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SCOTUS Says DNA Collection Permissible After Arrest
schwit1 writes in with news about a ruling on the legality of the police collecting your DNA after an arrest. "A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting. 'Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's five-justice majority. But the four dissenting justices said that the court was allowing a major change in police powers. 'Make no mistake about it: because of today's decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,' conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom. Details of ruling available here.
Then I was shocked to see Scalia was in the dissenting group.
Naturally, I would expect the innocent victims of this policy to be compensated for the attack. What kind of restitution can they expect?
I don't see the difference between this and finger printing. If you are going to do either and the person is not found guilty that stuff should all be tossed out.
"Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Breyer, and Alito, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. "
On no other issue will Scalia, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan all agree with each other.
sudo make me a sandwich
Can they then sell these public records to a middle man who can extract the relative information and sell it to insurance companies? Because I may have a business proposition for some biology undergrads.
For once the UK leads the USA in the long, slow slide to a police state. They take them from kids a lot
Please stop voting for the policians that want to give this government EVEN MORE MONEY TO USE AGAINST YOU!!!!
Because when you vote "for everyone to pay their fare share", THIS is how that money will get used.
Now put back the start menu.
P.S. this is sarcasm
If I ever committed a felony in the United States, once I got out of jail I would leave the country one way or another. You become a noncitzen after your conviction. What ever happened to rehabilitation?
Scalia is mostly just a conservative hack these days, but sometimes he remembers that he used to have actual principles. Good for him – on this issue, he's absolutely right on the merits.
The majority decision is terrible because it means that if the authorities want your DNA for whatever reason, all they have to do is come up with some excuse to arrest you. They don't have to make the arrest stick, just get you into the system.
...let's not forget that it is deep blue Maryland and Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley, widely considered to be eyeing a run at the Democratic nomination for POTUS in 2016, who took this to the Supreme Court over their own MD Court of Appeals, and who is the one shitting all over the 4th Amendment here. The MD DNA Database has been one of O'Malley's pet projects for years, and he's advocated its expansion and use for this type of thing since he was Mayor of Baltimore.
The problem here isn't so much with the collection of DNA, but the retention. That seems to be a common theme here at the start of the 21st century - data collected for one purpose is then reused for other purposes.
I think it is reasonable for the police to check if someone they've arrested is a convicted felon. But once they've looked you up in their database of convicts, the collected data should be destroyed, be it DNA, fingerprints or even a mugshot. If you are subsequently convicted, they can go and re-collect the data for the purposes of making a permanent entry into the database of convicts.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If search warrants are handed out like toilet paper and your DNA isn't protected, what's left?
FWIW, california has been doing this for years.. If you are arrested (for anything-- political protest, for example), they will collect your DNA. This information remain in the state database, whether you are convicted or not-- even if you are not even charged. I'm trying to figure out if there's a consistent procedure to get your DNA removed if you're wrongly arrested, but can't find anything from a quick google. I only see a discussion of how it should work (A judge gets to decide) not how it's worked in practice.
FWIW, the CA public VOTED for this in 2004. 62% to 38%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_profiling#Familial_DNA_searching
Using this sort of logic is not getting you any converts.
Very few liberals believe that and you know it. Such arguments are just driving people away from every agreeing with you.
And the people who strongly believe this is a government overreach, it is unreasonable and it threatens privacy and liberty, would not advocate taking up arms about this issue. They would argue no matter what, the only legitimate way to fight back is with the ballots and not the bullets.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I disagree with the likening of DNA to having a mug shot taken or a fingerprint.. Simply because DNA can be used for purposes well beyond what you can use for a mug shot or a fingerprint.. Consider for a moment this currently fictional example... We have a nationalized health care system. Using the same DNA collected we tax an individual based on the likeliness of that individual to contract a certain condition (e.g. diabetes).. -or- We use that same DNA to establish life insurance rates along the same logic.. The problem here is it allows a very large amount of information to be garnered about a persons potential medical conditions without their consent.
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
Not anymore. You are all slaves now, with a tag attached.
Why don't they change it to "Guilty until proven innocent"? I mean, functionally it already is.
After that, how long until pre-screening of fetuses, infants, children is done. Do we then start eugenics programs to get rid of it? Treat the difference medically? Change the environment of these individuals before offense? Lock them away preemptively?
It -could- happen.
Silence is a state of mime.
Just in case you missed it, the dissenting judges were Scalia, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Three of those are "liberals". By that metric, it's obviously the conservatives that believe in a police state so that they can oppress blah blah blah. Really the lesson to take away from where the justices fell on the issue is that it wasn't along traditional ideological lines. It's almost as if boiling a complex system of political beliefs down into a single axis of liberal versus conservative is stupid.
It will probably turn out like the monarch of france vs file sharing. He was found guilty of strike one in the first week. May O'malley have his database bite him and his family all over.
Because Liberals, like O'Malley, believe in a police state.
Obviously no Conservatives (note capital 'C') would push us in that direction, which explains the ruling of the Conservatives (note capital 'C') on the court, save Scalia.
You are now being slotted.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Despite everybody thinking in a primitive left and right ONE DIMENSIONAL world, everybody knows that authoritarians existed on the "left" and the "right" if they know anything about Nazi's and Russian Communism.
There is another dimension where people who are completely opposite on the economic scale are identical on the authoritarian scale.
Both parties in the USA are closely related but spend billions highlighting and exaggerating their few differences... yet people are continually surprised when their candidates get in and act more like the opposition than they expected...
Educate yourself: politicalcompass.org
capcha: superset
Using this sort of logic is not getting you any converts.
When discussing political extremism, I submit that using any sort of logical argument is akin to screaming at a wall.
Personally, I find complacency ("yea, sure, oppressive group/policy X is getting worse, but there's nothing I can/will do about it") to be a far more dangerous thing than any amount of fanatical extremism, if only by merit of its prevalence in our society; true, foaming-at-the-mouth crazy is actually quite rare (although they tend to scream so loudly they're hard to ignore), but the masses don't seem to have the wherewithal to shut these stupid assholes up.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There are things in America that both parties hold in absolute agreement:
1) That we don't want a police state, dictatorship, or anything like it
2) The sneaky suspicion that the 'other party' is trying to push us towards exactly that.
It's kind of hilarious, actually.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Unfortunately this is a bi-partisan issue. Anytime you see Republicans and Democrats agree on something it's almost always going to be a big fucking for the American people. Unlike issues such as abortion and gay marriage where they divide the public in order to control us, this issue is one they unite on for the same reason, control of the masses. It's so obvious that I'm amazed people haven't twigged to it yet. Politicians are either Republican or Democrat while people are generally either Liberal or Conservative. While I am a conservative I never fall for the idea that Republicans are. This issue here proves that beyond doubt. Such control by the government is against any truly conservative principle.
