Armed police arrested a man listening to his MP3 player and took a sample of his DNA after after a fellow commuter mistook his music player for a gun.
Darren Nixon, 28, had been waiting at a bus stop in Stoke-on-Trent on his way home from work on Saturday afternoon when a woman saw him reach into his pocket and take out his black Phillips MP3 player. She thought it was a pistol and called 999.
Police then tracked Nixon using CCTV. When he got off the bus, armed officers surrounded him. He was then driven to a police station, kept in a cell and had his fingerprints, photograph and DNA taken.
He was freed when Staffordshire police realised it was a false alarm. Nixon will now have his DNA stored on a national database for life…
The Liberal Democrats, who are campaigning to have DNA records of innocent people destroyed, say the national DNA database now holds over 3m records which are kept for life, an estimated 125,000 of which belong to people who were neither cautioned or charged.
Ah, but, think of how safe everyone is.
I wonder how long it took them going through the songs, breaking down acoustic signatures before they realized it was just some punk kid that was doing the “clap, clap clap” at a bus stop.
There is only one reason I can think of for everyone’s dna not to be on file. That reason is that the information can be misused in some very tertiary ways.
To me, the potential good in this data base far outweights the potential bad and the misuse can be separately prosecuted.
For whatever paranoid privacy issues you guys think is at risk==how about being set free from a criminal charge because the dna at the scene leads to the actually guilty party? Not worth it?
The big catch – otherwise, I agree in principle, bobbo – is the ID being used in enforcement of unjust and/or irrational laws. I would find it a lot more acceptable to start at zero and then add, after serious review, one-by-one, the laws which would permit the use of this form of identification. They must relate directly to tangible threats against public safety, not ‘morals’ laws or victimless crimes.
Of course both the UK and the US are both lonnng overdue for reëxamination of many bullshit laws that perpetuate injustice and interfere greatly with the enforcement of those laws that matter…
Bobbo I’ll have to agree with your last phrase…’Not worth it’
If the police have reason to think ‘I’ did it, then and only then will I, with a Lawyer, give a DNA sample if I’m to be charged.
I should be innocent until proven guilty, no matter how good the technology is.
Thats the real challenge with these new technologies isn’t it? We need to be careful not to do it for the sake of expediency. Not to try to ‘get the trains to run on time’ which was Mussolini’s ‘Mantra’.
So while I see your point, and it is a good one I don’t trust the Politicians enough.
If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear – except being treated like a dangerous, scumbag criminal.
…oh, and the real problem in this particular case, for me, is that they took him into custody, and booked him, when the simple, just and obvious course of action would be to frisk him at the scene, on the spot and determine right then and there if there is any legitimate reason to further molest him. It could’ve been over in less than 5 minutes, him on his way and no harm done. But the police-state mentality that makes all citizens automatically suspect will have none of that.
#2 bobbo
“To me, the potential good in this data base far outweights the potential bad and the misuse can be separately prosecuted.”
Right. You won’t mind being in that DNA database until some scientist comes up with a ‘marker’ you happen to have in your DNA, which suggests you have a tendency towards terrorism or crime in general. Then you’ll care.
You do have those tendencies, don’t you bobbo?
George Orwell was only wrong on one point: The Date!
If we had reasonable laws, I might go with Bobbo’s suggestion of keeping DNA samples on file. But, we don’t. In fact, we live in a world where innocent people are snatched up, taken to foreign countries and tortured, where O. J. Simpson got off of a murder charge despite DNA evidence and where Saudi Arabian and Afghani based interests attached the USA so the USA invaded Iraq and where simple possession of a plant can wind you up in the federal slammer. I really don’t see why I should give up a sample of my precious bodily fluids so that I can be convicted of some victimless crime. Maybe in the 25th century when Captain Kirk is up there making sure everyone plays fair.
My example wasn’t the best. The better example is even now we have 10’s of thousands of crime scene dna that have not even been processed much less matched with those in the data base.
