shared with other agencies- state, fed, international, and commercial for the purposes of targetted advertising

Fixed THAT for ya.

Re:Here we go

[yenne]

Look at the bright side, though:

"You've been cleared, Mr. Dodger. Sorry for all the inconvenience. On the other hand, your DNA shows markers for pancreatic cancer, and we strongly suspect that the man who bailed you out is not actually your father. Have a nice day."

Did I just step in it?

Re:Here we go

[Bigjeff5]

except the bit about implicating others with close fingerprint profiles.

That's actually entirely possible with finger prints, they are not unique.

http://truthinjustice.org/fingerprint-myth.htm

In 1998, in Delaware County, Pa., Richard Jackson was sentenced to life in prison for murder based largely on a fingerprint match to which three experts had testified. The defense argued, unsuccessfully, that it was a bad match. But after Jackson spent more than two years in prison the prosecution conceded the error, and he was freed. In Scotland a murder case was upended when detectives found a fingerprint at the scene of the crime that belonged to a police officer -- who claimed she'd never been there in the first place. To verify her claim, she brought in two fingerprint analysts who attested that not only had her fingerprint been misidentified, but so had the print, found on a tin at the home of the accused, originally attributed to the victim.

As these cases suggest, the relevant question isn't whether fingerprints could ever be exactly alike -- it's whether they are ever similar enough to fool a fingerprint examiner. And the answer, it's increasingly, unnervingly clear, is a resounding yes. A recent proficiency test found that as many as one out of five fingerprint examiners misidentified fingerprint samples./quote

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Add this to the list:

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated....http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html?_r=1

When DNA testing became the latest way to prove a crime we jumped on it. In Oklahoma City/County DNA results were used to prosecute and jail a lot of people. It turns out, years and years later, many of the results were tainted and incorrect resulting in many innocent people being jailed for 10 to 20 years of their lives. That is messed up.

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

"DNA gives them a huge wealth of information about you in the DNA, itself."

No it doesn't. Not when it's being used for this purpose anyway. What is used to ID criminals -- and indeed, what is the only is economically feasible large-scale sequencing at the moment -- involves genetic markers like SSRs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Sequence_Repeat) that are completely uninformative about your phenotype because they occur in non-coding, non-regulatory DNA. There's no reason to sequence and store a full genome or use one for ID purposes. It's orders of magnitude more expensive, both monetarily and computationally.

The only information they could get out of your SSRs are things like how inbred you are, and your relatedness to other individuals with known sequence.

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

I was fingerprinted for the crime of having a green card back around 1994. They got us all.

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

What else makes this worse than fingerprinting?

Because, like many people, I have an intense and probably irrational fear of being stuck with needles. I haven't have a blood test in about a decade, and I should have had my wisdom teeth pulled years ago but I keep putting it off because I'm terrified of something sticking out of my arm. To me, having someone restrain me and take my blood against my will is akin to dumping a bucket of spiders on an arachnophobe; Something which clearly is akin to torture, cruel and unusual punishment, and without due process if done when someone is just 'suspected' of a crime (other than DUI, which blood draws are used to collect evidence).

Re:Here we go

[markdavis]

You said it yourself.... "is the only is economically feasible large-scale sequencing AT THE MOMENT". Once the doors are opened to allowing collection, those doors will likely never close (as history has shown). As technology improves, fuller and fuller sequencing will follow. Plus, there is nothing to stop them from saving the physical specimen for further testing in the future. A small dot of DNA sample doesn't take much room nor cost very much to store.

Re:Here we go

[geekoid]

You are under the false pretense that you can't get that kind if information from the government. You are wrong.
In my experience government agencies take the rules and regulations far more then any company ever does. Plus you actually have recourse against the government.

Re:Here we go

[misexistentialist]

You can wear gloves or temporarily or permanently strip your fingerprints. Also with DNA there is more chance of planted evidence, lab error, or even non-unique matches. Compare them saying that they found "your print" on a car window versus them finding "your semen" in the victim. In the first case you can look at the print and criticize their comparison, and even then it's not conclusive proof. In the second you are just fucked even if you have people testify that you were doing a spacewalk at the time, though you can bring up some desperate police conspiracy theory which only has a chance if you have $800/h lawyers.

Re:Here we go

[F�an�ro]

Unlike fingerprints, genetik markers from related people are simmilar.
Therefore you can deduce who is related to whom. I am not sure to which degree, but with enough genetik markers, you could probably deduce even distant realtionships. If someone knows about a genetik predisposition in one of your relatives, they can draw conclusions about your genetik predispositions. (Or they can just just assume that a person from a family of criminals/terrorists will likely be criminal/terrorist as well)

Furthermore I highly doubt the original dna probes will be destroyed. Genetik markers are an active field of research, so it would make sense to store all dna in liquid nitrogen to be able to reanalyze it later. Due to the small size of a probe, this would be quite cheap.

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

I hearby claim copyright on my DNA. Think I shall submit it to the copyright office tomorrow.

Works for the RIAA/MPAA right?

It is a work of my parents. I get a 95 year term on it right?

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Just throwing this out here:

Over 50% of the DNA between a Human and a Carrot is exactly the same.
Over 98% of the DNA between a human and a Chimpanzee is exactly the same.

The DNA between two family members will be pretty damn similar, let alone any two people in the world.

Re:Here we go

[julioody]

A lot of what you just pointed out, in the eyes of law enforcement (the cronies for some corrupt politician), is nothing more than problems that get in the way of their certainty.

Also, for all the previous posts suggesting that politicians should then be forced to include their own DNA in the database: they might as well do. It won't change anything because that database, should we get to the point where it's being used to prosecute people, well, it will work against people who *actually* get prosecuted for something. And in general that doesn't happen to them.

Amazing how the same happened in Rome happens now, and my guess is it will have the same outcome. This mafia commanding the nation will ultimately destroy everything in their pursuit of power and money. And you know what, that's probably fine as far as they're concerned.

Re:Here we go

[Shark]

Plus you actually have recourse against the government.

Tried getting off a no-fly list lately?

Re:Here we go

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

* You will be put in a position to have to prove innocence instead of being assumed innocent

If the police find a knife at your house, with the blood of the victim, and upon questioning the neighbours, discover that several people saw you carry the bloody knife into the house, then you will be put in exactly the same situation.

Basically, this isn't a reason not to expand the database. Any evidence, that is at all convincing, will force you to prove your innocence, simply because the presumption of innocence has been shattered by evidence (as it should). Your other points, while speculative, are reasonably sound.

Re:Here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

Since your closest relatives are unlikely to share more than 50% of your DNA,

I'm surely not going to marry YOUR sister.

From http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html:

"Scientists have sequenced the genome of the chimpanzee and found that humans are 96 percent similar to the great ape species."

Based on that, I really gotta wonder what the bitch looks like at only 50%.

Re:Here we go

[fulldecent]

>> What else makes [a national DNA database] worse than fingerprinting?

Because I can actively avoid touching things. I cannot control my bleeding or shedding of hair.

Re:Here we go

[falconwolf]

You assume it will not be expanded. Government always expands to grab more power.

Falcon

Re:Here we go

[falconwolf]

In my experience government agencies take the rules and regulations far more then any company ever does.

Guess who's the biggest polluter in the US?...

The government. The government even gives itself exemptions from laws.

Plus you actually have recourse against the government.

What recourse is that? To file a lawsuit? How much does a person have to hire attorneys, experts, and such? Now how much does the government have? A lot of good being able to sue did to to residents of New London, Connecticut. The only good that came out of it was how people forced their own state and local governments to change eminent domain laws. That didn't help Susette Kelo, Kelo and others lost their homes.

Falcon

The downside of a DNA database

[Ziekheid]

I'd like to hear some arguments against a DNA database including the entire population of the US, or any country for that matter. I'm against it myself but my arguments are based on theories that people who are "okay with it because they have nothing to hide" call far-fetched.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Anonymous Coward]

DNA evidence is increasingly used to convict even where the rest of the evidence is tenuous at best. Jurors, who mostly do not understand the science behind DNA, will accept that DNA evidence must mean the accused is guilty. The problem is that there are many ways in which an innocent person can be convicted on the basis of DNA "evidence". First of all we have cross-contamination of a crime scene. Next up. cross contamination (or downright incompetence) in the lab. Next we have increasing evidence that the current science behind DNA forensic analysis is not fool-proof: the tests only look for a finite number of specific markers on the DNA sample, and it appears that there is a non-zero chance that you share a genetic fingerprint with some other person. In fact the methods used are so weak that you may even share a marker with someone who is a different race than you. As the available DNA database grows the chances of such a false positive also increases.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Anonymous Coward]

because they refuse to cross reference the DNA database. They know that if they did, they would find duplicates from DNA from different people. This is because it's not your whole DNA that is being compared, but just a very small set of markers that have a good probability of being unique. Unfortunately, reality is never so neat.

Basically, finding that the way we compare DNA allows for false positives means that anyone who was convicted solely on DNA evidence must be immediately released from prison, guilty or not, since there is no a reasonable doubt.

Having a national database of DNA means they can compare your DNA to DNA gathered in other cases. You could be convicted for a crime because of a lie. The lie being DNA evidence is as reliable as society has been led to think

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[guruevi]

You can track anyone's family ties and forecast certain inherited diseases or disorders - access to such a database would allow insurance companies to allow or deny coverage, raise premiums etc. You can track anyone's heritage, race and according to some check if you have certain 'evil' bits in your DNA thereby including or excluding you from a list of suspects of a crime or 'protect society' against future crimes (see Minority Report). You could track down (yours or others) families against their will (eg. fathers and mothers of abandoned, adopted and single-parent children). In the future you might even be able to clone somebody as a replacement in a political or other scheme (see Manchurian Candidate) or steal somebody's identity by cloning blood samples if DNA ever becomes a universal identifier (like SSN).