Very few liberals will admit that and you know it.
FTFY
sudo make me a sandwich
To be fair, in my observation, very few on the right believe such either. What disturbs me most is that these polarized views are from people who are convinced they know what their "opponents" think but don't actually think about what their own side's messages/actions are. I'm quite firmly in the middle with a slight left and libertarian (small L) political view. I truly find it disturbing.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Step One: Declare every citizen a criminal.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Again, that is not going to convince anyone.
A totally pointless comment. I could just as easily say "Very few conservatives would not like to see a police state" and it would be equally stupid.
This one surpasses Dred Scott v. Sandford in terms of stupidity. Thank you OLD PRICKS for ruining shit for another 100 years.
I agree.
To me the worst of it is that pretty much everyone saying these things needs a polisci class before they speak about politics again. The slashdot libertarian, a quite different beast than real life ones, is generally the worst at this. They lack any information about even the school of thought their ideology comes from. For fun mention anarcho-socialism or left libertarianism to them. You can almost hear their heads explode.
think more broadly. studies may show a person with certain sequences might be more likely to commit certain crimes. We need to keep extra surveillance on such people for safety's sake.
And maybe you shouldn't reproduce, citizen, given your suspicious DNA sequences.
The courts job is to interpret the law. They found the law does not provide protection against DNA collection during arrest. Guess what people should be doing? Calling their representatives to ask for that law. It is not the judicial branches position to legislate from the bench. If this was a clear overstep of the constitution then sure, but DNA is a very large grey area especially when police have probable cause to collect evidence.
"Very few liberals believe that and you know it."
You mean "Very few liberals will openly admit it". The whole philosophy of achieving Utopia through the mechanism of big government and central planning must also include extensive use of force and control. That's the dark side of liberalism that liberals will rarely acknowledge. Central planning is a model that must be forcefully imposed on a society. Individual behavior must be controlled so that it conforms to this model. Free individuals are too dynamic to be centrally managed, so they must be transformed into good little robots so that the model doesn't break.
Challenge accepted:
Liberals believe in a large government that follows the phrase "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs." This entire premise is reliant on a police state in order to function. The government must know about every possible need you have, whether it be food, diabetes medicine, wheelchair ramp, or special toilet paper (why? I dunno, ask a Dr.) Since the government will have such extensive knowledge of the individual, it will be able to mold the behavior of the population through taxes, fines, and subsidies. Government says that you have to walk 2 miles a day to stay healthy, so they put a check-in stand and tell people "walk 2 miles a day or you will pay a fine/tax." Then each person is allotted a certain amount of each type of food, to make sure they stay healthy. Everything becomes an allotment, the individual only has the rights and ability to make decisions that the government allows them to.
Conservatives (NOT Republicans) believe that the government exists because the citizenry allows the government to exist. The government is not in charge, the people are. And the citizenry have the rights and abilities to make their own decisions and pay the consequences of their actions, good or bad. It is the government's job to give you the ability to succeed, not force you to succeed.
sudo make me a sandwich
This is only potentially bad because of the way how people have now completely misunderstood the purpose of DNA fingerprinting.
DNA Fingerprinting was originally conceived to exclude suspects and was never intended to prove that a suspect was present.
(let that sink in for a bit)
(a bit longer)
This is why DNA fingerprinting is usually combined with probabilities with regard to how many other people share the similar DNA fingerprint match.
A DNA fingerprint match should not be considered proof of anyone's guilt. It only means that the suspect cannot be excluded.
However, in America, it seems that DNA fingerprint match is seen as proof of guilt instead of how it should be used where a fingerprint mismatch is proof of innocence. Far too often, I have heard of cases where the prosecution excludes DNA fingerprint evidence because it doesn't show a match ... which is an abuse and misrepresentation of the technology.
*sigh*
(I'm sure that many people will read what I had written and still completely fail to understand the difference)
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
Actually, they did very bad job at interpreting the law. Yes, they agreed that in this specific case the police was right to take DNA samples, but then why did not they say exactly that in their final decision??? What they did say is actually that no matter what you did, even if you did not do anything, it is enough just to be arrested for whatever funny reason, and your sample would be already taken.
As long as you are not a child, or elderly, or a criminal (where the definition of criminal is left completely up to the discretion of a police officer).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It has reached the point where I don't usually bother identifying myself as a libertarian. People have come to believe that that means I'm against public roads, housing, care, government, regulations, EPA, etc... No, hell - I actually support single payer health care! I am in favor of a small but POWERFUL government that addresses the needs of a social net, reasonable regulation, maintaining the safety of our borders, and provisioning a safe society. I am against unreasonable regulations and restrictions of freedoms. I'm in favor of increasing state's rights to the point where a state can actually consist of like-minded individuals. We, in modernity, have the freedom of movement with ease and little expense. Take advantage of these liberties and create social settings that are comfortable for people with a strong central government that ensures the safety of the states.
What happened, circa 2007 to 2008, is that a lot of Right Wing Republicans decided they could change their affiliation to Libertarian and influence the party. We are NOT in favor of privately funded roads. We're in favor of making the idea of privately funded roads exist however. It's not that fucking hard to figure out. The influence and influx of these shit heads has really pissed me off and now I'm thinking about it. I'm going to go get high.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The current judges are so anti-consumer it's an embarrassment to the entire U.S.
That's not how our law is supposed to work. The State can only do what Constitutional Law says it can do. That's how the Constitution and all laws passed pursuant thereto are supposed to work.
There is no law specifically granting police the power to collect DNA, so therefore for them to do so is illegal under the way our justice system is supposed to work.
DNA evidence? Pfft - "all the prosecution showed was that OJ gots blood".
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Failed in the first sentence.
That is pretty impressive. Not all liberal schools of thought follow that mantra, nor do all schools of thought that follow that mantra believe in police states. Go get a polisci text book.
ALL of the conservative Supreme Court judges voted for this, and all of the liberal judges voted against this.
To try to frame this as part of a typical liberal agenda is distortive at BEST.
There are entire schools of liberal thought that espouse there being no government at all.
The dark side of your ignorance is you typing drivel like you just did. Go get a polsci textbook and read it before you spout anymore such silliness.
It's not about whether the police (or the State) should be taking your DNA and/or retaining it, because they already have fingerprints and a photo.
If fingerprints and a photograph are enough to identify you, then that is sufficient. Requiring more should also require reasonable needs. Is DNA somehow more useful to them in any way?