I WANT CRIMINALS CAUGHT!! because their crimes and future crimes injure innocent people. If your dna is on the scene, thats your bad and I couldn’t care less about your privacy rights.
So–yes, the possible abuse regarding discrimination because of “tendencies” is a real risk but I wonder what the actual real harm of that would be compared to letting serial murderers continue on their merry ways? By the time they can ID criminal tendencies, they probably will have the cure as well.
What you folks have against objective evidence is a good market for clear balanced thinking. The world is a terrible place for individuals to live—try to make it better, not worse.
#9 bobbo
“I WANT CRIMINALS CAUGHT!!”
So does everyone, except the criminals.
As the author Joseph Wambaugh pointed out – and I agree with him – the safer you want to be, the more freedom you have to give up.
If you want to be perfectly safe, you have to be willing to give up all of your freedom.
In a fascist state, criminals don’t have a chance.
Look around, bobbo. Check out some of the stories on this blog about cops and the criminal justice system.
I predict soon, we’ll all be very, very safe.
Remember this, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security”.
#10–Cinaedh==so you agree. Total freedom isn’t even a good thing, nor is total safety.
Please re-read and apply a little common sense to what I posted at #2. These are questions of balance. BALANCE. B*A*L*A*N*C*E. Something missing in your own post.
OF COURSE, we all might prefer our own dna not be on file–but why? If you think this is freedom, then lets not see any remorse when victims are found with the perps blood all over them and the case is cold because there is no effective data base in the GOUSA. No–you and I should give up our dna preference so that the public will be secure==not some faceless vague public, but rather your wife, children and other close to you. That is the public and their safety is important.
#11 bobbo
Well, if you don’t agree with clever old Benny Franklin, what could I possibly say to deter you from giving up your DNA – and mine – and everyone’s else’s DNA – so you can feel safe.
You know, bobbo, if everyone kept track of everything their family, friends and neighbors were doing and saying – and informed on them to Homeland Security, just in case they were doing something wrong or might do something wrong or were perhaps thinking about something wrongly – we’d all be a lot safer too.
#7 – I have no idea why Bobbo wants to be a submissive bitch to the nation’s authoritarian Dom… But it’s far more insidious than that…
Once we have a national database of everyone’s DNA, fingerprints, retinal scans, voice samples, and whatever other biometrics there are… what’s to stop the government from saying, “Hey, insurance companies, why don’t you look through this data and deny insurance to everyone who has a predisposition to heart risk or diabetes or whatever… Privacy be damned.”?
Why not, instead of investigated crimes that have been committed, we start looking for biometric data in the wild and match it up to the database so we can find out if Joe Schmo “MIGHT” have been involved in a crime?
Here is a radical notion. I pay for roads and schools and police service and in return, the state can leave me the fuck alone before I am forced to use force to defend myself against the unwarranted intrusion by the state into my private life.
The argument that if I have done nothing wrong I have nothing to hide is a bullshit coward’s lie. In reality, I have many things to hide, and not just because it’s my natural right to lead my life privately, but because time and time again we learn that the state cannot be trusted to execute justice or act as a responsible steward of our data.
The guy in the story was tracked with the Orwellian network of CCTV cameras. How do we know that state government is not recording all of it’s private citizens actions in public? And what is done with those images? Who can see them? How are we ensured that they stay private? Who watches the watchmen?
I have a First Amendment right (and a natural right the exists regardless of my state granted rights) to exercise free speech. So I set up a website to express my opposition to the emerging police state. I start getting lots of hits and end up doing a 2 minute bit on a local talk show which raises the eyebrow of a less than ethical government official. What keeps biometric data about me from being used to falsely implicate me in some fake crime or scandal that would be trumpted to shut me up?
Nothing.