The good thing is that you could also check the rate of duplicates in DNA sampling methods. There is a lot of scientific and statistical proof that it is possible that certain DNA sequencing methods used in criminal investigations could result in collisions (like MD5 hashes) however it is unclear at this moment what the 'error rate' of DNA sampling is.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[jimicus]

Three reasons I can think of are based on what I understand from the UK - where we have the dubious honour of being several years ahead of the US in this:

1. Such databases are fantastically expensive to set up and maintain. (Well, it's not the database per se that's expensive, more setting up and managing all the processes that will involve taking DNA samples, getting them into the computer and then matching up DNA data with evidence collected at the scene).

Not ideal when your country is buried in a mountain of debt.

2. Such databases are of dubious benefit. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I do recall that some enterprising journalist submitted an FOIA request and worked out that for every arrest carried out as a result of the DNA database they'd had to take the DNA of hundreds of thousands of people. At such great expense it would probably have been cheaper and more effective (ie. resulted in more arrests) to simply spend the money on hiring more police officers.

Unfortunately the media loves a government taking a "tough stance" on crime, and there's nothing that gets them excited like a computer system that promises the world, even if it almost certainly will not deliver it.

3. Already mentioned elsewhere: with current technology we don't store all the data that comprises the entirety of a person's DNA - just a subset. Most of the theories concerning how likely a false-positive is to occur have never really seen much testing in reality, so we don't know how accurate they are. What we do know is the number of people you're going to put on the database is high enough that false positives are a dead cert. Bit of a shame, therefore, that most lay juries have spent the last 20 years being brainwashed that DNA evidence is utterly foolproof.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[pavon]

The chances of two given people having the same DNA fingerprint are tiny. So if the police already suspect someone of a crime, based on other reasons, then a DNA fingerprint match is good corroborating evidence.

However if you look for everyone that has the same DNA fingerprint as your sample in an entire city/state/country, you will almost certainly find multiple matches. In this case, the DNA match means absolutely nothing, but Jurors will treat it with the same weight as they did in the first case, because they don't understand statistics. Combine that with the fact that the defendant has had prior arrests (that's how he got in the database) and that is often enough to secure a conviction of an innocent man, even more so if he is poor and/or black.

Our justice system already convicts too many innocent people. Giving the government a tool that will result in more is a horrible idea.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Mr. Slippery]

I'd like to hear some arguments against a DNA database including the entire population of the US

Here's an argument for you: the state has no right to any amount of my flesh.

None. Zero. Nada.

I'll pay taxes with only minor grumbling: "render on to Caesar what is Caesar's", and all. But my flesh is not Caesar's.

And I don't have a problem with people who have shown that the are a threat to the rights of others, being placed under the close supervision of the state, even including losing to some degree the right to make choices about their bodies. But this proposal is not about convicts, it's about presumed-innocent arrestees; and a population-wide database would be that much worse.

The only argument in favor of such a database is that it makes live easier for cops. There's a term for a nation where laws are made on that basis: police state.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[sznupi]

With growth of databases there's at least some potential that the methods, if indeed weak, will be demonstrated to be so.

Or one can just start some sect objecting to puncturing of the skin, sanctifying bodily fluids, etc.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Qzukk]

Ding ding ding, the very existence of the database indicates that the government desires to exploit the Prosecutor's Fallacy to the max. There is absolutely no legitimate purpose to such a database, the money would be better spent developing faster methods of testing suspects and clearing out the horrible backlog of rape kits and such in many jurisdictions.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[markdavis]

And third, you can be FRAMED with DNA. It is not difficult, and it is hard to "prove your innocence", which seems to be the necessity now. I can frame someone with DNA far easier than trying to frame them with fingerprints...

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Anonymous Coward]

And then we have the simple fact that just because your DNA is there doesn't mean you actually committed the crime. Your DNA could have been left at the scene because you sneezed there three years earlier Or your skin cells may have flaked off on a letter that someone else opened near the scene the prior day. Or you may have just stumbled and cut yourself.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[moosesocks]

Jurors, who mostly do not understand the science behind DNA, will accept that DNA evidence must mean the accused is guilty.

Isn't it the defense attorney's job to expressly make sure this doesn't happen? We could alternatively force juries to sit in on a lecture before deciding a case in which DNA evidence was presented.

I agree that multiple points of solid evidence should be needed to convict. However, this is a separate and solvable problem.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Anonymous Coward]

Jurors, who mostly do not understand the science behind DNA, will accept that DNA evidence must mean the accused is guilty.

The problem, then, is the jury system. Stupid people shouldn't be made responsible for a life and death decision in a criminal trial.

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Anonymous Coward]

Now why would the US government, who just injected themselves into my healthcare, care about my DNA or propensity to certain cancers or diseases?
Come on now! Do you really think they would make a decision about my future health based on some pointers in my DNA and perhaps deny me benefits?

Stop being scaredycats.. The government can't misuse this information in any way.. They will always delete it when not needed and never have it lost, stolen, sold or corrupted.. Trust them.. They are experts and know just how to safeguard your information..

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[witherstaff]

I like how the feds, and now many states, disallow searches of the DNA database to find false positives. Hundreds were found before this line of research was shut down. From a LA Times story in 2008 "State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona's DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles. The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people. The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white. In the years after her 2001 discovery, Troyer found dozens of similar matches -- each seeming to defy impossible odds."....

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[street_astrologist]

Agreed. But stupid, gullible people are generally the only ones who will make it past jury selection. It's to the favor of the prosecutor and the defender both. Think about it.

Or, just talk to any smart person you know that's ever actually made it to jury selection stage when called for duty. They don't get picked. The purpose of the selection process is to weed out the critical thinkers...

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[street_astrologist]

Now why would the US government, who just injected themselves into my healthcare

You have healthcare? Lucky S.O.B. :)

Re:The downside of a DNA database

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep this was my thinking... just saw this Michael Douglas movie (I know, I know) "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" about a DA who frames suspects when he otherwise has only circumstantial evidence implicating them. How does he do his framing? Why DNA, of course. Though for him the deed was more difficult, as he wasn't required by congress to take the DNA. So he had to get it stealthily - give the perp a smoke during interrogation, then plant the cigarette at the crime scene.

Pretty scary.

Senators

[MobyDisk]

The United States Senate thinks sharing photos is risky, but sharing DNA is okay. To become a US Senator, is it a requirement to lose all sense of perspective?

Re:Senators

[Kreigaffe]

Woah woah. Don't conflate two different issues. This is the government doing it, so that means it's totally OK.

Re:Senators

[fnj]

A hallucinogen is sprayed lightly in the air of the Capitol building and congressional office buildings 24x7.

Re:Senators

[The Archon V2.0]

The United States Senate thinks sharing photos is risky, but sharing DNA is okay. To become a US Senator, is it a requirement to lose all sense of perspective?

No, they've got perfect perspective. This database gives them more info and power over the public, so they want it. Meanwhile, Facebook is giving the public more of THEIR info, so they told Facebook to stop.

Did I mention that the perspective they have the one that comes from being at the top of the heap?

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[MobyDisk]

That doesn't answer the question. That is why it isn't stopped. The question is "why did it start?" There must be some cause that motivates them to even propose these bills.

Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Chris Newton]

I find it ironic that the US should decide to introduce this measure under a new government when the old one was notorious for abuse of authority.

Meanwhile, here in the UK, we just handed electoral annihilation to the administration that introduced a similar guilt-by-suspicion DNA system here, not long after the European level courts ruled that keeping innocent people's DNA on the database indefinitely was illegal anyway.

One of the first proposals brought up by our new coalition government, indeed one of the points where both parties agreed on almost everything despite their general political differences, was a "Freedom Bill". That will basically be a mass repeal of all the draconian, intrusive, guilt-assuming laws that the previous lot brought in under a climate of fear that they perpetuated more effectively from the corridors of power than any terrorist group ever could. Introducing safeguards so that innocents' DNA is removed from the database in a timely fashion will be an acid test of that bill: they've talked the talk, now will they really follow through?

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Darkness404]

I find it ironic that the US should decide to introduce this measure under a new government when the old one was notorious for abuse of authority.

You live in the UK though, there are major differences between the political parties, the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid, etc. With the US there are no ideological differences, the only difference is who pays them more. For example, "green" businesses have paid a lot of money to the democrats, therefore they support "green" jobs. Etc.

They only have differences when it is politically convenient. For example, stem cell research and abortion.

The largest 3rd party (the Libertarian party) has no representation in congress.

One of the first proposals brought up by our new coalition government, indeed one of the points where both parties agreed on almost everything despite their general political differences, was a "Freedom Bill". That will basically be a mass repeal of all the draconian, intrusive, guilt-assuming laws that the previous lot brought in under a climate of fear that they perpetuated more effectively from the corridors of power than any terrorist group ever could. Introducing safeguards so that innocents' DNA is removed from the database in a timely fashion will be an acid test of that bill: they've talked the talk, now will they really follow through?

Well of course they will have to follow through, because you have a political system that, despite its flaws, gives representation to third parties so everyone's political views can be represented. In the US, if you vote for a "third party" you are throwing your vote away (more or less), in the UK if you vote for a "minor" political party, chances are they will have at least some representation in government.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Bigjeff5]

Unlike in the UK, we don't really consider it a new government the way you guys do. It's just changing who runs the government. I know it's mostly semantics, but it affects how we view our government, and the amount of change we expect.

We expect certain things to change, but we know the vast majority of things will stay exactly the same, or continue moving in the direction it has always been moving.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I find it ironic that the US should decide to introduce this measure under a new government when the old one was notorious for abuse of authority."

I used to find stuff like that rather ironic, until I came to the conclusion that behind all of the false opposition, behind all of the smoke and mirrors, behind all the playing with peoples gregarious nature in getting them to either vote for the right, or for the left, to watch either cnn, or fox, religiously-- behind all of that bullshit, the truth is that there is an agenda that is being carried out in spite of either side and which will use either side as long as it progresses their purposes.

Some people says it is a wild eyed conspiracy theory. That's fine. I thought so too.

If you really study this one out, you would be shocked to find out that back in the early 2000s 1 major organization that owns several news agencies actually used the argument in court that 'It is not illegal to lie to the public over public airwaves, it is simply a matter of corporate policy as to wither or not we decide to report the truth as we know it'--- so what did the courts do? They asked the other major news owning organizations wither or not they supported their 'oppositions' take on the matter... Guess what? They all signed up on board and agreed. What do news stations always hammer at us? 'We're the guys you can trust!'-- yet, they had right there the perfect opportunity to disagree with their competitors and broadcast the fact that "These guys were trying to lie to you, but we do not agree with them, we are the news outlet you can trust!"-- but they didn't.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/11-the-media-can-legally-lie/

"they've talked the talk, now will they really follow through?"