Do you waive your Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights when you are arrested? If so, well, do you regain them if acquitted, or especially if charges are not brought in conjunction with that arrest? If so, then asking for the records to be destroyed or sealed is reasonable. If not, then why am I being treated as a if I was convicted, when I was not?
And if these records are retained, why not require that I be notified when they are accessed for any reason, even if notice is that a request was made, and that the results were kept secret? Oh, because we should not, for a moment, believe our government when it says it will only keep the data, but not use it. It stretched credulity to believe that the government will not use the data if they have it. There is NO other reason to keep it. None. If they want to keep it, they want to be able to use it. And I suspect they will not want to be held accountable for that use, even when they can merely declare it is 'necessary', and go right ahead.
We should require the government to offer substantive need to both collect and retain any information about us, no matter the circumstances. And this goes to the core of limited government arguments. Our government serves us. We do not serve our government.
Time to start voting smart, gang. Wise up, pr pay up.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
but why would inserting the word "medically" in front of "private data" make it more important?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
DNA-fingerprinting of the full population will be standard. There's no way around that. In the current state of affairs this would almost be the better alternative, because fingerprinting only those who get arrested (for any reason) will just serve as a powerful deterrence against all kinds of political activity like demonstrations. At least if everyone is fingerprinted anyway the fear of being fingerprinted doesn't matter anymore.
Our societies are shaped by our tools, like it or not.
I am just stunned that Scalia and Thomas wound up on different sides here. Has that ever happened before?
First of all, it does not get tossed out. The whole point of warrantless DNA collection is about creating and maintaining a DNA database.
From TFA:
âoeMake no mistake about it: because of todayâ(TM)s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,â conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom.
With that in mind...
I can't go through your trash, take some of your fingerprints from there and leave them at the crime scene to frame you, nor can I mess up a crime scene by sprinkling the area with fingerprints from hundreds of people I gathered from a barbershop's dumpster.
The difference being that without the database, police would have to connect you to the crime first, take your DNA and compare it to the DNA I stole from you and left it at the scene of the crime.
With the database, all they need to do is to find your DNA I left there.
Naturally, for you to be in the database you'd have to be arrested first, sometime prior to me framing you.
Anytime during your life.
Also, while those hundreds of DNA samples from the barbershop were once just decoys, now there's bound to be someone in that bunch who got arrested for something. Making them false positives.
Or the usual suspects if you like that term better.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
While I am a conservative I never fall for the idea that Republicans are.
No true Scotsman? While I admit there are probably some librarians out there, every conservative I've ever met in real life wants a huge military and police force and always sides with more police power and executions. Sure they'll rant all day that the government is too big, but all they care about is taxes and regulations. The police state is fine with them. They're old white and well off. They know they'll never be it's target.
I see plenty of libertarians online, but I'm not sure they really exist among real conservatives.
I have a different sort of idea about that:
1. Almost all people with no power, don't want a police state, dictatorship, etc because they know it will oppress them.
2. Almost all people with power would rather like a police state or dictatorship, because that allows them to keep their power.
3. Those people without power who have chosen to identify with or support a subgroup of those people with power have to square their opposition to police states with their decision to support their chosen subgroup. That leads to the "My party isn't oppressing me, the other party is oppressing me!" thinking from self-identified partisans.
The real blindness is this, which came out in a conversation between myself (borderline socialist), a moderately liberal friend, and a libertarian friend: Which person in your life is most likely to be oppressing you in some way? Answer: Your boss.
I am officially gone from
You are wrong. Not only did Scalia vote against this, he authored a scathing dissent of the decision -- while Bryer, one of the Court's liberals, voted for it along with the Court's conservative Justices. And it's absolutely beyond question that Martin O'Malley, a diehard liberal who supports issues such as granting in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants and denying law-abiding Marylanders the right to carry concealed firearms (another MD case soon bound for the Supreme Court), has advanced and expanded this database as part of his agenda for over a decade.
If you want to think for yourself, you should avoid any "isms" including, but not limited to, libertarianism, liberalism and conservatism.
How the eff did this get a 5??
New fingerprints can't be synthesized from on-file images and dumped at the crime scene or on evidence already in the police evidence room.
Cops see everyone ever investigated and/or arrested as permanently guilty, therefore they are justified in their tiny minds and dark hearts in keeping DNA evidence to plant later on to vindicate their beliefs (not to mention getting promotions out of clearing all those pesky whodunnits).
Are you claiming that it's not true. Or just amused that both parties are hypocrites on that issue?
Because Liberals, like O'Malley, believe in a police state. It is much easier to oppress your population and monitor them if you have their fingerprints and DNA on file.
Did you accidentally migrate from the Yahoo comment boards or something? Sheesh, what insight?
Very few Americans want anything like a police state. It's likewise very easy for a police state to form without access to any DNA records. Interestingly enough, it is probably easier, unless you seriously suggest that law enforcement will just say "Yup, a perfect DNA match" to every case, even if the whole country watched a woman kill someone on Television, and the "perfect match" is a black man from across the country with an ironclad alabi.
In an efficient Police state, no evidence is needed, and even better, all suspects will be killed trying to escape. DNA swabs would be a real nuisance to a police state, as they would eventually be a tool used aganst the state.
All it would take is one doctor willing to take on the risk, send the contradictory DNA proof of malfeasance zipping across the internet and its Game On!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Not a very convincing argument. And I prefer to study real sciences, not fake and contrived sciences like political science.
sudo make me a sandwich
Ok, so the Supreme Court says they may take a cheek swab. I disagree, but it's moot. They're not allowed to do anything with it. Copyright Law says that the data contained in DNA is the property of the creator of it, ie, me, via cell division, as a derivative work passed down from my parents. I don't need a Copyright notice, the Berne convention covers that. Entering it into a database is mere mechanical transcription and they don't have permission to do that. Testing DNA involves DNA Amplification which means making many derivative copies of parts of the genome. I do not grant my permission. And furthermore some parts of the genome are effing patented. Time for Maximum Statutory Damages against the government, a repeat offender. If it's good for the MafIAA surely it's good for the individual, right?
Sorry but conflating Marxism to American liberalism is complete baloney.
The roots of liberalism are (from the Wikipedia article on the same topic) in the Enlightenment.
"Liberalism first became a distinct political movement during the Age of Enlightenment, when it became popular among philosophers and economists in the Western world. Liberalism rejected the notions, common at the time, of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. The 17th century philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition. Locke argued that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property and according to the social contract, governments must not violate these rights. Liberals opposed traditional conservatism and sought to replace absolutism in government with democracy and/or republicanism and the rule of law.