There is no way, shape, or form in which we can trust the government with these databases. They are not used to protect us because that kind of security is an illusion. They will be used against us. Of that there is no question, no matter what good intentions the state may have today, it will be abused just as police powers have always been abused.
And even if it isn’t an official act of a law enforcement agency, what about all the other entities with access to this data. The IT staff who maintains the servers would certainly have access to the system. What about the police dispatcher who uses the immeasurable power of the CCTV system to track her husband she suspects of cheating?
The potential for abuse so amazingly outweighs every possible good that this system can provide, and Americans living under the yoke of the so-called Patriot Act should know first hand that their civil liberties are squarely in the sights of authoritarian political sharpshooters.
It amazes me that we have this conversation at all. The powers of the government must be reigned in now, or we’ll all be inmates of the state, rather than citizens, in the uncomfortably near future.
#10 – I WANT CRIMINALS CAUGHT!!
I don’t. Or at least, not all of them.
Please, investigate and arrest murders, rapists, and bank robbers. Arrest violent offenders.
Arrest corp execs who raid pension funds and embezzle millions.
Arrest drunk drivers.
If you can prove it, indisputably, with good old fashioned police work, then lock them up. If not, well, that’s the price we pay for liberty.
But lets just stop with the out of control incarceration of every last person involved in a harmless morality crime. Let’s legalize all the stuff that is stacking our prison system (highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world) with non-violent offenders (over 1/2 of the total prison population) and quit wasting billions of our taxpayer dollars placating cowardly middle class voters who get their insights on criminal justice from NYPD Blue.
It’s the police that need policing, not the rest of us, and giving more power to the police will NOT result in better police departments, but rather in more zealous incarceration of average citizens.
It is my contention that a very sizable portion of the current prison population have no legitimate business being there. As long as we reward prosecutors and cops for getting high scores in the crime game, rather than for reasoned and measured administration of justice, we will all be potential criminals in the eyes of Big Brother.
There is no reasonable balance between liberty and security. You are either free, or you aren’t. Risk is the price, and a very reasonable one at that, for self-determination, dignity, and liberty.
Well boys, CONTEXT is all. I hope you already know this and are just being contrarian, so I won’t go at this in depth.
In short, distinguish between private ideas and information vs objective evidence. If you don’t know this distinction, you really cannot make an informed analysis of the privacy vs safety issues at play here.
As far a Ben Franklin goes, giving up (sic!) dna evidence is NOT giving up liberty. Very sloppy thinking, or simply uninformed.
Do I want all criminals caught? Well, if they all were, the old expression goes that the laws would change pretty fast. But lets say YES–catch them all. Then we can talk about punishment/rehab/medical care/GED/national service as the societal response.
Legalizing all drug use would empty the jails of 80% of these status offenders and prostitution should be legal as well. That would leave resources to attend to the violent criminals remaining and I think half way houses with electronic monitoring could go a long way there too.
Next.
This story is more proof (as if any more were needed) that the problem is not just cops-as-nannies and the pervasive surveillance of our society, it’s a bunch of lilly livered, pants wetting, cowards that call the police at the sight of an MP3 player. It might just be my experience with weapons and the fact that I live in a part of the US where there is concealed carry, but if I called the police every time I saw the print of a gun on someone’s shirt, they would (rightfully) have me in jail for making crank calls.
My opinion; get the DNA of the coward and burn the music lovers DNA, because cowards are far more dangerous for the further of a nation than music lovers.
Cinaedh–you know, when you do the right thing for the right reasons, all kinds of good things can flow from it. Take a national dna registry. Concerned about insurance companies getting ahold of it? Fine==those concerns drop to near zero with universal health care and good social security.
Its like gun control. Having a gun to protect oneself only makes sense in a society gone off track. Get the society doing the right thing for the right reasons, and gun ownership stops making sense.
If OFTLO would just start taking those smart pills I’ve been sending him, it should only take a few years for his paranoia to abate and he too will keep in mind the distinction between the right to anonymity and the right to privacy. The former doesn’t exist, and the latter needs to be balanced against other valid competing rights. Fun to get all blustery about some right being violated==its oratory with blinders fully in place.