No. Having that stuff kept back on file somewhere is worth more than actually destroying it, and then trying to convince people that it actually has truthfully been destroyed.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Chris Newton]

Well of course they will have to follow through, because you have a political system that, despite its flaws, gives representation to third parties so everyone's political views can be represented.

Not very well yet: our voting system is still transparently biased towards the larger parties, and the compromise reached by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in the coalition doesn't go all the way to offering the public a referendum on PR in the Commons (though they do seem to be proposing it for the elected Lords).

But I do take your point: it seems likely that the presence of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition is pushing the civil liberties agenda higher up the government priority list. I think that is partly because it is a big Lib Dem policy area anyway, but also partly because it is something where both parties in the coalition can readily agree on most issues and say they were doing what their voters asked for. Any coalition wants to show early success to reduce the scepticism in the ranks, and since the Tories and Lib Dems have well known differences in economic policy so the top issue of today can't really help both of them at the same time, this is probably the next best area to look for that success story.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, the problem with our previous government was lack of authority, really. The articles of confederation didn't give the Government much power at all, so they couldn't really abuse anything, the states had all the power.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[OrwellianLurker]

Unlike in the UK, we don't really consider it a new government the way you guys do. It's just changing who runs the government. I know it's mostly semantics, but it affects how we view our government, and the amount of change we expect.

We expect certain things to change, but we know the vast majority of things will stay exactly the same, or continue moving in the direction it has always been moving.

Our executive branch "runs the government." The branch is mostly made up of people who aren't elected. The legislative branch writes the laws. The judicial branch is pretty self-explanatory.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[salesgeek]

I find it ironic that the US should decide to introduce this measure under a new government when the old one was notorious for abuse of authority.

This is unsurprising. In the US Republicans will trade in civil liberties for and advantage fighting foreign nations. Democrats trade in civil liberties for an advantage in fighting crime.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[falconwolf]

The largest 3rd party (the Libertarian party) has no representation in congress.

Ron Paul is Libertarian.

Falcon

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Ron Paul is a Libertarian, then Mike Moore is a Republican.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[WillDraven]

In the US, if you vote for a "third party" you are throwing your vote away

I wish people would stop repeating this as it reinforces the idea in people's minds and keeps them voting for one of the big two. We should instead say (loudly and frequently) that if you vote either Republican or Democrat then you're throwing your vote away.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[RMH101]

Yup. It's FUD spread directly and indirectly by the media. In the UK, no lobbyists for big print or big industry wanted the LIberal Democrats to get in. It was only (ironically) when the leadership debates were televised for the first time ever that the public saw the leader of the LIb Dems, thought him worth voting for - and now they're sharing power. Still a bunch of two-faced cvnts, though.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[L4t3r4lu5]

There.
Are.
More.
Than.
Two.
Parties.
In.
The.
US.
Political.
System.

You can vote for whoever you want. Your vote is not wasted. You propagate the lie of wasted votes every time you say it.

You know better than that, so help everyone else to know too. Consider it your calling in life; To impart on others this idea of freedom and choice. You have the knowledge to do it. Do you have the will? Or are you just another whining armchair protester on a web forum?

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[jimicus]

In the US, if you vote for a "third party" you are throwing your vote away (more or less)

"Throwing your vote away" is what you do when you don't bother to vote.

"Throwing your vote away" is what you do when you vote for somebody because you think they'll get in anyway. It's not some sort of "guess the winner, correct guess wins a prize" contest.

"Throwing your vote away" is most definitely not what you do when you cast a vote for who you believe in, regardless of the likelihood of them getting in.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[N1EY]

Well, You know it is really like, "Yes, Minister." The new government has already gone native.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[2obvious4u]

Well of course they will have to follow through, because you have a political system that, despite its flaws, gives representation to third parties so everyone's political views can be represented. In the US, if you vote for a "third party" you are throwing your vote away (more or less), in the UK if you vote for a "minor" political party, chances are they will have at least some representation in government.

YOU ARE NOT THROWING YOUR VOTE AWAY!

It is the best way to tell both parties to shove their policies up their ass. The polls show how many people are voting 3rd party and if even if your guy doesn't win it shows in the polls. The TEA party is doing fairly well against both Republican's and Democrats. I don't support the TEA party because they are still repressive social conservatives, but I do keep up with Ron Paul and the campaign for liberty.

I want to see the war on drugs ended.
I want to see our troops removed from foreign soil.
I want the income tax repealed and some form of consumption based tax to replace it.
I would also like to see us use our new social technologies to start replacing some parts of the government, there is no reason for government mandated tax funded pork projects. If a project needs funding it should be funded by the people who want it, by donations. The money used to lobby for a tax to pay for it should be used to advertise for donations to the project. It could then be held in a government backed security until its funding goals are reached, but everyone shouldn't be required to pay insane taxes for a useless project. That and all of us who want to support NASA projects could donate more of what we pay in taxes now to something we actually find useful.

I know they are pipe dreams.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Darkness404]

The US congressional system needs to be reformed though for it to really happen. We need proportional representation, badly. We need to have more representatives, we need to encourage politicians to have parties consistent with their standings.

Our current system makes it impossible to secure representation for any political party unless they are all in a concentrated area. It is nearly impossible to convince voters to vote for a third party because either they will vote republican/democrat because their parents/grandparents did or they get hung up on little, petty issues that mean nothing but they want done (eg: stem cell research, abortion, etc) and don't affect them and instead support a party that they disagree with completely in order to support/ban one of those things.

Our current system is left over from when we had a constitutional government: a very small federal government and a slightly larger but limited state government. And also, it didn't really -matter- who you sent to Washington because it was unlikely to affect you in any meaningful way. Today we have an out of control federal government and state governments are left unchecked. Illegal taxes like the income taxes (seriously, read the constitution, the framers wanted income taxes to be illegal, hence why the government had to pass an amendment to override it) and large government programs affect everyone now.

We need two things to happen: more representatives per person, this increases accountability. And also proportional representation, because in this century, it doesn't matter too much if a senator was from Iowa or Florida, they still have the power to affect you and I'd much rather have a senator representing my political beliefs from a far-off state than to have a senator not representing my beliefs who is from my home state.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Omestes]

Ron Paul is a Republican. He runs on the Republican ticket, he sits with the Republicans in Congress. He is on the libertarian spectrum of the Republican party, but is still a Republican.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[crmarvin42]

They only have differences when it is politically convenient. For example, stem cell research and abortion.

I think it is interesting that you bring up abortion as one of those issues. My initial thought was "How is this not a violation of the right to privacy". Now, I know that there is no "Right to Privacy" in the constitution or the bill rights, but I also know that a corner stone of Roe v. Wade was the judicially created Right to Privacy, that the majority justices claimed was found in the Penumbras (definition: the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object.) to the constitution.

I realize it looks like I'm trying to go off-topic, troll or start a flame war but I'm not. What ever your view on abortion, I fail to see how the party that is partially defined based on it's support of Roe v. Wade can unanimously vote in favor of a draconian law that violates this right that is fundamental to that decision. If there truly is a right to privacy, in addition to being innocent until proven guilty, and no double jeopardy, then this cannot possibly stand constitutional muster. Unless,... As I've been increasingly convinced, the supreme court only plays lip service to the constitution and is only interested in enforcing some of the rights it outlines for US citizens. They appear to pay more attention to case history, which I agree should be important, than the actual constitution that all federal case law is supposed to be contingent upon. They appear in my view to believe that the sections of the constitution can be overturned more easily than bad case law, and I find that unconscionable.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[tempest69]

Tell that to the green party voters from Florida y2k.
The winner takes all system has some real flaws. Heck the best thing most parties could do to win an election is to prop up a hardliner from the other side with adequate cash to run a campaign.
Bush could have had a victory outright by surreptitiously funding Nader.

Re:Just as we're getting rid of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, here in the UK, we just handed electoral annihilation to the administration that introduced a similar guilt-by-suspicion DNA system here...

One of the first proposals brought up by our new coalition government, indeed one of the points where both parties agreed on almost everything despite their general political differences, was a "Freedom Bill". That will basically be a mass repeal of all the draconian, intrusive, guilt-assuming laws that the previous lot brought in under a climate of fear that they perpetuated more effectively from the corridors of power than any terrorist group ever could.

Yeah, we're going to need one of those here after Obama and the rest of the fascists get hung on a meathook.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Ethanol-fueled]

While we're discussing political science 101, I'll chip-in the principle of circulation:

Put a perceived commoner or two into the government to prevent proletariat discontent. One step forward, two steps back.

We are looking to tone ours down

[Gonoff]

In the UK, we are about to start toning our database down.
You are unfortunate as you don't have any real Liberals in your government as we now do...

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[funwithBSD]

Why do you need DNA databases with all the cameras to capture the event?

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[Vanders]

I'll believe it when I see it (& I'll cheer when I see it). However I'm optimistic, given the promise to scrap ID cards & the National Identity Register.

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[Anonymous Coward]

The cameras are being toned down also, as mentioned in the same policy statement. Where's your "funny" statement now?

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[Gonoff]

That is also being looked at - also as one of the electoral promises of Nick and friends.

I agree with other people though, we need to keep an eye on all of these things.

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[geekoid]

No you won't.

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[funwithBSD]

No it says they will be "properly regulated".

I hear the laughing of politicians right now if you bought that.

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[UpnAtom]

It's in the new 'manifesto', pg 11, along with scrapping ContactPoint, next gen biometric passports & almost certainly making the medical records database opt-in:

We will adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.

Re:We are looking to tone ours down

[sincewhen]

What event? Everybody knows that having all those cameras totally prevents crime.

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Every year government spends more, borrows more, and seizes more power over the people. This isn't because power is the goal. On the contrary, for most of the elite at the top of the pyramid, power is merely a stepping stone to the real goal: money.