The revolutionaries of the American Revolution, segments of the French Revolution, and other liberal revolutionaries from that time used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of what they saw as tyrannical rule. The nineteenth century saw liberal governments established in nations across Europe, Spanish America, and North America. In this period, the dominant ideological opponent of liberalism was classical conservatism.
Later 20th century liberalism evolved into social liberalism where social justice and a mixed economy are needed to limit the gap between the rich and the poor. The trust busting of the early 20th century and the formation of labor unions are typical modern liberal activities.
Marxism is based on the idea of complete collectivism, no private ownership of capital, and no right of property, which are very different from any form of liberalism.
So stop speaking about it then.
If you don't even know the basics about a topic, you should not discuss it in public.
I agree that DNA swabs are the same as fingerprints.
I've been fingerprinted many times as part of my job requirements. Those prints are on record, even though I wasn't detained, much less arrested. I'd have no more problem with providing a DNA swab than the prints.
But where DNA samples are different is when it comes to things like medical insurance. Having access to a fingerprint stolen from a database doesn't give insurance companies ammunition to do anything; but DNA information could lead to rejection of insurance coverage because one has "bad genes."
I don't think it's a particularly big step for the police to further conclude that blood testing for drugs and alcohol is just part of "due process" and doesn't require charges any more, either. And that does worry me because I'm a medical cannabis user, and would not appreciate having such tests on my records.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I am constantly trying to cure my fellow liberty activists of their annoying tendency to attempt to purge our ranks of anyone that doesn't meet some test of ideological purity. I see this happen quite a bit and it's discouraging.
That being said, I don't see how a libertarian of any stripe could embrace a single payer healthcare system. I'm basing this on the assumption that such a system would require forced participation. i.e. if participation was voluntary, there would be more than a single payer.
I'm really amused by all the ideological civil libertarians who are shocked (SHOCKED I tell you!) at finding common cause with Scalia on this issue. The general assumption seems to be that Scalia "is finally right for once." Here's an alternative explanation: Scalia hasn't changed at all. It's the ideologically motivated civil libertarians who are off their rockers here.
If you'll tie your jerking knee down for a minute and whip up a Top 20 list of the most pernicious and chilling abuses of government authority, I suspect you'll have a hard time finding a spot for this line item. The risk/benefit equation on this is different. Managing this data in an appropriate and accountable fashion is officially Not Rocket Science. You may not trust the government to behave in a reasonable and appropriate manner, but there's all kinds of stuff you accept silently right now which is already egregious. Letting that stuff slide (Guantanomo, CIA-run drone strikes against civilian targets, National Security Letters, good old fashioned "driving while black", take your pick) while getting your panties in a bunch over soemthing with tangible benefits to a civil society is not much more than masturbatory paranoia.
Or maybe I should put it this way: When extremists of different factions agree, it doesn't make them less extreme.
The slashdot libertarian, a quite different beast than real life ones, is generally the worst at this.
Well, you say that, but I've come across real-life flesh-and-blood libertarians, including a Libertarian candidate for Congress, who spout ideas very similar to the Slashdot libertarian. Anything suggesting that libertarians are universally smart articulate people smacks of a "No True Scotsman" argument.
The majority of followers of most political belief systems have no idea why they believe what they believe or the theories behind it, and decide more on their gut reaction. For example, the liberal gut reaction is, in a nutshell, "Those people are victims of circumstances beyond their control, and that's not fair!". The conservative gut reaction is "Those people are lazy, and it's unfair that I have to pay for keeping them alive!". The libertarian gut reaction is "That tax bill is theft, and it's unfair that I have to pay it!". The authoritarian gut reaction is "Those people are dangerous and/or idiotic, and need to be controlled or all heck will break loose!". And so on for most other political belief systems.
I am officially gone from
I was not saying that. Merely that it appears the slashdot ones are bottom of the barrel.
I am not a libertarian.
I don't see how a libertarian of any stripe could embrace a single payer healthcare system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism
You know you just outed yourself as the typical slashdot libertarian right?
3) There is actually only one party - the Power Party. Repubs and Democrats are just public faces allowing public attention to be focused on trivial differences in their presentation.
Maybe you should go back and read about some of our forefathers involved in duels and the 'coming of blows' that lead to some of them :)
I'm pretty sure off the books duels would fall under at least a couple of those swabbing incidents, and I'm pretty sure none of them would like themselves 'linked to the scene of the crime'
Your premise is incorrect. The quote you used in your first sentence is from Karl Marx, a socialist not a liberal. Socialism and liberalism are quite different in many ways.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberalism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marxism
All it would take is one doctor willing to take on the risk, send the contradictory DNA proof of malfeasance zipping across the internet and its Game On!
The hell with that, I shed DNA 24 hours a day everywhere I go. I don't even need to consider a malicious actor in the possibility that my life could be irrevocably fucked by me sneezing in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is horrifying.
Wow, this decent... from Scalia? Gee... its almost like I don't know wtf I'm talking about when talking about America and American politics and simply act as a progressive tool every day.
Let's consider that even fingerprints have the chance of a perfect match with another individual. I did a quick search, and the chance of someone else matching you is 1 in 64 billion. Given that our current population is measured in the billions, it's quite likely that there are multiple folks out there walking around with a doppleganger that has a matching print. That said, at least fingerprints have the odds on their side.
DNA is VERY different. With DNA, they use numbers like 1 in 20,000 chance of someone else having the same genetic profile. That sounds great until you realize that in a city of 5 million people walking around, there would 250 individuals walking around with the EXACT same profile. In this example, if you convicted on DNA evidence alone, you would have a 99.6% chance of convicting the wrong person. Where this becomes really problematic is if they start scanning suspect DNA, find a "match" for an unsolved crime, and throw an innocent guy in jail based on this evidence alone. This is why we should only be using DNA for exclusion, when using it for prosecution only in conjunction with other corroborating evidence. There are way to many people that have already been convicted because people mistakenly thought that DNA was foolproof evidence. The fact that more than one person can match a given profile means that there is still plenty of reasonable doubt when using DNA alone.
....is they possess absolute ability and power to frame anyone and everyone!
Wow, is that what they teach you about liberals on Fox News?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
To most people on both sides, "civil rights" is nothing more than a cudgel usable by the losers in an election with which to bash the other side.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I got a DUI a few years back but got the charges dropped. However, my mugshot was still made public and a pretty shady website called mugshots.com has somehow figured out how to elevate that link and image to the #1 place on Google searches for my name. Your only recourse is to shell out the $400 to get them to remove it. Google of course won't do anything about it.