#15 – Well boys, CONTEXT is all. I hope you already know this and are just being contrarian, so I won’t go at this in depth.
Good… Because your pedantic BS can get tiresome, and I say this as a guy who actually likes you quite well… We are not being contrarian, you just don’t agree with us.
Disagree with me. I won’t get mad about that.
Dismiss me out of hand. I’ll slap that pretentious smirk right off your face.
If you don’t know this distinction, you really cannot make an informed analysis of the privacy vs safety issues at play here.
And since you won’t explain what you think this distinction is, then I can’t know what you are blathering about.
As far a Ben Franklin goes, giving up (sic!) dna evidence is NOT giving up liberty. Very sloppy thinking, or simply uninformed.
Well, it is giving up liberty. It’s giving up the liberty of enjoying my privacy. And I can’t imagine any other way to view it. What muther fucking contract did I sign when born into this nation that said my life was open to period review and data collection by the state. I’m not the fed’s bitch. My right to come and go as I please, when I please, is absolute and self-determined, and exists without any consideration of the state’s supposed power to “grant” me said rights. Sorry Uncle Sam, I had those rights anyway.
I don’t commit criminal infractions against other people. So mind your own fucking business bitch. I may be freaked out by the zeal of gun nuts, but I understand what makes them zealous.
Do I want all criminals caught? Well, if they all were, the old expression goes that the laws would change pretty fast. But lets say YES–catch them all. Then we can talk about punishment/rehab/medical care/GED/national service as the societal response.
Wrong answer. You catch them if and only if there is a compelling societal interest in the for of a clear and present danger to catch them. We don’t round up the usual suspects, ruin their lives, then sit around and decide if we should imprison them.
WE OWN THE GOVERNMENT
THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT OWN US
GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEADS, SHEEP, AND TAKE FUCKING CHARGE
YOU AND I DECIDE… THE FED ABIDES…
If you go to sleep on the job, as we have, then the fed will take over, as they have. We need to take back citizen control… be force if need be.
Legalizing all drug use would empty the jails of 80% of these status offenders and prostitution should be legal as well. That would leave resources to attend to the violent criminals remaining and I think half way houses with electronic monitoring could go a long way there too.
Then lets do it. That’s rational.
Next.
You don’t get to say next till you’ve said something in the first place. You didn’t swat down any arguments. You didn’t answer anything. You just dismissed what was said as if you were right.
You know how audiophiles spend more time listening to the equipment rather than the music? That’s what you do in a discussion. And it is a discussion, not a debate. There are no Robert’s Rules here. All this pompous bullshit about strawmen and logical fallicies make you sound smart, but this is analogous to guys sitting around a table in a bar talking… And I quit going to college because A) I was done, and B) I just wanted to have a normal conversation without some twit saying “point of order” all the goddamn time. So this formal BS is wasted on the room.
So. Tell me why you think you have the right to come to me, extract biometric data, and place into a massive, insecure government database, and monitor my every move from now until eternity.
Just that.
Nothing else.
Quit telling me I’m wrong without countering my point. Quit telling me that I don’t have a point when I so clearly made my arguments known in clear English.
Keep in mind, that even if this were a context where you could win or lose the “debate”, I’ll still orphan the first kid whose father wants to strip me of my absolute and undeniable right to move about on my muther fucking planet as I see muther fucking fit.
I was born here. It’s mine. I make the rules. And as long as I don’t hurt someone else, it stays that way.
#18 bobbo
Sorry, I just can’t let it go.
If the government had control over the corporations, I might agree with you. Unfortunately, it’s the other way around and legally, corporations aren’t allowed to “do the right thing for the right reason”.
Legally, corporations are required to make as much profit as possible for their shareholders, by any means possible. If that means checking out your DNA and dropping your insurance because there’s some risk, they have to do it.