The larger and more expensive the business of government, the more lucrative it is for the people who make their fortunes in the business of government. The more complex, ambiguous, and unjust the system of law, the more exploitable it is for the elite.

That, in a nutshell, is why every government expands throughout its lifetime, both in revenue and power over the people.

Re:Of course

[salesgeek]

I think you underestimate the value of power, and overestimate the power of money.

Stuff you'll never see in the USA

[rsborg]

From link:

"It is outrageous that decent, law-abiding people are regularly treated as if they have something to hide," Mr Clegg said.
"It has to stop."
He said the ID card scheme, national identity register and second generation biometric passports would be scrapped.
"We won't hold your internet and email records when there is just no reason to do so," Mr Clegg pledged.
"CCTV will be properly regulated, as will the DNA database, with restrictions on the storage of innocent people's DNA...

Would this ever happen here in the US (you know, the home of the free)?

Re:Stuff you'll never see in the USA

[maxwell demon]

America is a free country, therefore every government is free to collect any information it wants. :-)

Re:Stuff you'll never see in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

The land of the _government_ that's free to do what ever it wants.. oh wait, that's also true for the rest of planet Earth...

However, considering the 2nd amendment and all, with half the population packing heat, Americans must be pretty stupid bunch of nancies not to revolt.
Then again, this is a country where it's considered normal to receive rectal probes at airports, lest someone hid a stick of dynamite up there..
This is a country where oil is worth more than human life, and foreigners are treated like crap for being, well, foreign.

Seeing that the American dictators are worse than the ones they are taking out overseas, and the general population is too stupid, who's going to liberate America?

Who knows, maybe Japan will end up getting generous and return those couple of presents left from WWII, with a bit of interest, right on top of their shrines of war..
Maybe North Korea will get friendly and show they can build an actual working intercontinental "postal service" and help the US cook a few more turkeys?
Perhaps the middle east will band together in the name of their false gods, and beat the crap out of america and their false gods (War, Oil & Money)

All governments are led by corrupt morons, because _none_ of us whiny pathetic little humans can handle power..

Our Creator is so gonna go smackdown on this planet again for being filled with a naughty bunch of...

Re:Stuff you'll never see in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and Obama promised government transparency, and yet his track record on FOIA requests has been worse than Bush's.

In other words, I wish our friends across the pond in the UK the best of luck, but I'll not be holding my breath expecting them to make good on their "tear down the cameras" promises.

Re:Stuff you'll never see in the USA

[street_astrologist]

However, considering the 2nd amendment and all, with half the population packing heat, Americans must be pretty stupid bunch of nancies not to revolt.

We're not hungry enough yet, and most of us still have roofs over our heads. Give it a few years, when the benefits are finally exhausted you'll see things get interesting in a hurry.

Re:Stuff you'll never see in the USA

[Ckwop]

Would this ever happen here in the US (you know, the home of the free)?

A month ago we were the laughing stock of the world. Every (learned) American knew the UK as the place where the nightmare of 1984 was coming to pass. The slow drip, drip, drip of authoritarianism would erode one of the world's oldest democracies.

Then came the election and the hung parliament. Suddenly the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats joined together in to a machine that seems to be greater than then sum of its constituent parts.

Overnight, the country has gone from a 1984 wannabe dictatorship to a liberal paradise. They even have a plan to pass an act that prevents unnecessary criminal statues. WTF?

If this works like the Parliaments act in that the same legislation must be passed in two Parliaments for a criminal statue to become law, then this would be a giant constitutional innovation. Forcing there to be a general election between criminal bills would prevent some of legislative diarrhoea that we saw towards the end of the last Parliament.

I feel proud to be a Brit again!

Simon

4 All

[b4upoo]

It would be far better to record DNA for everyone in America including tourists. That first rape may be the only crime a criminal ever commits. Tracking people from DNA is one great way to discourage crime.

They chose to make this law more evil than needed

[sjpm]

How hard would it have been to include language that forces the DNA sample and any record of it to be destroyed if your arrest does not result in a conviction?

$75 million?

[Paralizer]

What happened to "responsible spending"? Regardless of if this is a good idea or not, couldn't this money be better used elsewhere or, god forbid, not at all?

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[AK Marc]

There must be some cause that motivates them to even propose these bills.

The people want it. They like to feel safe. The appearance of safety makes them feel even safer than real safety. So to get reelected, officials push for things that increase the appearance of safety. Their constituents support that.

The UK is finally getting DNA retention right

[UpnAtom]

Your DNA reveals a lot about you and so unauthorised access to is a clear invasion of privacy, which could only be justified by any protection against crime it causes.

Furthermore, any national database which can act as a primary index for further information held on you is a genuine totalitarian threat.

The outgoing Labour Government, which has been repeatedly noted on /. for its frightening attacks on UK liberty, insisted that the retention of DNA of innocent people was necessary to stop serious crime. However, after 9 years of retaining the DNA of innocent people, this hadn't even aided in the solving of a single serious crime.

The new coalition Government is committed to only retaining DNA of convicted criminals and temporary retention for those charged with violent and sexual offences, a model already applied in Scotland.

It should be noted that DNA is retained from crime scenes and that DNA of arrestees is checked against that before being destroyed. This is a world apart from the blanket retention that the outgoing Goverment pretended was necessary to solve certain cases.

Re:The UK is finally getting DNA retention right

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be noted that DNA is retained from crime scenes and that DNA of arrestees is checked against that before being destroyed.

And that is the absolute MAXIMUM that should be allowed. Instead, the US idea is far moire likely to be -- check it against the database of DNA retained for All past crimes. What a bunch of shit.

play fair

[Anonymous Coward]

all people (!) who were not convicted of a crime but still
had to give their DNA anyway should have full access to the database.

"ACLU?"

[wholestrawpenny]

You can probably be sure that since this was a majority democrat effort, the "ACLU" will do nothing about it. If for some reason (and somehow) the republocrats pushed it through, it would be an outrage and suits would already be pending.

Re:"ACLU?"

[Anonymous Coward]

They're already fighting something similar in California. Of course they'll have a problem with this.

"But what if he's innocent . . . ?"

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"No one is innocent!"

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Bigjeff5]

The pressure has been there since the beginning. It started well before we were a nation, and it continues to this day. Basically it has taken 200 years to erode this far, but it seems to have made it to the fast-track lately.

Fortunately, our system is set up such that it can always self correct, even if it takes a while. Slavery is a perfect example of that (it took two different Supreme Courts before it was set right).

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. Where is all this pressure to bypass warrants coming from?

From the Democrats, duh. Didn't you read the article? Or the summary?

So why did the US electorate vote for Mr. Hopenchange again?

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[The Archon V2.0]

Seriously. Where is all this pressure to bypass warrants coming from?

The ideal state for a police officer is a police state. People want to make their jobs easier, and a police state is where a policeman has the easiest job. It could be deliberate malice, or just a desire to not have to work as hard with no thought put into the repercussions.

The ideal state for a lawmaker is a dictatorship. Same reason.

Thus, only the hard-working visionaries among policemen and lawmakers will actively fight against such changes. The malicious actively want them to happen for the abuses they allow, the slothful only see that it means less paperwork and effort when they go into work.

Police and politicians aren't known for being hard-working visionaries, so the few that exist in their number are lost in the masses. So, both can be assumed to, as a group, desire a dictatorship or police state.

I find this explains a lot about any law put forth to reduce checks and balances or expand powers.

Serious erosion of privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the issue about a DNA database that is qualitatively different from a fingerprint database is that the police now have partial matches to several of your first and second degree relatives. This is not true for fingerprints. This is putting us on the slippery slope of privacy erosion-- why not implant GPS transponders into people convicted of felonies? That will probably make future crimes easier to solve. If that works well, why not GPS tag people arrested for felonies? What about at birth? Of course the transponders would only be activated once there was a clear reason to do so and there could never be any abuse of the system (yes, just a little bit of sarcasm).

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't need a movement per se. Because human nature is to consider personal rather than societal impact, it's perfectly natural for police and prosecutors to support this kind of BS. (Fortunately, they don't get to make the laws, but IMO their voices carry far more weight than they should.)

Red tape is an unpleasant part of any job, and as an honest cop, of course you're not going to go for a warrant until you're damned sure you're right anyway, so it must feel like a waste of time at best (when you offer evidence to support probable cause, and they issue a warrant), and downright obstructionism at worst
(when, for whatever reason (good or bad -- some judges are corrupt, too), they won't give you the warrant, even though you _know_ you're right). So, yeah, it streamlines your job and lets you catch bad guys quicker; what could be wrong with that?

Same thing, more or less, for the prosecutor's office; he gets appointed/elected to put bad guys behind bars, and (assuming he's honest) he's not even going to prosecute someone unless he knows they did it. But with juries being so reluctant to convict, a little more evidence to lock the case up solid is often beneficial, and never hurts.

(Of course, if you're a crooked cop or prosecutor, then it's even more obvious you won't like warrants... ;))

Then the politicians, of course, have a choice: they can support the law, appearing tough on crime, caring about the children*, and avoid being blamed by police or prosecutors for hindering them in the fight against crime.

Or they can oppose it, saying something about personal freedom, limited government, due process, and innocent-until-proven-guilty -- granted, this will win favor with the far-right gun-toting libertarian kooks, and the far-left pot-smoking libertarian kooks. Then in the next election, their opponent will rip them a new orifice or two by locating a single criminal who would have been caught one crime sooner if the law had passed (or, if the law did pass, one who was caught by it and presumably would still be at large otherwise), and making a series of campaign ads out of it.

Guess which way they go?

* note that sex offenses against a minor are included as well as sex offenses capable of earning more than 1 year sentence.
Are there any 1yr sex offenses against children, and if so, should they be lumped in this class?
Who cares -- "sex offenses against a minor" means you are protecting our children!

This is not new...happened to me.

[droopus]

Ok, as I've posted, I just finished a five year bid in the Feds. When I was first arrested, I was held at the very miserable Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island. I had not gone to trial nor plead out, so was not a convicted criminal at the time.