In the era of total information awareness, I started thinking about why. Now, law enforcement knows they have another intimidation tool to hang over a suspect/witnesses head. An unscrupulous detective could just threaten to book you on murder if he suspects you know something to compel you to submit to questioning. Now, anyone with a sensitive career is going to take the easy way out rather than have indexed records all over the internet of being suspected of murder.
The more an arrest is conflated with a conviction, the more power the State will have over citizens.
i'm shooting the pig in the face before the cuffs come out
I believe true conservatism is all about individual liberty. A strong military is necessary to insure freedom and a police force is needed to maintain order. That doesn't mean they have the right to detain people on a whim or ignore the 4th Amendment. There is no real need for this kind of procedure. Collecting DNA from everyone is way beyond any power the government is granted Constitutionally. This is the end result of filling the court with judges who want to legislate from the bench.
Oh I do. I don't agree with the entirety of the Libertarian platform (note that I'm for things like public funding of health care as an example) but it is closest to my ideology and saves some time when trying to explain it to folks. I'm actually registered as an Independent.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I have to agree with the majority, DNA is the same as fingerprints and photographs. Of course, them darn coppers shouldn't be allowed to take fingerprints and photographs, especially the latter steals your soul!
So to combat this horribly government overreach, I plan to become a cannibal. With all that DNA from lots of other people constantly in my mouth, they're bound to get a contaminated DNA sample, providing reasonable doubt and ensuring I'm never convicted for my new dietary choices.
I'm not entirely lock-step with the platform and my reasons are that the costs would be less for society to purchase these services and goods with the wholesale pricing afforded due to the massive amount of capital that the government has that we, as individuals and business owners/workers, don't have and thus can't provide at nearly the same price level. It would require forced participation, via taxation. Some ideals simply aren't attainable when confronted with the real world.
I'm registered as an Independent simply because I don't agree with the entirety of the Libertarian platform either. I am, well, hard to describe in a few blurbs of text and anything that truly describes me would be too long for you to bother to read. You'd just cut/paste something you found uncomfortable and argue with it. I've done this before and haven't any reason to think this time would be different.
It's funny that you mention purging due to not being ideologically identical and then, well, post that.
But, for the sake of conversation and yet brevity, I'm a left leaning libertarian with a great deal of influence from the classic libertarians. It's complicated but logical. That is why I like it. I support liberty for the individual but I understand what freedom is. People don't generally even know what freedom means. I'll give you an example:
I am perfectly free to kill you.
I am not at liberty to do so.
As for being able to opt-out of single payer health care, you're at liberty to buy your own insurance and at liberty to not partake at all. However, you're still going to be taxed based on your earnings. Would it mean tax raises? Probably not if I were Ruler of the Universe, we pay more than enough taxes already. Our problem isn't that we don't pay enough in taxes, our problem is that we spend that money poorly. Tax code problems are, of course, a different subject.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Arguably, health care falls in the same category as roads and utilities. It's a public good issue that could be managed effectively by a central authority. There's room in it for profit, but access shouldn't be denied based on profitability. What we have now is a byzantine system where profit trumps basic function.
For a single payer system to work, though, the government would have to be able to keep its grubby fingers out of the funding. If we tried to implement such a system now, the funding would just end up being spent as if it was in the general fund. See Social Security.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
I should make that clearer:
By not partaking at all, I mean not taking advantage of the health services. Such a choice would be stupid but you'd be free to do it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What was strange is them stating that they didn't like people pushing people out due to ideological purity tests or whatnot. Then they attempt to try to tell me what I believe and what my platform is when, frankly, I can pretty much guarantee I understand the definition and platform far better than they do as I've made quite an effort to get an education in that area. As I was a Cold War child I found politics fascinating and have spent many years learning (both from reading and in a classic academia setting) and have used that knowledge to reach my personal opinions on how I feel and have learned the appropriate verbiage. It isn't my fault, however, that folks don't understand the vocabulary.
I think people attach themselves to a political platform based on one or two planks. They simply don't know the depth, don't bother to learn about them, and ascribe themselves based on those planks and use that as justification to assume that the remainder of the party members are ideologically the same or similar. I am not sure why they do this as I can probably provide enough historical evidence to prove that any single platform has its flaws and that blind zealotry is never a good thing. You need to be an individual, to examine and take what you reason to be correct, and apply that to your own views and then vote accordingly.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
No, I wasn't aware that I fit a /.profile of "libertarian".
I'm also familiar with left-libertarianism.
I stand by my statement. A healthcare system where participation is forced and where competing systems are forcefully excluded has nothing to do with any brand of libertarianism.
I have learned that anything can be considered a civil right so long as you get a loud enough vocal minority to keep up the pressure. I'd go into it but, well, it would just make me look like an ass because nobody would bother to read the entirety of what I have to say and it's a bit more complex than one can comfortably fit on a bumper sticker.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That bastard.
Your statement is simply incorrect. If you were aware of social libertarians you would know your statement was incorrect.
What kind of Liberal would tell someone to stop exercising their 1st Amendment rights? A real Liberal, one who wants to silence their opposition. Are you going to have the IRS audit me next?
sudo make me a sandwich
Very good point. I found that funny as well. His response to me on the above is even more hilarity.
I think people are simply lazy. It is easier to assume all members of group X believe what they believe rather than educate themselves.
The kind asking you to educate yourself before proving how ignorant you are to even more folks?
I am not the government nor did I ask the government to silence you. So I cannot infringe on your first amendment rights.
For your sake I hope you are trolling, otherwise I feel bad for you. When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, most people would stop digging.
And the roots of the Republican party are (from the Wikipedia article)
"Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Southern Democratic Party"
So the Democratic party, is a party based on "Liberal" ideology and Locke's philosophy of the social contract. If that is true, why were Democrats the party of slavery and Jim Crowe laws?
sudo make me a sandwich
Scalia is not a type-castable conservative. He has often voted with the liberal judges when it comes to defense of the Bill of Rights.
Breyer is really the only exception here. To be honest I've never liked the stuff he's written.
There are plenty of conservative governors who have supported expanded DNA testing. Your example of O'Malley only suggests he is not as liberal as you seem to think.
For example the law in that liberal bastion of the state of Arizona:
K. If a person is arrested for any offense listed in subsection O, paragraph 3 of this section and is transferred by the arresting authority to a state, county or local law enforcement agency or jail, the arresting authority or its designee shall secure a sufficient sample of buccal cells or other bodily substances for deoxyribonucleic acid testing and extraction from the person for the purpose of determining identification characteristics. The arresting authority or its designee shall transmit the sample to the department of public safety.
