Illustration by Jordan Pote
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Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry alleged…
The human genetics commission report, Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?, says the national DNA database for England and Wales is already the largest in the world, at 5 million profiles and growing, yet has no clear statutory basis or independent oversight…
The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as “an ‘alien wedge’ of criminality”…
The chairman of the commission, Prof Jonathan Montgomery, said: “It’s now become pretty routine to take DNA samples on arrest. So large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they’ve been arrested.”
He said the commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. “It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained,” said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.
This is a chilling admission of how far – everything that civil liberties campaigners feared – has come. A cabal of neo-Nazi police superintendents wasn’t required. Dopey useless politicians – not slimey right-wing nationalists – provided the framework.
There’s even a bit of techno-jargon to cover the process. Function creep.
Its a brave new world … want some fries with that?
Coming to an America near you? Obama has to do this to ready conservatives for the FEMA camps.
The article mentioned racial and ethnic disparity in data collection, there would also be a regional variation. With such a bias in data collection, it could be argued in court that an accused with closely matching DNA was a victim of police transgression and racial profiling – the court could rule out use of the database data. there must also be European Union human right court ruling against this flagrant misuse of police authority.
Don’t get arrested then.
>> Benjamin said, on November 24th, 2009 at 6:46 am
>> Coming to an America near you? Obama has to do this to ready conservatives for the FEMA camps.
I have to laugh at these conservatives who are NOW worried about the government over-reaching.
All during the Bush Administration I was raising concerns about this and I always got this response: “If you’re not a criminal, why are you worried? You love the terrorists or something?”
Suddenly NOW the conservatives are worried! I e-spit on them.
Boil that frog.
I wonder if donating blood could provide plausible deniability. Kinda like leaving your WiFi open and saying, “I didn’t download anything. Must have been the kids next door.”
“I didn’t kill anyone. Must have been that guy who got my blood.”
This is an opportunity for all non-whites to prove that they have been unfairly victimized by volunteering their DNA in a massive rush to the clinics to use the DNA evidence collected so far to clear themselves of any and all charges.
Then can then lay the blame squarely at the feet of the unregistered criminals.
Let the UK youths get arm-bands or tattoos with a double helix motif to prove that they have volunteered their DNA and are safe from any police action.
>> # 6 MattB5 said,
>> Boil that frog.
You got that right — in the US, they take your fingerprints and put them on file for all kinds of reason. I’m had it done at least three times, that I can remember.
The TSAs no-fly list worries me even more — the government will put you on that list just because your name SOUNDS like someone they deem suspicious.
You realize how screwed you can be from these no-fly lists?
You’ll be coming home from a vacation and you’ll be BANNED entry into your own country — and because the list is classified, they don’t even have to tell you why you are on it.
So, you are stuck overseas with no ability to challenge your “no fly” status.
What do you tell your boss when you don’t return to work? “Uh, sir. I can’t come to work for only-god-knows-how-long because the government thinks I’m a terrorist. You’ll hold my job for me indefinitely, right?” Meanwhile you are maxing out your credit cards while living in some overpriced hotel — until THOSE get canceled!
When I protested these no fly lists — the conservatives called me a terrorist-lover.
They are such jackasses to be worried now about bogus NAFTA superhighways and FEMA camps when they CHEERED to have REAL crap dumped on our constitutional rights.
#5 EXACTLY, Greg! Same here… when I was complaining about Bush’s police state, the wingnuts said the same thing: Whatsamatta you, you love terrorists? He’s trying to protect us, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.
It was wrong when the Cheney administration did it, it’s wrong now for Obama to do it. Any wingnut who wants to criticize Obama or the UK has to admit that they were wrong when they blindly supported Dubya’s police state tactics.
This DNA gathering is already here in the US lol. It’s only going to get stronger as more people worry, fear, panic and become insane. All the days when a school can fire a professor only to replace her with a clone that submits to their dirtiest desires. Truly awesome future!