The U.S. will never have universal health care or good social security unless it is profitable for corporations – or the government chooses to exercise some control over the corporations.
They aren’t likely to do that with the corporations paying their personal tabs.
Sure, it would be nice but you’re being unrealistic.
As for OFTLO, there’s something to be said for saving the wild and free, as well as just the free.
#20–Cinaedh==you know I welcome your disagreement. Of course the Government DOES have control over corporations in almost the way you are using the term. Corporations are purely creatures of statute. Government writes those statutes and can change them any time it wants–so the corporations acting they way they do is because that is the control the government is exercising.
I think you missed the point though. If the GOUSA moved to universal healthcare, the insurance companies would be out of business. Either on day one or by rapid attrition because once the “no pre-existing conditions” is no longer relevant, then the dna data base for that info is worthless.
Yes, follow the money and the corrupt corporations and the corrupt congress==but lets get the whole kaboodle headed in the right direction==the right thing for the right reason.
Corporations will be brought under control when the brain dead repugs are overruled/outvoted or a hero arises from the populous to make the changes. We seem to be cycling towards such a revolution given the excess of corruption we see today. We can only hope.
#21 bobbo
I think you may be overly optimistic when it comes to potential changes in the political system.
I hope you’re right but you know the saying, ‘money talks’ and each of those candidates is spending $125 million or so to purchase that $400,000.00 a year job.
It may interest you to know Canada has universal healthcare and the insurance companies are still thriving. Probably every minute of every day, they trot out ‘pre-existing condition’ and refuse to pay, then everybody goes to court and only the lawyers win.
I don’t think all the U.S. insurance companies would go out of business, since most of the ones in Canada are based in the U.S.
#22–Cinaedh==I don’t know Candada’s healthcare system. Seems inconsistent to have government run coverage for everybody and “pre-existing conditions” are still relevant. I could see that if Candada has a supplemental private insurance scheme?
But anyway, my hypothetical is that GOUSA move to universal coverage and that means pre-existing becomes irrelevant. Insurance companies are revealed to be the total parasites they are under such a system==no reason “for profit” should play any role in healthcare, its too important for laisse-faire capitalism which is the tilt these days in GOUSA of which pre-existing conditions might be the poster child==with selection criteria being a close second?
Yes, change comes only over the objections of those benefiting from the status quo. In GOUSA, thats fewer and fewer people every year. Thank you repugs.
#18 – Get the society doing the right thing for the right reasons,
According to who?
You can’t get two Americans to agree on toppings for a pizza. What makes you think we’ll agree on the “right thing” for the “right reasons”?
Here is a “right” thing to do… Leave me alone. (not you, but the government)
By the way, no matter what you guys think about this or any other issue, you are all invited over for dinner tomorrow night. We are having BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, fried potatoes (cause I’m too damned erudite to say taters, but not erudite enough not to fry potatoes in the first place) and a mess of other fixins.*
*fixins embedded with digestable RFID tags and subject to EULA signing.
#24–OFTLO==according to the will of the majority of the voting people as reflected by their corrupt representatives in Congress===as always, each time you ask that question.
You can’t be left alone except on your very own island with only you on it, discounting Global Ocean Rise.
I’d love to come over, but I just took my blue pill. I love “fixin’s.” Baking some sourdough right now as we speak. It doesn’t rise enough, but I’m getting closer.
#25 – It doesn’t rise enough
Mix in some powder of the body of Christ.
#19–OFTLO==didn’t mean to dismiss you, but missed your post first time thru. You’re gonna slap me just for smirking? Glad I don’t have my skateboard with me. DON’T TASE ME BRO!!!
OFTLO–gee, I think I’ve caught you in a manipulation. If you use the full paragraph, the distinction is identified, just not spelled out: “distinguish between private ideas and information vs objective evidence.” Both data sets are yours, but there is no privacy right to “objective evidence” such as hair samples, blood samples, and dna==there is no “testimony against your self interest” because the evidence secured is objective.