Likewise that deep blue(?) state of Alabama:
The Department of Public Safety shall collect for inclusion into the DNA registration system a blood sample, oral sample, or both, from:
(6) a person arrested for a crime against a person or a felony under AS 11 or AS 28.35, or a law or ordinance with elements similar to a crime against a person or a felony under AS 11 or AS 28.35.
The fact is that DNA testing of arrestees is not a liberal position.
"But they already are raping my asshole to the nth degree! Who cares if they plug my butt just a little bit more?"
Die you filthy illogical fucker
The only hole in this conversation is your pathetic defense at the indefensible. Liberalism is not what you pretend it to be. Apparently you live in Obama-mania-land, where reality is merely what you want it to be and not the reality of the world. Liberalism in America is marching lock-step towards complete Communism, and is almost there. Government regulations, like Maryland taxing landowners for any surface which does not allow water to permeate into the ground, are further intrusions on freedom.
You defense is to say "no we're not communists, we just want to take money from the rich and give it to the poor," which is exactly what I said earlier.
sudo make me a sandwich
Wow, you went full retard. Never go full retard.
I commend you on your trolling. If you are not trolling, please call the local loony bin they are surely looking for you.
Are you actually Jay Carney? You are great at deflecting questions and using personal attacks to avoid the questions. So I will leave you to your Kool-Aid and Obamaphone.
sudo make me a sandwich
I am not sir.
I am not attacking you at all, I just was forced to assume you are a great troll. You redefine words and make stuff up to suit your world view. You also sucked me into a conversation that I should have known would not be productive.
I think you mean Reaganphone.
the news outside the geek sphere seems more important these days. If you hadn't noticed our country is going to hell in a hand basket RAPIDLY. Tearing itself apart as it seems the majority mindset of densely populated areas attempts to overreach likely to end in an armed conflict where no one wins. It will likely all die down replaced by defacto anarchy after the monetary system collapses in the not so distant future. Then a group that has been preparing for just this event will make use of left over resources to clean up the millions dead due to starvation, and likely deliver aid in densely armored delivery vehicles rocking no shortage of ammo. They will of course rebuild without that annoying constitution thing that allows the slaves to get all uppity about their "rights". Of course the whole world will go to crap as the international monetary system is based on worthless paper with little gold to back it up. Some will recover better then others. Me? I'll do alright. Always kept a few things handy if something like this ever happened. The body armor specifically capable of taking many 9mm SMG hits is new tho. :P
There is humor in it if you look. Remember all those people who pointed out all the bad stuff Bush had done? I love poking barbs of fact at them and watch them squirm defending Obama. Typically either implying racism, religious fervor or that I'm a "tea bagger". I love to then point out that my love of democracy, liberty and love for our republic against their fanatical fascism is something my fiance from El Salvador and I will speak of and laugh about later at dinner. A dinner we wont pray before eating as we are agnostic. Cheers.
Because over the years things change. Which is why all those southern democrats became republicans.
What you are referring to was called the "Southern strategy", the democrats abandoned it and the republicans took up the mantle. Which is why they are now dying as a party. Appealing to old racists and homophobes only works for so long.
It's true. People are very lazy. They're physically lazy and intellectually lazy. I don't think we're that way by default, I think we're that way when our needs and wants have been mostly met. There are, obviously, exceptions...
Take, for example, a post I had above. It was modded "troll." They modded it troll when, frankly, it is hardly trolling. It was an in-kind response to your post. You weren't offended, you weren't being led on to get the most response for the smallest amount of effort, nor was it particularly inflammatory or the likes. They're just intellectually lazy and rather than opining, expressing their views (which I'm quite encouraging of and don't, at all, expect people to agree with mine) so they modded it troll.
I think your description of them as Slashdot Libertarians (I like that, a lot, by the way) is pretty spot on. They are shameful. I don't mind but, frankly, that's the best way I can describe them. The damage they've done to my party's name is unrepairable at this point and they don't even know what the platform is about. They latched on to one or two things, decided to take them to extremes, and have been very vocal with their absurd views. I encourage people to do this but not at the expense of sacrificing a platform because no, they don't even come close to representing the platform. Form your own party if you're going to be like that.
And yes, the reality IS that they came along in 2007-2008 and were so embarrassed by Bush that they dropped the Republican letter and co-opted the Libertarian name while actually knowing nothing about the party, the planks, or (as near as I can tell) having been invited to speak for the party. The party size trebled over just a couple of years. I've been a dues paying member since the early 80s though I'm registered as an Independent (which is actually the Independent/Green party here in Maine, I'm not a greenie so don't really like it but that's how it is) and I know a number of us aren't at all impressed with how this happened and the results. However, you can't just kick them out and they brought in more members than already existed in the party... So, yeah, I don't usually bother describing myself as a Libertarian any more. It used to be that it was easier, simpler, and closest to my actual ideology. Now it is not so simple to describe.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I think that finger prints on a glass surface would give authorities your DNA anyway. It might be a bit more difficult to decode due to the sample size.
What may be behind all of this is that the founders probably had no clue that photography and finger prints would ever be a reality and that as
long as a man moved a hundred miles or so his history was lost to his new neighbors giving him a chance at a new start. They had no way to foresee a man convicted of a lesser crime being condemned to being a life long second class person.
But another reality kicks in. Although it gave people a way to start over who where good people who simple broke a law once upon a time it also gave very bad people an opportunity to keep doing wrong. As the Christian church plays a smaller role in most peoples' lives these days we have a great number of people who get by by moving about and creating a life of perpetual criminal activity.
Protesting DNA collection is very similar to protesting being photographed and finger printed. Making the information quickly and easily available on the net further leads to a loss of ability to conceal errors of past years. Frankly it is not going to change. The message people need to get is to live a much more perfect life. Be admirable at all times. A tall order to say the least.
So, any guesses as to how long before a DNA swab is required by the TSA before you can board a plane???
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
This is the whole lets see what you have if you have nothing to hide type decision. The theory being that somebody brought in for being rowdy might be a car thief from the neighboring state, but how about some competent police work to catch the thief in the other state rather than assuming anybody they pick up can be guilty?
The pigs of authority have scored a major blow here, and we're two steps closer to becoming an Orwellian state.
The dichotomy between the Democratic party of Kennedy and that of Wallace is well documented. The transformation of America and the civil rights movement (opposed by conservatives like Goldwater) led to the change of party adherence by MLK and his followers from Republican to Democrat. This change drove the southern Democrats to the Republican Party. Strom Thurmond is a good exemplar of this transition.
Since then Republicans have represented the classical conservative viewpoint in America.