My Judge ordered a cardiac study done, as I was having heart problems, so I was sent to a fed medical center at FMC Devens as a pre-trial detainee. The day I arrived I was required to give a DNA specimen, which they get with a finger stick and blood drops on a card. I mentioned I was pre-trial, but was told if I refused, I would be "four pointed" (cuffed to a metal bunk by all four limbs) and the specimen taken by force. This is the usual course for people arrested (but not convicted) in the Feds. Some may have had different experiences, but I was one of many I met with similar treatment.

So this bill seems to be nothing new.

Re:This is not new...happened to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

My most recent visit to county jail involved a cheek swab, which I saw go into an envelope addressed to the DOJ.

Re:This is not new...happened to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Man- there is so much shit they do that isn't legal it isn't funny and how do you stop it? Half the time even when it gets the supreme court if the case is right the courts allow it.

Re:This is not new...happened to me.

[randyleepublic]

You should have refused. Most likely they would have backed down. Or you would have gotten beat up, but then you would have had a pretty juicy lawsuit. Lying to and threatening prisoners to get them to allow things they can refuse is SOP here in Nazi Germany, oops, I mean the US.

I speak from experience: they cuffed my hands behind my back and put me in a holding cell for about 2 hours. Believe me, unless you are an acrobat, it starts to really hurt after a while. When I started moaning, they came and told me to be quiet. "Sorry, but it hurts." "Give us the blood sample." "No." Eventually they gave up.

Re:This is not new...happened to me.

[L4t3r4lu5]

Who would have thought that supplication is a gateway for others to get what they want from you.

Re:This is not new...happened to me.

[randyleepublic]

That's pretty much the whole purpose of supplication. Threatening mayhem is not supplication, but it often accomplishes the same purpose. However, and this is what has apparently gone over your head like the space shuttle used to, in the the context of police asking you to abandon your rights, accompanied with veiled or otherwise threats, the correct response is to be brave and not abandon your rights, as the threats are often hollow, especially since the very act of police making said threats exposes them to some liability. Or they may carry out the acts of mayhem, and, in which case, if you survive, you can sue. If you don't survive, at least you died a hero, not a dog. Oh, sorry.

Never forget: many men and women risked all they have, and many lost it all, to secure these rights for us. To abandon them in the face of threats by bullies is pretty fucking disrespectful.

"No Officer, I do not consent to a search." "Men died to make sure that I had the right to say that to you, and I will not abase their memories by tossing their precious gift in the trash!"

Start with the criminals, then the accused...

[The Archon V2.0]

... then people looking for jobs in certain "critical" sectors, then people looking for jobs, and soon enough everyone has to do it.

This isn't the thin end of the wedge: This is the middle portion. Doesn't hurt yet? Don't worry, there's a nice wide base to come yet.

Don't Even Need The Arrest...

[GumphMaster]

Don't Even Need The Arrest...

1. Dare to be born outside the USA
2. Cross the US border
3. Fingerprint(s) on file forever.

How long before a swab is required to cross the border?

Re:Don't Even Need The Arrest...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually all you need to do is dare to want to work for government. The FBI has my fingerprints from when I got a background check for a teaching certification.

Re:Don't Even Need The Arrest...

[L4t3r4lu5]

Why do you think I'm never coming to the US again?

I'm not just saying that. I will never set foot in the United States of America for the rest of my life. You have nothing I want or need. I already know your culture is one of apathy and armchair rebellion; I have enough of that here, thanks. At least we have good beer.

Re:Don't Even Need The Arrest...

[Evtim]

Until 2014. After that every traveler to US will be DNA sampled.

The problem is I cannot find any link out there , yet the news is real, I swear. It was all over the papers at a certain point (last year?). I red in Dutch newspaper that the EU parliament is going to discus this "request" by the USA. Maybe there was even Slashdot discussion about it...

Things just disappear from the net, have you noticed? At least from the official sites....

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Anonymous Coward]

TV. I suppose movies have something to do with it too.

Think about it. In just about any TV show or movie, the bad guys are the ones who ask for lawyers. They're the ones who demand warrants. They're the ones who refuse to allow the police to search their car. You can always spot the bad guy on TV: he's the one talking about "civil rights." Any time you see a guy on TV stand up for his civil rights, you know he's the bad guy.

And it goes beyond that. In fiction, warrants only cause harm. Thanks to the delay in getting the warrant, the terrorists manage to kill people. The kidnapper kills their victim. Whatever. The warrant is always a block to the good guys.

People see these TV shows where the police have these magic DNA databases and warrants serve only to allow the guilty to go free. And so you get a push to prevent those pesky warrants that stopped the Valiant Cops from saving the Damsel in Distress because they weren't allowed to just bust into the Bad Guy's Lair without first getting a warrant.

Too many people think CSI is real and that cops never make mistakes. That's why people push to allow cops to bypass warrants: they think every cop is Jack Bauer, struggling against The System to protect Real Americans.

Welcome to the USSA...

[AthleteMusicianNerd]

wtf

Re:Welcome to the USSA...

[iggymanz]

and Obama turned out to be just as much as fascist as Bush, totally on board with the mega-corporate oligarch agenda

Re:Welcome to the USSA...

[AthleteMusicianNerd]

I'm really glad that someone out there can see this. He's even worse, bigger spending bills, bigger deficits, more troops, talk of war with Iran and Yemen.

If America had any brains, she would have elected Ron Paul.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Qzukk]

Fortunately, our system is set up such that it can always self correct, even if it takes a while.

In the long run we're all dea^H^H^Hin jail for a crime someone else committed.

This is no different then

[geekoid]

finger prints.

I have no idea why anyone would use a needle to get your DNA. A swab will work just as well.

Re:This is no different then

[Anonymous Coward]

Because DNA can be used for more purposes than just identification.

Re:This is no different then

[iggymanz]

because all people in the USA are required to have their fingerprints on file with the FBI? oh wait, they aren't......

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[sznupi]

The system of governance is, ultimatelly, a reflection of its society. Don't kid yourself it's not the case.

FIVE DOLLARS!

[Derosian]

You know how much it takes get arrested...

Mispaying on a parking ticket by even a cent. They issue a warrant, the warrant is attached to your license you get pulled over and get arrested. I had underpaid a parking ticket apparently by five dollars, and they put out a warrant for me. Thankfully the cop got the whole store before arresting me, and just told me to get it taken care of quickly. Which I did that night via online payment, but still. I was within an inch of being arrested.

Fingerprints of all EU citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an EU citizen. Last week I went to the US for an IEEE conference. In order to enter the US (its my twentieth visit or so) I had to: get a new passport with digital photo (80 euros), fill in online ESTA forms (including silly data regarding a US address as if one would not change hotels when moving around), got all fingerprints taken (all fingers, both hands) and also a closeup photo (retina?). Being treated like a criminal is not nice.
ps: US citizens coming to my country get none of the above and this unsymmettry bothers me as much as the procedure itself.

Retaining DNA of innocent people vs convicted

[UpnAtom]

The short answer is merely to ask "What would Hitler have done with one?"

Expanding on my main comment, the UK's appalling 9 year policy of retaining DNA of people arrested and not convicted has proven to have no significant effect on crime. Retention of everyone's DNA would be even less significant.

Your DNA indicates much about yourself which, in the wrong hands, would be a major invasion of privacy, including racial characteristics, psychological characteristics, sexuality, gender, familial relations, life expectancy etc. Such invasion plus costs of retention etc must be justified by crime reduction.

It seems that retaining only convicted criminals' DNA can be justified. Cross-checking DNA from those arrested/charged against crime scenes (and then deleting/destroying the former) can also be justified.

Secondly, if on-the-spot DNA testing ever becomes possible, you have a means and a pretext to be compelled to identify yourself wherever you go and whatever you do.

National databases themselves are a great threat. As stated above, if wherever you go and whatever you do can be recorded and linked to you by a single database, you can no longer guarantee the freedom of your entire country.

It becomes very easy for governments to capture and punish those who wish to hold it to account.

Good thing the health care bill passed...

[ibsteve2u]

...'cuz you know the insurance corporations would "somehow" have gotten access to this database, too, and absorbed the genetic predisposition information for future cover/no cover decisions.

Rename FBI's CODIS "Convicted Offender DNA Index"

[marcilr]

The FBI needs to rename CODIS "Convicted Offender DNA Index System". Can't use the abbreviation for "Convicted" anymore. Perhaps use GUPIDIS "Guilty Until Proven Innocent DNA Index System"? There would be no exclusions to the system. Fourth Amendment never heard of it.

All your DNA are belong to EVERYONE (already).

[VortexCortex]

If you're a Human (or even just a warm blooded mammalian) your DNA is constantly pouring off of you everywhere you go...

Billions of skin cells are falling off of your body (1.5g per day), and you shed hair follicles constantly as well.

Your saliva is in the disposable cup you tossed into the refuse bin.

Think that DNA from the cells in someone's pubic region should be solid proof that's admissible in rape cases? If yes: YOU'RE WRONG.
Have you ever seen pubic hair on and around a public toilet or urinal -- Guess where it came from? YOU (at some point).
Additionally, male mammals (including Humans) excrete semen that is left in their urethra when they urinate after having been sexually stimulated.

Your DNA is by no means private, and the appearance of it at a crime scene doesn't prove anything at all.
Any premeditation on the part of murderers, rapists or thieves could easily include following YOU around (esp if you fit their physical profile) for a few hours collecting "evidence" that YOU did the crime.

Inappropriate conclusions are being made based on the presence of DNA evidence.
The only thing that YOUR DNA being found at a crime scene really proves is that you (might) exist.

(For plausible non-existence of living entities even given the presence of DNA see: stem cell research & gene therapy).

Re:All your DNA are belong to EVERYONE (already).

[RMH101]

DNA evidence can also be synthesised. I.E. someone can get a sample of your DNA, make up some more of it, and spray it around a crime scene.

Approval

[Wowsers]

I think that Adolf Hitler would have a approved such a scheme. Seemingly nobody has learned ANYTHING from history.

Re:Approval

[iggymanz]

the fascists who run our country get their playbook from history, and it's working out quite well for them

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Xaositecte]

Indecent exposure generally doesn't carry a lengthy sentence depending on the state, and might be just a fine, but it still counts as a "sex offense" in various states, gets you on registries, etc.

If the crime involves a minor, it would presumably be covered under this.

That's just off the top of my head, there are probably a bunch of other sex-offenses-that-aren't-really-serious-enough-to-be-called-sex-offenses that would qualify.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[HiThere]

I don't know anyone in favor of this. I know many that will be against it as soon as they hear of it. Of course, by then it will be law...

With that lopsided vote, somebody powerful has put the fix in. And they're slipping it through in a relatively low profile way, so it's not something they want credit for.

I'd say corruption, but this looks more like a hidden layer of government. You don't get that lopsided a vote with ordinary corruption.

It's too late, but have you written your congressman to let them know how disappointed you are in them?

"Not one Democrat voted against"

[evilWurst]

"Not one Democrat voted against" seems an odd way to word it. Why not actually give the totals? There are 435 Representatives, but the given 357 yes / 32 no count only adds up to 389. That means the difference of 46 were conveniently absent or didn't vote. And there are currently 253 Democrats and 178 Republicans in the House, so that means even if all the nonvoting ones this time were Republican, fully 100 Republicans voted for it. (And I'd like to hear the excuses of the members who didn't vote, from both parties).

I can't call a bill that more than half of the opposition voted for anything but bipartisan, so why word the results in a partisan way? The blame should correctly fall on *all but the 32 who voted no*.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[HiThere]

Fortunately, our system is set up such that it can always self correct, even if it takes a while.
That's what they keep telling us.

Slavery is a perfect example of that (it took two different Supreme Courts before it was set right).
You think it's been set right? What percentage of the people are dependent on major corporation?
Now I'll grant that "wage slavery" is preferable to the earlier kind, but it's not exactly "set right". People still aren't equal before the law. The wealthy and powerful have a different set of laws that apply to them than does everyone else. If you don't understand the truth of this, then you're not very observant. And there's no longer a large class of free people. I.e., people who aren't dependent on a master. That was basically wiped out by a combination of income tax and property tax. You CAN'T accept poverty as the price of independence, because you've got to pay money to keep your land save from governmental expropriation. I understand why this happened, but the effects happened, also. I don't think this was an intentional plan. But it was the result of governmental policy changes.

Instance: When the Hoover Dam was built the law said that nobody with a large farm (forget the precise acerage) was entitled to free water from it. This was ignored. The water was reserved for the large land owners in preference to the small land owners, at least in the Imperial Valley. Partially because the small land owners couldn't afford to bring suit in court, but that's only why the decision couldn't be stopped, not why it was made (which I don't know).

This has not "self-corrected", and it won't, because the small landowners have now been driven away from their land.

The "self-correction" of the system is based on the presumption that NOW is the state towards which it was tending. It's a myth. Over the entire time span of the existence of the US the power of centralized control has increased almost monotonically. Sometimes older modes of control have been abandoned, but only when newer ones have proven more desirable.

(There have been occasional short periods when the control has temporarily loosened slightly, generally when there has been a bulge in the population in the age bracket of 18-28, or when there has been a sudden acquisition of access to new territory, but this has been temporary.)

vote libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't go on complaining about this stuff if you keep voting for democrats and republicans

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[AK Marc]

I don't know anyone in favor of this.

"Would you like all criminals fingerprinted and DNA tested so they can be caught again more easily if they reoffend?" How many people do you know that would say "no" to this?

With that lopsided vote, somebody powerful has put the fix in.

It's the system. Vote against it, and you are soft on crime. Vote for it and you are taking away people's rights. So you gauge which is less damaging for the next election and go that way. Or, if they are close enough, you try to manipulate a vote-trade for something or just vote with your party so they don't abandon you when you really want something. Strong 3rd parties is the only fix for it.

It's too late, but have you written your congressman to let them know how disappointed you are in them?

Personally, I heard "love it or leave it" one too many times. I emigrated. The system is broken, and people would rather sit around arguing how broken it is, than fix it. So going some place less broken is a much better idea. If it's ever fixed, I'll go back. If not, then I have some more choices for places to live when it finally implodes.

Sourcecode

[naz404]

I refuse to give my DNA. It is my sourcecode (4-bit sequence) and is copyright my parents (& myself via inheritance). No state should have the right to forcibly take my sourcecode and have the means to create clones or test-tube children of mine without my consent.

It is comparable to rape (rapist forcibly impregnates woman and creates child without woman's consent) and child kidnapping (means to create children without parent's care).

Re:Sourcecode

[street_astrologist]

You joke, but a whole lot of people take it further, and consider the collection of blood and urine by the State to be borderline Satanic.

There's even a song about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIv5pBLTJ7Y

Re:Sourcecode

[Anonymous Coward]

So if they rename the DNA Database "Sourceforge" or call it a Versioning Control System, you'll be happy?

"We're just backing up your DNA! It won't take a minute!"

Re:Sourcecode

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to give my DNA.

Better stock up on ammo. And remember to shoot for the head or legs - feds wear body armor.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[DryGrian]

this will win favor with the far-right gun-toting libertarian kooks, and the far-left pot-smoking libertarian kooks.

Is there a law against being both? :x

House Votes To Expand National DNA Arrest Database

[falconwolf]

Let all those who vote for this be the first to line up for blood samples.

They'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers before they get it from me.

Falcon

burglary

[falconwolf]

I didn't read through the entire bill, but the part I read talked about people arrested for sexual crimes and murder -- nothing about burglary that I could see.

`(iv) Such individuals who are arrested for or charged with a criminal offense under State law that consists of burglary or any attempt to commit burglary.

Falcon

Re:burglary

[OhHellWithIt]

Thank you.

I dont believe that this is constitutional

[falconwolf]

It is not constitutional. No where does the Constitution give that sort of power to the government.

Falcon

Cute

[Anonymous Coward]

You confused "Middle East" with "Washington, DC".

California is doing this already

[Anonymous Coward]

Get arrested for a felony, they take your DNA by default and you don't have a choice.

the vote tally

[GaryOlson]

The results.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[marco.antonio.costa]

Democracy kills an apathetic citizenry faster than any other form of government

Just my take on your post. :-)

What about cheek swabs for DNA collection?

[vinn01]

There seems to be a high level of concern being stirred up here over collecting blood from unwilling donors.

Would people have the same level of concern if the collection method were a cheek swab?

Obligatory Simpsons

[unwastaken]

DNA guy: Ooh, nice eyelash. Yours?
Wiggum: No. We need to find out who it belonged to. We want a DNA test.
DNA guy: Ooh, ooh, ee, ooh, ooh, that takes, uh, eight to ten weeks.
Wiggum: [sighs, hands him a carton of cigarettes]
DNA guy: Did I say weeks? 'Cause I meant seconds. [runs over to another machine, grabs a card from it; puts it in a computer]
Wiggum: What do you got, the whole town's DNA on file?
DNA guy: Y'uh huh. If you've ever handled a penny, the government's got your DNA. Why do you think they keep 'em in circulation?

Contact our congressman / woman.

[Anonymous Coward]

just sent a tweet to @keithellison (my rep) articulating my disappointment. it took only 30 seconds, do the same if your unhappy about this.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Shark]

I agree with the statement but I'm not entirely sure 'democracy' is the right word here. If 51% (or 99%) of people agreed with these measures, they'd still be wrong in my opinion.

Why would a Democrat vote against it?

[SuperKendall]

Anyone confused at all why Democrats would not vote against this measure need to read Liberal Facism.

When your body belongs to the state why should it matter if they force you to give blood or not? You live at the pleasure of the state. The state knows best after all.

Re:Why would a Democrat vote against it?

[dthx1138]

The vast majority of supposedly anti-government Republicans voted for this bill too. So.... there goes that argument.

Re:Why would a Democrat vote against it?

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

no more unsolved cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Now all we need to do is drip a bit of the suspects blood on the evidence to get a conviction, and this will make plenty of blood available. Be careful who you offend.

Further Legal Implications

[Anonymous Coward]

Have any of these politicians considered the effect this will have on prosecutors when *real* DNA evidence is found at a crime scene? The prevalence of individual DNA info suddenly hinders the court system as probative value is gained by anyone claiming the "I'm being framed" defense.

What was previously a slam-dunk case now turns into a demand for internal affairs investigations. It worked for O.J. years ago.

I am not from the US

[aepervius]

So correct me if I am wrong but the accent on the democrat is probably simply that htey promised "change" you can believe in, at least they did to try to get their guy elected, and in the end it is a story of "old master new master". Anyway from my external POV I say , people which were expecting change were toroughly fooling themselves.

What else do you exspect of the state

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1 buy guns, step 2 convince people it is legitimate for you to have guns step 3 recruit large numbers of fools to carry guns for you step 4 PROFIT!

Claims getting a little out of hand

[dthx1138]

I agree that bypassing normal warrant procedure is not generally idea, however I think some of the claims about what this bill will cause are getting ridiculous.

First of all, it's not going to drastically change the nature of the FBI's DNA database. The only new group of people who will have their DNA forcibly sampled are people arrested of crimes who are not prosecuted, in states where this is not already the law (such a law was passed in CA in 2004)

Second, it's not like we don't already have a huge DNA database. CODIS is the largest DNA database in the world with over 5 million records. If you think such a database will lead to framing, corruption, or otherwise undermining the right to a fair trial, then all those things should be happening already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_DNA_Index_System

Give them all the DNA that they want

[Alain Williams]

Craig Venter can now generate lots of DNA sequences all different and new, it must surely make them very happy to be able to cheaply fill their database.

Re:Give them all the DNA that they want

[fremsley471]

Which of course produces an interesting time-line on the efficacy of DNA in trials. When will DNA be disallowed as the defence could point at the evidence and say "Prove beyond doubt it wasn't artificially created"? 15-20 years?

YOU'RE A NIGGER

[Anonymous Coward]

the police wouldn't take your filthy DNA even if you offered it.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[street_astrologist]

Mostly because he was running against the Republican Party candidate, and the Republicans had just had a disastrous 8 year run.

He also promised to only add one minor front on the mideast wars; and so far has kept that promise (in Pakistan). McCain wanted to hit Iran. Some of our politicians still do (in both parties).

Yes, it's ugly "lesser evil" territory. But it does make a difference in the scale of this ongoing colossal fuckup.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Anonymous Coward]

Well. You don't exist in the mainstream U.S. discourse unless you're baldly a "liberal" or a "conservative".

I suspect many libertarians of voting for one of the two major parties, depending on whether or not they are a social conservative. If this ever changes, a third party based on anti-authoritarian principles (what we used to call freedom) would certainly find no lack of constituents, and possibly even a simple majority.

I advise you to stop this now

[dugeen]

They brought this system in by stealth in the UK, and there are now 1 million innocent people on the police DNA database (2% of the population). Each time the database is searched, a false accusation is effectively made against each of these people.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[mike2R]

The pressure has been there since the beginning. It started well before we were a nation, and it continues to this day. Basically it has taken 200 years to erode this far, but it seems to have made it to the fast-track lately.

Fortunately, our system is set up such that it can always self correct, even if it takes a while. Slavery is a perfect example of that (it took two different Supreme Courts before it was set right).

It is strange looking at this debate from a UK perspective, since our new government has just announced that a very similar law (and a load of other Orwellian stuff) is going to be repealed.

I agree with the self-correcting part, and I think that is more to do with the people than the system. It is more obvious in the UK, since our system was not designed in any way. It simply happened; the result of several centuries of competing interests and ideologies. In that period Parliament changed from an oligarchic body representing the land-owning classes, to a democracy with universal suffrage, freedom of speech and assembly etc. etc.

There is no written constitution to protect these rights. Parliament is sovereign and and can do anything it pleases, however the historical trend is always towards more liberty. There are obviously eddies in the shorter term, the last 13 years being a prime example (and possibly longer, the previous Conservative government introduced some fairly draconian measures during the IRA bombing campaigns). But now we see a new government capitalising on the pent up dislike of the British people for their loss of freedoms, and the balance moves again towards liberty.

As an observer on the US (I've never even been there), I've often though that Americans place to much faith in their constitution, and to little in themselves. A piece of paper can never completely protect you if the public mood is against you. But if the public in general want freedom (and I'm convinced that the US people will, even if many of them don't seem to care right now) then freedom they will get.

More pointedly

[ThatsNotPudding]

it is rather hard to duplicate fingerprints, unlike DNA samples that can be copied and carried to any crime scene desired, or even more conviently placed on confiscated evidence back at the station.

Biased summary

[SolusSD]

The yeas on this bill were 357- A lot of republicans voted for it too. Leave your bias out of the damn summary. This is suppose to be a tech/sci news site, not a soapbox for Libertarian ideology.

Re:Biased summary

[SolusSD]

I should further add that 20 democrats and 21 republicans did not vote at all. 233 of 243 democrats voted "yes" and 124 or 177 republicans voted "yes". That is a majority on both sides of the isle.

Cops took my DNA in 2002

[Anonymous Coward]

Contra Costa county cops took my DNA when I was arrested for a reckless driving charge. I didn't know I then had the ability to decline to be swabbed. Anyone else ever heard of cops taking DNA on arrest prior to this bill being passed?

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[ishobo]

I don't know anyone in favor of this.

The majority of voters in California are in favor if it. California already has a law where anybody arrested for a felony, or a crime that could be a felony, has their DNA collected. It was the citizens of the state that made the law happen through a voter initiative. Two other states have similar statutes. This type of law is not an aberration.

Where do think sex registries have come from? It was from voter initiative, and there is no evidence that it makes society safer. I see swimming pool without fences all the time. Odd, considering more children die in private swimming pools than by sexual predators. Where is the hysteria over swimming pools?

If you want more direct democracy, this is what you are going to get. If you want more representative democracy, this is what you are going to get.

Ron Paul is a Republican.

[falconwolf]

Guess what? The Libertarian Party was formed by fed up Republicans. Nixon was not a liberty and small government Republican so other Republicans started the Libertarian Party. The first meeting of the LP was held in David Nolan's home in 1971. Republican though he was, Goldwater Republican, he opposed Nixon's "imposition of wage and price controls, as well as his closing of the foreign gold window". Nolan was also influenced by Ayn Rand, and if there's one thing that Democrats love to hate it's anything Randian.

Ron Paul even ran for president on the LP ticket in 1988.

Falcon

Re:Ron Paul is a Republican.

[Omestes]

But he is still a Republican, party wise, currently. When he last ran, he ran on the Republican ticket.

A little more off-topic, I never understood the Ron Paul thing. Granted I am not a Libertarian (upper case. I am a "lower case" libertarian, though), but Paul didn't quite fit the bill. He had some wonky social policies which more matched the Republican mold than the Libertarian one, such as his views on the place of religion in Government.
 

Re:Ron Paul is a Republican.

[falconwolf]

He had some wonky social policies which more matched the Republican mold than the Libertarian one, such as his views on the place of religion in Government.

Really? On The Issues has Ron Paul saying "Bush's faith-based initiative is 'a neocon project'". Going further it says:
"In a 2003 statement, Paul derisively labeled Pres. Bush's faith-based initiative 'a neocon project' that 'repackages and expands the liberal notion of welfare.' In 2001, he proposed legislation to 'amend' the faith-based initiative by offering a tax credit for private donations to faith-based organizations that provide social services. 'Churches should not become entangled with government subsidies and programs because truly independent religious institutions are critical to a free society,' he said". Ron Paul opposed Republican attempts to entangle churches and the government. That page has other positions of similar issues, with no mixing government and religion.

Falcon

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[falconwolf]

There must be some cause that motivates them to even propose these bills.

The people want it. They like to feel safe. The appearance of safety makes them feel even safer than real safety. So to get reelected, officials push for things that increase the appearance of safety. Their constituents support that.

When was this, the people asking for this? I haven't heard of any outrage demanding this BS. If anything I've heard the opposite. Heck, congress didn't even wait for the Patriot Act. They didn't even read it either.

Until people have to fight against someone like J Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO and for freedom they'll just lie there waiting to be kicked. It's only after something specifically affects a person when they will do something.

Falcon

risks

[falconwolf]

Where is the hysteria over swimming pools?

I don't know where you've been but I've heard a number of people say they wish they didn't have a swimming pool because of the risk of being sued when someone breaks in and drowns. Some said if they could afford it they'd have the pool removed. There is even pool insurance being sold now. Googling pools drown sue returns more than 600,000 results.

Falcon

Re:risks

[MobyDisk]

FYI: In some states (I know Maryland and Pennsylvania), if someone gets hurt while performing a recreational activity on your property, and the landowner did not charge them for use of the land, the landowner is not liable.

The lawyers at the USHPGA drill this into all the members. They helped make these laws happen because people weren't allowing us to launch on their property out of fear of being sued.

Re:risks

[falconwolf]

FYI: In some states (I know Maryland and Pennsylvania), if someone gets hurt while performing a recreational activity on your property, and the landowner did not charge them for use of the land, the landowner is not liable.

In Minnesota if a child gets hurt while going to or coming from your home you can be sued, at least according to my sister and her husband. She's a CPA with experience in the law and her husband's a law school graduate.

Falcon

freedom

[falconwolf]

Slavery is a perfect example of that (it took two different Supreme Courts before it was set right).
You think it's been set right? What percentage of the people are dependent on major corporation?

Those people dependent on major corporations have the choice to work there, if they don't like it they can stop the dependency. No one is holding a gun to their head. As Michelle Pfeiffer's character says in Danergous Minds, "it may not be a choice you like, but it is a choice." For more than 2000 years society has existed without major corporations.

People still aren't equal before the law. The wealthy and powerful have a different set of laws that apply to them than does everyone else. If you don't understand the truth of this, then you're not very observant.

This is only true because the majority allows others to get away with it. Again, people have the choice, it may be one they don't like but it is a choice.

You CAN'T accept poverty as the price of independence, because you've got to pay money to keep your land save from governmental expropriation.

You do have the choice, you don't need to own real estate. land. Actually I bet most people don't own land.

Instance: When the Hoover Dam was built the law said that nobody with a large farm (forget the precise acerage) was entitled to free water from it. This was ignored. The water was reserved for the large land owners in preference to the small land owners, at least in the Imperial Valley. Partially because the small land owners couldn't afford to bring suit in court, but that's only why the decision couldn't be stopped, not why it was made (which I don't know).

This has not "self-corrected", and it won't, because the small landowners have now been driven away from their land.

Bad instance. One, the Colorado River Compact never should have been written. The compact, which is an agreement between 8 states and the federal government, says how much water each state gets. However when it was written the water level of the river was at a high due to years of lots of rain. Once the rain stopped the river dropped. And all the dams on the river have made it worse. Those man made lakes like Lake Powell has increased the surface area of the water and with the greater surface area more water evaporates. Water even shouldn't be being pumped to the Imperial Valley in CA, the water should be draining into the Sea of Cortez, aka Gulf of California.

Falcon

exactly did the Democrats want to build a HUGE,

[falconwolf]

unsustainable government

Go back to the 1930s and FDR an you'll be closer to when Democrats wanted big government and little liberty.

and the Repubs (or conservatives) decided to create a movement (tea party) complete with protests and anti-establishment marches and rally's?

In 1971 Goldwater Republicans started the Libertarian Party. The LP was launched at David Nolan's home in 1971.

Does something seem to have shifted here?

Democrats and Republicans are opposite sides of the same coin. They both want big government they just differ in what parts of government are big or small.

Falcon

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Cacadril]

Also, in films the good guys have such a wonderfull intuition that proofs are not needed. They just know the bad guys when they see them, and the spectators agree, because the film makers arrange for the bad guys to give themselves away so clearly that even the dumbest of the spectators get it. Half a century ago films and novels often were about how the detective found out. In most modern films it's just about how they get involved in shootouts that make any questions about proofs moot.

It seems like GWBush thought he could behave like a film hero when he thought he knew that Saddam had nuke precursors. Any lack of proof, or any doubts the intelligence guys might have expressed... You know the rest.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Cacadril]

That is the question I too was having. But then I think it is a matter of appeasing the people at the primaries. Since only a tiny fraction of the population show up at the primaries, and that fraction consists of the most rabid conservatives, politicians cannot afford to have anything in their record that displease the rabid conservatives.

The fix is for sensible people to get organized, to identify the sensible candidates and show up at the primaries in numbers. This has to be repeated a couple of terms before the effects accumulate. Sensible politicians must discover that an opportunity has opened up, and other politicians must discover that a new block of voters has appeared, that they need to appease.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. Where is all this pressure to bypass warrants coming from?

Instead of mocking you, I shall take pity on you, as you are clearly a dull child.

This pressure comes from two sources:

The first is from those for whom obtaining a warrant means more time spent outside the warm, cozy confines of the donut shop.

The second is from those who think the donutphages represent their interests and don't want the donutphages deterred in serving those interests.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[AK Marc]

When was this, the people asking for this?

You lack of exposure does not constitute a lack of interest. People don't like crime. People want criminals in jail. Ever notice how people vote *for* stupid ideas like minimum sentences and three strike laws? And there are complaints, but no actual movement to decriminalize drugs (well, aside from marijuana which is about as much a "drug" as chocolate). The people want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they do. Go look up vote results for senseless actions against "crime" and let me know what you find. I already know.

Until people have to fight against someone like J Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO and for freedom they'll just lie there waiting to be kicked.

Fight against him? They encouraged him. The fight against commies and other subversives was wanted by the mainstream. Sometimes the tactics were seen as heavy handed, but there weren't pro-commie protests and such.

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[falconwolf]

no actual movement to decriminalize drugs

Just as you said, "You lack of exposure does not constitute a lack of interest." From the "American Journal of Economics and Sociology", Legalize Drugs Now!. Let's see how many others there are...

1. LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - Cops Say Legalize Drugs
2. What if we legalized all drugs?
3. Tom Tancredo Says: Legalize Drugs!
4. Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence
5. Legalize drugs -- all of them
6. Is Now The Time To Legalize Drugs?
7. Why we should legalize drugs

Those are just the first page of results of legalize drugs. There are about another 245,000 results.

The people want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they do.

Many of the people don't want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they don't. And as a matter of fact I have talked to some who want to keep drugs illegal, my sister is one. I've also talked with people who want to bring back Prohibition, they say it will work this tyme. But everyone I know I know where their position is who lives in the real world and not a fantasy want at least some drugs legal. About the only drugs some don't want legal are so called hard drugs like opiates. They don't always know the facts though, for instance it's said an addiction to opiates is nearly if not impossible to break, however as the Rat Park experiment showed given the right environment even those addictions can be broken.

Fight against him? They encouraged him.

Liked J Edgar Hoover? That's a big laugh. Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, didn't like him. The only reason he kept his position as director of the FBI is because of his extensive collection of private files. They were all afraid he'd blackmail them. As for most people, they didn't know about him or about the files he collected on public figures.

Falcon

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[AK Marc]

Just as you said, "You lack of exposure does not constitute a lack of interest."

Sure. And when the anti-prohibition votes come up, they get voted down. "Medical" uses aside, I don't think any one of 51 states or district have made anything legal to make/grow and sell. That's some movement. Any more momentum and someone might mistake them for mainstream.

Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, didn't like him. The only reason he kept his position as director of the FBI is because of his extensive collection of private files.

If that's the case, then we get what we deserve.

when the anti-prohibition votes come up

[falconwolf]

Except they don't come up, until now. In November Californians will vote on a referendum to legalize marijuana. According to the Wastington Post, who suggests Washington DC watch CA, the referendum is close to winning with about half in support and half opposed to it.

I don't think any one of 51 states or district have made anything legal to make/grow and sell.

Again you're wrong. In Alaska small amounts are legal. "The sale and distribution of marijuana, however, is still illegal".

On J Edgar Hoover:

Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, didn't like him. The only reason he kept his position as director of the FBI is because of his extensive collection of private files.

If that's the case, then we get what we deserve.

Well J Edgar Hoover is long dead, good riddance. But as I said before most people didn't know what he was doing. Information found it hard to get around, and that's how politicians want it. After-all they even included a muzzle clause, where librarians and others who had information requests issued by law enforcement couldn't say anything about it, in the Patriot Act. How many people even have an idea what's happening? Obama ran saying his admin would be open, well his admin has refused to release the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ACTA, a favorite topic here. Just as with a number of other things it's "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." What does copyrights have to do with national security? While businesses can see it the people can't.

Which brings up relevant questions. One is, why aren't the people demanding it be released? Another though, is how many people even know or have heard about the ACTA? I just searched CNN, "acta" returned 40 results but none I looked at said anything about it and "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" returned 3 results, but none of them say anything about it either. Two were about counterfeit money, one about counterfeit drugs, and so on.

Falcon

Re:when the anti-prohibition votes come up

[AK Marc]

Except they don't come up, until now. In November Californians will vote on a referendum to legalize marijuana.

Then respond to this comment in November.

I don't think any one of 51 states or district have made anything legal to make/grow and sell.

Again you're wrong. In Alaska small amounts are legal. "The sale and distribution of marijuana, however, is still illegal".

I'm confused. "It is not legal to grow AND sell marijuana anywhere" was my statement. You respond "Wrong, it's illegal to grow and sell marijuana in Alaska, but you can possess it." You say "wrong" then make a statement 100% in agreement with mine. Perhaps you need to read my statement again. Or note my sig. I know what the law in Alaska is better than some outsider that gets his news from blogs. The troopers have said that just because they can't prosecute someone that has small amounts on them, it's still a violation of federal law and they will notify the feds on every case of discovered marijuana, and I believe they still confiscate it all when discovered, which isn't what you do with legal drugs. It's "decriminalized" in that it's illegal but unprosecuted, as opposed to being actually legal.

So you have an interesting idea of "legal" in Alaska when they take it from you, treat you like you are under arrest, refer your details to another law enforcement agency and tell you how lucky they are they aren't arresting you for your illegal actions. And if they think you traded it with others or have enough that they deem you intended to, then you will be arrested and charged with a crime. That's almost like if they catch you with a coffee, right? Another drug that is legal. I had two bags of fresh ground on me the other day, good thing I didn't get caught or I'd be spending 10 years in prison.

Re:when the anti-prohibition votes come up

[falconwolf]

I'm confused. "It is not legal to grow AND sell marijuana anywhere" was my statement. You respond "Wrong, it's illegal to grow and sell marijuana in Alaska, but you can possess it."

You're confused because you've combined 2 things, the possession and the sale of marijuana. In Alaska possession of small amounts is legal but sales is illegal.

I know what the law in Alaska is better than some outsider that gets his news from blogs.

And I suppose Alaska's Attorney General and the Alaska Police Standards Council are wrong too.

it's still a violation of federal law

Federal law yes but not state law.

Oh, it would have been nice if you had included a link for this: Then respond to this comment in November.

That's almost like if they catch you with a coffee, right? Another drug that is legal. I had two bags of fresh ground on me the other day, good thing I didn't get caught or I'd be spending 10 years in prison.

Now I think you're trolling. First you make stuff up saying people oppose it when anti-prohibition votes comes up. They have not come up until now in CA and it's likely voters in CA will make it legal. Next you say troopers report those they catch to federal officials even if they can't arrest the person themselves, yet you ignored the list of law enforcement officials who support legalization I posted. Then you say "If that's the case, then we get what we deserve" as regards J Edgar Hoover. However most Americans never did have the opportunity to decide if he would head the FBI. Now you make up stuff about coffee.

However, in case you're not I invite you to prove the people have had the opportunity to make hemp, aka marijuana illegal then to make it legal again. And saying people could vote for politicians who opposed prohibition or support legalization now does not work, very few people vote for candidates based on the position of one issue only, unless it's abortion. Show me when and where a vote came up to make hemp illegal and where and when a vote came up to make legal again. That is in the US.

Re:when the anti-prohibition votes come up

[AK Marc]

You're confused because you've combined 2 things,

No. I'm confused because I specifically combined two things, and you said that I was incorrect, then separated them out and completely changed my statement before attacking it. When you make up whatever you want in response to my statements, it confuses me. I don't understand where it was that you made up the statements from, and that was my confusion.

And I suppose Alaska's Attorney General and the Alaska Police Standards Council are wrong too.

Nope, not them. Just you. Those both directly supor tmy statements.

Noting that possession of any amount of marijuana remains a federal crime, Attorney General Renkes advised law enforcement officials to "continue to investigate these cases in a manner that would allow for federal prosecution. This includes seizing evidence of the crime, the marijuana, and writing reports documenting the investigation. These cases should be referred to the local district attorney office for review and coordination with the U.S. Attorney's office."

Federal law yes but not state law.

So it's still illegal in Alaska, just not a crime enforced by the state police. Which means it is still a crime in Alaska.

Now I think you're trolling.

And I think you started it by making up strawmen about my statements and beating them to death. There isn't a big push to legalize drugs in the US. There is a growing minority willing to talk about them in public, but politicians won't touch the subject with a 10 foot pole.

Next you say troopers report those they catch to federal officials even if they can't arrest the person themselves,

You posted a link to something where they explicitly stated that. They confiscate the "legal" drug and save reports and forward them to the feds. *You* posted that, after I said the same thing. I was there when they said that publicly. They made it clear, through press conferences, that marijuana was not legal in Alaska, but that the state police were going to no longer enforce the laws against it because it wasn't worth the resources.

Show me when and where a vote came up to make hemp illegal and where and when a vote came up to make legal again. That is in the US.

You were the one telling me about an upcoming vote where it made it on the ballot. It will be in November. I'll answer your question then. After all, it was made illegal not only by the feds, but in all 50 states. That wasn't an accident in direct violation of the will of the people. And it isn't "legal" anywhere in the US now, and the few places that have "decriminalized" it still persecute those with it as if it were criminal (and it is still criminal, just not by local and state laws).

Re:Is there a move among police to "go warrantless

[makomk]

You think it's been set right? What percentage of the people are dependent on major corporation?

That's not slavery. Now, when you take a look at the percentage of the US black population that are in jail and how many of them are forced to work for a pittance (they have no choice - it's a non-optional part of being in prison) it turns out there are effectively more black slaves in the US now than at the peak of slavery. That's alarming.