It flows from the above that there is no liberty interest released when this objective dna evidence is provided. This is not my idea–its the law.
Again, its not your privacy you are advocating, but rather your anonymity. If you want anonymity==go live on an island by yourself==otherwise, you are a member of society.
Being law abiding is exemplary. Thank you. Now give us your dna so you can be cleared as a person of interest. You can’t demand of other people what you refuse to do yourself. Many violent crimes could be solved, and therefore violent crimes in the future prevented, if a dna bank were established. Your personal preferences are anti-social and I have no need to wait for your short sightedness to become even clear to yourself before I advocate this position.
Your understanding of criminal law is uniquely your own. All criminals should be caught and dealt with==that would only be equal treatment and fair. I recall when the War on Drugs got hot and we were spraying paraquat on the maurijuana in Columbia and middle class white kids started dying from the poison. That program stopped when the law of cause and effect played out. Many laws in the GOUSA would be changed if they were fully enforced.
I agree. I said Next because I was tired and didn’t want to stress anyone with a longer answer.
Next?
#25 – #24–OFTLO==according to the will of the majority of the voting people as reflected by their corrupt representatives in Congress===as always, each time you ask that question.
You must be kidding. These people are voting for whichever face they are least emotionally frightened by. Even if they were voting for issues, they are voting for a general planform of high profile issues… more tax, less tax, increase or decrease benefits, pro-choice or anti-abortion.
You can’t gleen the will of the people from a monolithic block of voters, especially not down to the level that allows you to determine right and wrong.
Further, no matter how many people voted for Bush, you cannot assume all those people voted in favor detaining political prisoners without due process or in favor of waterboarding or in favor of secret wiretapping. On the last one, it was secret so they logically had no idea they were voting for it.
You can’t be left alone except on your very own island with only you on it, discounting Global Ocean Rise.
Yes. I can be left alone. If all I ever did was go to and from work and home with an occassional trip to the grocery store and a movie theater, and I paid my taxes, and I never violated anyone elses rights, then yes… yes I can be left alone. In fact, we’ve left people alone for well over 225 years in this country and we’ve managed to get along pretty well in the process. Leaving people alone works and it works pretty well.
#28–OFTLO==like it or not, corrupt representative democracy is our system.
You’ve seen the list of the number of Wars/revolutions/governmental overthrows GOUSA has done over the years? GOUSA certainly doesn’t leave anyone else alone. I give you Iraq?
As to yourself, yes, you can have minimal impact, but everything is definitional.
#27 – #19–OFTLO==didn’t mean to dismiss you, but missed your post first time thru. You’re gonna slap me just for smirking? Glad I don’t have my skateboard with me. DON’T TASE ME BRO!!!
I’m not jackbooted… I have no taser with which to tase.
OFTLO–gee, I think I’ve caught you in a manipulation. If you use the full paragraph, the distinction is identified, just not spelled out: “distinguish between private ideas and information vs objective evidence.” Both data sets are yours, but there is no privacy right to “objective evidence” such as hair samples, blood samples, and dna==there is no “testimony against your self interest” because the evidence secured is objective.
In this theoretical bizarro universe where my blood, hair, and DNA isn’t mine, and thus private, how is it to be collected without me actually being arrested. Am I to report at a specified time to the National Biometric Collection Center?
Well, guess what… I’m not doing that. And neither should any good American.
It flows from the above that there is no liberty interest released when this objective dna evidence is provided. This is not my idea–its the law.
I’m not sold on your credentials in regards to the law, but correct me if I’m wrong… you still have to be arrested and charged with a crime before these samples can legally be forcibly taken, right?
Look. I’m not arguing against collecting data on the guy caught at the scene of the crime holding the bloody knife.