If you have a job of any importance with dealing with money or a security clearance you already have to give your finger prints for your license/clearance anyway.
If they want a swab from my cheek as well, go ahead.
If I'm "allowed" to buy my own insurance, that's not a "single payer" healthcare system, is it? If service providers are "allowed" to operate outside the system (e.g. taking only direct payment) that's not "single payer" healthcare either. You're talking about a welfare program.
You also endorse a tax on wage earnings to fund the state and welfare programs? I can see how explaining to people that you're really a "libertarian" could be a long winded endeavor.
I prefaced my comment with the idea about ideological purges because I don't believe in alienating potential allies. There are some liberty activists who will not accept the idea of ANY government whatsoever. In my experience, they tend to be the greatest ideologues and create a split with people who accept limited Constitutional government to the detriment of both. I'm actually a Henry George type libertarian because I see resource monopoly as the existence of a de-facto "state" run by the land owners.
"from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."
Nope.
Sorry, I thought the principles of non-aggression and voluntary association were inherent in all brands of libertarianism.
If "social libertarians" believe it's OK to take people's wealth under threat of violence, that a single monopolistic entity (government) should control the provision and exchange of ALL medical goods and services and that private parties can be forcefully prevented from having a voluntary relationship that involves exchange of medical goods and services, why don't they just call themselves "socialists"?
See that dust mote wafting in the air? That dust on your computer screen, or the mantle? That's your dead skin. Your DNA. You left DNA in the disposable coffee cup you threw in the trash. Your hair fell out as you sat in a waiting room. Your DNA is everywhere you've been. But just because your DNA is somewhere, doesn't mean you have been.
What if I were planning a crime? Hmm, well, DNA evidence means an open and shut case. So, perhaps I hang out and look for someone who matches my physical build and appearance somewhat, what if that someone is you? Why, I could simply follow you around. Collect that hair from the seat you left. Accidentally drop my phone in the trash and come out with the disposed cup you tossed, with your saliva and fingerprints all over it. Note your schedule and ensure you won't have an alibi when I make the murder.
Currently we collect the evidence at the scene, but also look for motive and do real detective work, but we can do less of that now. The DNA Database pointed straight at you. You've got no motive, but your DNA and Fingerprints were all over the place and you match the description of a few eye witnesses, even if they couldn't pick you out of a lineup. You've got no alibi. The police "Like You" for the crime, and they've got no other suspects to go after... It's curtains for you. Of course you'll insist you're innocent, everyone does. I'm sure they can come up with some speculative reason why you would do the crime. Some past childhood event perhaps. Maybe I prey on victims I that you know, just to make it all the more easier to convict you.
With the evidence against you it'll be an open and shut case. If you confess and show you're remorseful for the brutal act, then maybe the courts will be merciful -- you'll be promised a less harsh sentence by the prosecution. I mean, what IS the truth? "It wasn't ME! Some guy who looked like me collected my DNA and fingerprints and observed my habits and killed someone I know to frame me!"
I can hear the gears turning now. Well, it IS all a VERY unlikely scenario isn't it? No one's actually going to do such a thing. Right? That's exactly what I'm betting the detectives, judge, and jurors will think, too...
DNA should NOT be held up as a magic bullet. It's everywhere. Everyone has access to your DNA. It should be used to prove innocence through non-matching DNA, or multiple different samples under the fingernails... If your DNA is found, that should just prove you exist, that's all. That could have came from anywhere. We don't need a DNA Database to prove two sets of DNA don't match, do we? We need a Database to quickly find someone to go after, right?
In the near future I'll be able to use a home stem cell kit to create whatever cells I want of yours, even semen. No jury will believe that some serial killer is cleverly plotting to use DNA against you, growing your DNA in a home lab to commit the perfect crime. It's a paranoid's delusion, not a "reasonable" doubt. Besides, if there were a string of serial killings, wouldn't the police notice that there were a bunch of murders that went unsolved? No. They wouldn't, eh? They'd have "their man" in those cases too...
Yes, well, the problem is... they will. And you cannot stop them; you cannot defend any resistance against them; and you cannot resist them effectively. The reality is that the government has absolute control and access to effectively unlimited violence (and therefore coercion), they simply need to choose to exercise it. The most likely trigger for such an exercise is any resistance to any action of theirs on your part.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If you have been in the US Military since ~1989ish, your DNA and fingerprints are already in some database somewhere.
I haven't had the Gestapo kick my door down because my DNA is a close match to ( insert evil villain here ). In fact, considering :|
the government is in charge of its storage, it's likely sitting in a warehouse somewhere next to some long forgotten Moon Dust
Capcha LOL: Skeleton :D
Then I was shocked to see Scalia was in the dissenting group.
Yes, so was I. That means that there is hope yet for that great foe of civil liberties.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
If they are limited to only holding the data collected so it can be used in criminal investigations then I am fine with it. It is no different than finger printing....If they are not limited to how it is used and by whom, then we should be concerned.
There is some truth to what you are saying, which is the reason the founders put so many checks and balances into the system. For the moment though, it is unlikely Obama wants to be a dictator, although sometimes he jokes about it. He's tried to limit (for example) what a president can do with drone strikes (possibly because he knows he won't be in office next term). And Bush didn't want to be a dictator either.
Part of your post is just a variation of the old, "the Man is keeping me down." Viewing your boss as an oppressor is infantile, and you should work to change that relationship as soon as possible.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm actually a Henry George type libertarian because I see resource monopoly as the existence of a de-facto "state" run by the land owners.
So are you in support of healthcare as it is practiced today? I think many people, including libertarians, turn to single player because health care is being held tightly and doled out by the medical guild. It's not strictly rent-seeking, because value is being provided, but supply is being kept artificially low in order to maximize profit. There is a resource monopoly and it is being used to extort the population.
I think there might be a 2.5, or just a corollary to #2 there: that many people with power know that someone or some class WILL be in charge, and they think they will make better, even more benevolent decisions. I know that sounds like #3 a little bit, but it's focusing on the people with power instead of those without. They want a police state because their police state will be what benefits everyone. And then there are those few who have power and don't want a police state/dictatorship because, although they might have an enlightened rule, whomever succeeds them most certainly will not.
You'd can insure most anything. I'm not a fan of taking that right away from you.