What, you mean the country that has more surveillance cameras than people is trying to monitor and control everything the people in the country do? Shocking!
I’ve read it is possible that DNA, or at least the way it is measured for legal purposes, is much more similar than we have been led to believe.
Couldn’t find the original, but here is a story that suggests it:
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,386922,00.html
There are Black Friday deals on 1TB drives for around $60. It will only get cheaper. The ability to store everything… forever, is a very sharp double edged sword.
I’m not a legal expert, but I think there has always been a presumption in common and coded law that things shouldn’t follow you forever.
Collection and storage technology is almost to the point where it is economical to store every action you ever make.
Something must give way. This is a longer and more difficult issue than how to deal with the Boomers.
#8 I always wondered if you could be deported to the United States from another country. What happens if you are on a no fly list?
Now they want to ban these no fly list people from having guns without showing that these people are terrorists or have done anything wrong.
The Patriot act was supposed to have a sunset clause. Why is this still the law?
I meant, “Why did this law not expire under a sunset clause?”
We lon’t all live in little towns of 300 people any more. 3.5 billion people in the USA, and you can escape 1000 miles away in a relative blink to riding a horse.
The no fly lists are flawed because there is a huge margin of error.
… Not so with DNA. If you don’t want mistakes to happen, get rid of the fallible technology and use the infallible. We finally have something that is indisputable, and serious evidence when combined with other more conventional evidence. If everyone were recorded at birth, and everyone else added to the list as they were arrested, eventually (2 generations) everyone would be there… except for a few, like visitors and illegal citizens. If you truly want a just society, this seems to be the logical route.
Some of your heads are ready to burst from my take, I’m sure. So consider these points.
– DNA won’t convict you for speeding, stealing a pen from work, downloading music, minding your own business. It’s also too expensive a too for most inconsequential crimes, so your lives won’t suddenly become miserable and invaded.
– If you are so unfortunate as to have a loved one murdered, or raped, or a child sexually abused, you (and the rest of us) won’t have to wait while the perp kills and rapes and destroys other lives for years on end before we might catch up with them. I can guarantee you that if IT happened to you and this system was in place, you would be praising the instigators of such a registry.
Re: me, #15… damn… typo alert… “If you truly want a just society…”
[Fixed. – ed.]
#5 Greg Allen, #9 Fido – I’m four square with you on this. I look back and can’t believe the amount of freedom we have given up. All in the name of being chicken shit scared. I would rather risk a terrorist hijacking my commuter flight than have to take my shoes and belt off at the TSA checkpoints. Who-da thunk this was possible back when.
This may only be my personal view but it seems during the conservative rule of government, police (in general) have been getting more brazen in there tactics against citizens. I believe the federal government sets the tone for local application. The more the federal government allows abuse of power the local authorities follow suit in their own way. The only civil way this can be corrected is by the federal government to role back it’s intrusions into personal liberty’s. The only other alternative is civil disobedience.
#15JimR said, “… Not so with DNA. If you don’t want mistakes to happen, get rid of the fallible technology and use the infallible.”
I don’t know about that. Suppose my girlfriend and I go to a house party. I take off my coat and hand it to my girl friend and the hostess tells my girlfriend to put the coats on the bed. Before I leave, my girlfriend goes in the bedroom and gets our coats. We leave the party and we think nothing of it. I take my girl friend to her house and I go home.
Here is what happened without my knowledge: when my coat was on the bed, some of my hair fell off onto the bed.
Later, also unbeknown to me, the hostess was killed in her bedroom after the party. The bad guy pushes her on the bed where she picks up the stray hair from where my coat was there during the party.
The bad guy kept his head shaved, so he doesn’t shed hair and he wore gloves so there are no finger prints. He killed her with one of her own knives from the kitchen and left the knife behind.
The next day the cops come to my house and ask me questions. I say that is terrible, what happened? They ask me if I was in the bedroom at all. Of course I wasn’t in the bedroom, but my DNA from my hair was in the bedroom. Therefore, in the opinions of the police, I lied to them which would make me a prime suspect.
My girlfriend could testify that I had left the party and I didn’t even enter the bedroom and we left before the host was murdered and who was at the party still when we left could collaborate that. However, it wouldn’t prove I did not return to the party after everyone left and killed her. Furthermore, the DNA “evidence” that I was in the room would be enough to convict me. People have been prosecuted on less than that.
So what happens next is that I go to jail and the real killer kills some other pretty party hostess.
DNA evidence must be interpreted correctly in order to be infallible. Unless it is interpreted the right way, it is fallible.
#18 Chuckles – OK. I’ll emend the word “conservative” to “Cheney/Bush”.
#20 So why did Obama not roll back the Patriot Act, the TSA BS, the no fly list, and other issues he criticized?
#21 Excellent question Benjamin, and it’s one us liberals have bee asking for a while. He’s not so popular with us for that reason. He’s better than McCain would have been, but he could be a lot better.
(psst… little pedro — this is how adults do it. No slavish worship or blind hatred, just shades of gray with flawed politicians. Take a hint.)
#20 Ben – I have no fkn idea. He should though.
#19 I agree Benjamin, this could be a very bad thing if they treat DNA as a magic bullet and forget fundamental rules of evidence.
@Benjamin
If you find out let me know. Once again a politician lets me down. HOPE … my ass. CHANGE … can you spare some?
#12–Chris==you say: “I’m not a legal expert, but I think there has always been a presumption in common and coded law that things shouldn’t follow you forever.” //// Ummmmmm – – No!
I think it is valuable to form ideas then contract them to the miniscule details of an issue then expand them generally as far as possible to find where an issue comfortably fits on the various continuums of appreciation.
But “things?” Ha, ha. Man, that is so sloppy and loopy as to warrant a bit more time ON YOUR PART to really dissect whatever you think you were thinking about to find the core idea?
I can imagine a FEW issues that don’t follow us around as you say, but withing that same framework, any analysis at all will likely show that MOST THINGS follow us around. I say likely because you are being fatally vague. If on purpose to generate thinking, I’d say you are still being fatally vague and the discussion is still born. Hopefully, you are just being lazy? Sadly, it may be the level of your insight?
YES–arresting people to take DNA should be illegal per se. DNA samples “should be” taken at birth and stored for future uses that will follow us around like our fingerprints, blood type, general description, criminal record, SAT scores, etc.
#20 – I just call Bush/Cheney supporters “fascists” – they seem to like it.
It works on Obama supporters too.
Here’s a joke:
Whats the difference between a fascist and a communist?
A: Nothing. at. all.
#27–Chuck==shouldn’t you “know” the basics rather than be proud of being ignorant?
No????? To be otherwise would violate the core demographic of the Repuglican party you say?
Well, choices are made.
As basic as one can get: fascists allow private property and control its use by oppressive regulation while Commies outlaw private property, title belonging to the State Collective.
You do see the difference?
TEST: is Obama a fascist or a commie?
If you are so unfortunate as to have a loved one murdered, or raped, or a child sexually abused, you (and the rest of us) won’t have to wait while the perp kills and rapes and destroys other lives for years on end before we might catch up with them.
First, having dna evidence on file is no guarantee that the person will be caught any more than having the person’s fingerprints on file.
Second, one could easily say the opposite and say that having the dna of anyone arrested on file is bad when a loved one murdered, or raped, or a child sexually abused and you get arrested just because your dna happens to be at the crime scene when you weren’t there at the time of the crime or because the real perpetrator used precautions to prevent his or her own dna from being left behind at the crime scene.
#29–jc==are you arguing for a purpose or just dithering?
You know==just because police take information, search data bases, interview witnesses, take crime scene photos, open a file, assign detectives doesn’t mean anyone will be arrested.
By your own logic, you’re an idiot.
I woke up grumpy.