I’m arguing against taking the data from everyone who was not at the scene of the crime, unless some compelling evidence leads police to suspect and subsequently arrest an individual for alleged involvement in the hypothetical crime.
And that still doesn’t involve me, and my biometrics should still be mine.
Again, its not your privacy you are advocating, but rather your anonymity. If you want anonymity==go live on an island by yourself==otherwise, you are a member of society.
Bullshit. Anonymity is most certainly a right. Rights are natural and inherit, not granted. The ability to use force to coerce does not lend credibility to the state to deny rights. Rights are not theirs to give, but rather ours to keep.
Now I am perfectly willing to show a valid ID when entering a government building or to use a passport when driving to Canada. I’m willing to give identifying info, not biometrics, when paying taxes or getting a driver’s license.
What I am suggesting is that when I leave my house and travel to your house (let’s say, for a friendly game of cards with some friends), along the way there is no one with any compelling interest to know who the hell I am, what I am doing, why I am doing it, or anything else. I have every expectation that as long as I violate no laws along the way, I will not be impeded or identified, in other words, I may remain anonymous.
Now, I don’t expect some bizarre scenario to unfold so I’m not driving with fake plates or a mask or anything. If a cop pulls me over for a busted tail light or something trivial, I’m not gonna object to him/her knowing who I am. But I definitely object to being surveilled without reason, tracked, giving biometrics and all that. The question is, why wouldn’t you?
Being law abiding is exemplary.
No it isn’t. It’s just dull.
As I taught my son, authority exists for only one reason; to be challenged.
Not violating the rights of others is not exemplary, it’s just expected and is the right thing to do. But blind obedience to authority is just cowardly.
I can only think of a few instances where disobedience is necessary. Traffic laws, for example, exist largely to do 2 things: 1) maintain order on crowded roads for public safety, 2) provide an easily abused revenue generation racket for local governments. So being a traffic rebel serves no real purpose.
But if you turn right on red where its posted no right on red, but its 3:00 AM and you are the only car on the road within a 5 mile radius, I can’t imagine what compelling public safety or justice issue the government could have in citing you for it, aside from being prickly about the letter over the spirit of the law.
Thank you. Now give us your dna so you can be cleared as a person of interest.
No. And I’m not a person of interest.
You can’t demand of other people what you refuse to do yourself.
I don’t demand of other people what I refuse to do myself.
Bobbo, you do understand, do you not, that we are talking about a theoretical situation where our government attempts to build and maintain a massive national database of DNA and biometric data on every last citizen? We are not talking about collecting fingerprints during a routine shoplifting arrest.
I am saying that no one of us should ever yield this data in the abstract, ever. Being booked on legit charges is different, but even then, the extraction and cataloging of DNA should only be done in unique crimes like murder or rape, and then only after a grand jury hearing, and then I still have reservations about creating a permanent database.
Many violent crimes could be solved, and therefore violent crimes in the future prevented,
They can be solved now, especially once cops are not wasting time on bullshit pot busts and confiscating “porn” from trendy Virginia Beach malls.
Future crimes will not be prevented. Most crimes of that nature are between family, or within communities of people who know each other. Random violence is actually more rare than the public believes, and terrorism, which is what this is all a reaction to, is A) an extreme and rare aberration in the US, and B) not going to be prevented by this dumb ass database.
Your personal preferences are anti-social and I have no need to wait for your short sightedness to become even clear to yourself before I advocate this position.
No. They are pro-social. They are pro maintaining freedom and civil rights, because once this data is available to anyone with a badge or government ID, it’s just a few feet down the slippery slope to being abused as I outlined in the previous post. This data will curtail or freedom. It will have a profoundly negative impact on our society and our quality of life.
drug war stuff excluded by virtue of not wanted to break records for long posts
#29 – Whatever. You still can’t have my DNA without someone getting hurt.
And yes, I am very aware that it will be me before it will be the government, but it is better to be right than to be safe.