The other is reality, we need welfare. Otherwise we'll have peasants revolting. It's cheaper and a more stable society with welfare. Ideological purity is hampered by reality when common sense is used.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation and had supported the original senate version of the bill, Goldwater made the decision to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His stance was based on his view that the act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do or not do business with whomever they chose.[16]"
Source: Check your facts
sudo make me a sandwich
Scalia voted to maintain civil liberties rather than abrogate them? I think I see flying pigs outside my window, as well as demonic snowmen and cows mooing.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
The real blindness is this, which came out in a conversation between myself (borderline socialist), a moderately liberal friend, and a libertarian friend: Which person in your life is most likely to be oppressing you in some way?
None of you must be married or have kids.
if you couple this with the gigantic backlog of unprocessed rape kits, you've got next to nothing.
== I question your beliefs, makes me a Troll. You insult my beliefs, you are progressive and mainstream. Okay. Got
After spending forty-five years and trillions of dollars to defeat the philosophy (i.e. the Cold War), we adopt those same practices. So, for every soldier that marched, for every seaman that embarked, for every airman that flew and every Marine dispatched, their service has become in vain. We have won the victory over ourselves. We loved Big Brother.
There was no logic in his post, only some facts. Liberals won't believe facts if they don't find them agreeable? Somehow you didn't have to tell me that.
"Absolutely beyond question...has advanced and expanded this database" It's ok, they'll just pretend it doesn't exist. Never heard of it, nah nah nah, I can't hear you.
Very few Americans want anything like a police state.
Most Americans, hell, most people in the world, want most of the things that go into a police state. They all want someone else's email to be monitored, they want someone else stopped and searched because that person looks suspicious, they want the police and government bureaucrats all up in the other person's business. Oh, but they want freedom... for themselves... and the only way to maintain those freedoms is to keep everyone else closely monitored and controlled...
and the cognitive dissonance never kicks in. Welcome to planet Earth. Please enjoy your stay.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
No, healthcare today hella-sucks, but it's because of massive intrusion by government, not profit-driven free marketeers.
Medicare and Medicaid create vast distortions in the market and set up a system of cost shifting which should not exist. In fact, this practice (charging similar customers different prices for the same goods) is illegal in most other industries. If government wants to play a role in healthcare, banning price discrimination would be a good start.
Then, there are government mandates like EMTALA which cause more cost shifting, especially onto those who don't have health insurance. That makes retail prices so unimaginably high that people who could otherwise self-insure must go to insurance companies.
Next, we have government forcing insurance companies to offer cookie-cutter policies which must cover particular services, even if the customer doesn't want a policy covering those services. Policies which are custom-designed for an individual would reduce costs.
With regard to drugs and medical devices, government creates a monopoly by banning re-importation of those items. In a free market, there's no way a drug would cost 90% less a few miles across the border.
Yes, the population is being extorted, but government is a primary cause of the problem. They've been messing with healthcare for 40+ years and the current system is the result of their interference.
Yes. Beliefs held dear to an individual seldom follow a straight party line, discounting the ditto heads who repeat verbatim what they hear on their single source of news and information. I find myself agreeing in principle with different parts of both conservative and liberal political platforms, but it occurs to me that men/women in office from both sides of the aisle seem willing to compromise their political convictions to strengthen their positions. There is very nearly a cabal amongst entrenched power-wielding officials, and when your freedoms get in their way, it is arguably in their interest to weaken them,
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Planting DNA at a crime scene would be an order of magnitude easier than synthesizing fingerprints.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
IAAL. Although the Supreme Court doesn't mention this, every case is explained by asking whether there is an intrusion into the body. The original case was Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952). The police had a warrant and broke into Rochin's apartment. He quickly swallowed illegal drugs, and the police used a stomach pump to retrieve them. Although it was not a case involving a warrant, the Supreme Court held that stomach pumping "shocks the conscience," and the drug evidence should be suppressed. The court later upheld fingerprinting without a warrant, but last month, in Missouri v. McNeely, it struck down a warrantless blood test for blood alcohol. The test involved piercing the skin and a vein. The court said that this violation of bodily integrity required a warrant. Note that it was not an emergency. The police could have gotten a warrant and run the test before the defendant's blood alcohol level declined too far to be meaningful. Then just yesterday, in Maryland v. King, the court upheld a non-emergency warrantless swab inside the defendant's cheek where a DNA test revealed that the defendant had committed another crime. There was no piercing of the defendant's skin, and the cheek swab was painless.
Nice cherry pick, but to left out the rest,
All this appealed to white Southern Democrats, and Goldwater was the first Republican to win the electoral votes of all of the Deep South states (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana) since Reconstruction
Should have never even been brought to the supreme court level. DNA has always been taken upon a felony arrest so just behave yourself and no more kicking and spitting.
No cherry pick, you claimed "the civil rights movement (opposed by conservatives like Goldwater)"
I merely pointed out the fact that you were wrong, that Goldwater supported every other version of the Civil Rights Act except 1964.
sudo make me a sandwich
Into custody. You are under arrest.
GUILTY! in bright lights with a fanfare of music?
Figuratively, yes. The DNA analysis matched semen found in the vagina of a woman the guy had raped several years earlier. I can only assume that the victim and her family were pleased, or at least relieved, to know that the rapist had been caught.
The fact is that DNA testing of arrestees is not a liberal position.
I think that wasn't PeeAitchPee's point. Within the simplistic Conservative/Liberal scale, we usually expect stereotypical Conservatives to promote crap like this, but not so much the Liberals. O'Malley, and also Breyer in this instance, stand in contrast to the common expectation.
O'Malley has other positions, scary ones IMHO, that don't fit the expected Liberal cut-out. I've yet to notice his name in serious discussions as a potential 2016 POTUS candidate, but if so, that's a bit alarming. Maybe he'd be quashed in the primaries, so I wouldn't bother being too alarmed yet. Still, I'm all but certain that the GOP primaries will serve to eliminate any reasonable candidate (e.g. Huntsman in 2012), and the minor parties are still going at it backwards, so none of their POTUS candidates will have any chance of winning. So, now my new nightmare scenario for November 2016 is <shudder>O'Malley vs. Bachmann</shudder>.
- T
It's worse than Facebookification. I can opt out of Facebook (and I have). I cannot opt out of Stop-and-Frisk, soon to be known as Stop-and-Swab.
- T
"your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason" said Justice Scalia. Yes, and so can your fingerprints (and, in fact they are). Justice Scalia must have had a better objection than that.
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. ~ Mark Twain
And when will this database be used against you for employment screening receiving services?
WAT R U DOIN.
SUPERM CROT.
STAHP.
And here is some non-capitalized text because /. doesn't like all-caps entries.
Off-topic but related to abuse of power: I emailed admin on your behalf in regards to the apparent mod-abuse you've been suffering. I've seen another user's signature stating that admin fixed their karma after being mod-stalked; maybe they'll help you out.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan