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Dutch Police Ask 8000+ Citizens To Provide Their DNA
sciencewatcher writes "In an attempt to solve a rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl, the Dutch police have asked 8080 men to provide their DNA. All these people lived 5 km or less from the crime scene at the time of the murder. This reopened cold case is the first large-scale attempt not to hunt the rapist and killer but to locate his close or distant male relatives. All data gathered will be destroyed after the match with this particular murder. There seems to be great public support for this attempt." Shades of The Blooding.
That is what this boils down to. There is no "right" answer, but citizens of each country answer the question diferently.
why not 6km away, 10km, etc? That is not that large of an area all things considered. It would be roughly the size of a small town. Who is to say the perp didn't live the next town over or was a nomad of sorts. Yes I know they say it is to possibly locate relatives, but how often would close enough match cause them to accuse said match.
Also who would trust their government to "destroy" the data when they are done with it. Yes they may very well destroy the samples but you can bet your next paycheck that it will stay stored on some backup somewhere for future use.
At least they did promise. When law enforcement here does the same thing and cites this case as precedent they'll neglect to consider that little condition.
This is a good article on the problems with fishing expeditions like this. Basically, the farther you cast the net, the greater the chance of false positives. What's worse, if there's just one false positive, it becomes next to impossible to argue your innocence because people look at the improbability of a single person being a false positive instead of the probability that there are false positives.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
DNA screening only looks at a few characteristics. Take two random people, and there is about a 1-in-7000 chance that their DNA profiles will match. If you take the DNA profiles of 8000 people, it is quite likely that one of them will match the criminals profile. Meanwhile, the criminal will almost certainly find some way to avoid giving a sample. So you get to put some innocent person through hell, and for what?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Scientists know -- and have been saying -- that DNA is far weaker evidence than prosecutors have tried to paint for the last few decades. But really more to the point: even if a conviction were made, it is not worth the loss of freedom and potential abuse this procedure involves.
"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved." -- Benjamin Franklin, letter to Benjamin Vaughan, March 14, 1785.
In fact, in another Dutch case, the very same promise was made... and broken. The guys who fell for it are now stored in the central DNA database. Forever.
If only I remembered what case that was, I would post a link.
.sig: No such file or directory
If I were the killer, I would certainly not give my DNA. They probably expect this. Those who refuse will of course receive special attention.
Well, I've never killed anyone and don't plan to, but I most certainly wouldn't give anyone my DNA unless forced to. If they want to force me, they have to treat me as a suspect, I have a right to legal counsel, etc. Why should I trust the police that they'll destroy everything afterwards? Wouldn't be the first time they lied.
They have to do their homework, find suspects, and then get THEM to provide a DNA sample. Taking shortcuts and asking everybody to provide one "voluntarily" is not acceptable, because at some point it won't be voluntary any more. The fact that the proper procedures take a lot of work is an insurance policy against just treating everybody as a suspect just in case.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
If they would really look for relatives, then they would not limit themselves to male DNA sources. It should be obvious to anyone that a rapist can have female relatives just as well as male ones.
I read this "All data gathered will be destroyed after the match with this particular murder" and immediately think bullshit.
As a rule, once they have this, it never seem to go away.
I would never submit to this unless I was required to -- this is a fishing expedition. Anybody who submits is probably innocent, and anybody who refuses is going to be treated as if they're guilty with something to hide.
Yes, this is terrible. But asking everyone to submit exclusionary DNA because they've ran out of places to look ... well, I find that to be a really scary precedent.
The next step of course would be to just simply have everyone's DNA on file just in case they ever needed it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Maybe you can believe the promises of the Dutch police, but if this were in the USA, I would say there was not a chance in HELL the data would really be destroyed.
I suspect it would not only be kept locally, but probably snarfed by the state police, FBI, DHS, CIA, and/or whatever.
Sorry to sound so jaded.