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.
#30–OFTLO==we are slightly talking past each other.
As I understand it–you have correctly stated the current state of the law. You have to be arrested or volunteer to give up your personal body parts. It is I think current in a few states, or maybe just proposed that even dna taken for arrestees must be purged from the system after some length of time in order to “protect their privacy.”
So==I’m talking about the efficacy and legitimacy of creating a new law to create the dna database and require that it be used whenever possible starting with everyone on death row, then convicted prisoners, then unsolved crimes, then gen pop as in civilians.
Right now, babies are footprinted for ID within the hospital and maybe more. I see no reason for dna not to be collected at birth==under some NEW LAW. Volunteer program after that, all arrestees, military, etc.
As I first posted==the harm from dna on file is outweighed by the benefits. Potential health insurance discrimination is minor compared to not catching a serial killer. Its all a process. No difference between fingerprints or dna except dna is more accurate and more identifying.
So, I won’t be upset if this isn’t done, I just would prefer if it was. Its more rational and pragmatic for being LESS INTRUSIVE on most folks while being most competent in police work. Same with public security cameras. This all stands unless you think the unsolved crime rate is acceptably low. I don’t.
Its not “fair” to counter the effects of one hypothetical by creating counter hypotheticals not inherent in the proposed hypothetical. To wit–legalize a dna data base has nothing to do with cops wasting time on drug busts. Such a diversion does not address the given hypothetical.
Having your dna on file is not being surveilled. If you die in the woods and your face is eaten by bears, it would be nice if when your body is found it could be identified. You may wish to remain John Doe, but thats not my own preference for “members of society.” Again, I’m not upset if it doesn’t go my way==just better if it did.
I’m going to bed, so answer as you please. I’ll check early tomorrow.
thanks for the exchange.
While I understand that for some the benefits of a compulsory DNA register outweigh the harm, but the problem is that the definition of criminal behaviour is very fluid and subject to the whims of politics and therefore lobby groups. We’ve all seen how easy it is for telecoms and music providers to outlaw anything they like to protect their business practices, and it’s not a stretch to see DNA being used to convict people of the latest “crime”. Of course once a register is in place it will never be taken away so agreeing to this now dooms all future generations to be at the mercy of whatever government or corporations we have in front of us. Won’t somebody think of the children?
#33–Welcome to the future.
Awesome Kool !! The last post I read was 33 and it summed it all ! OFTLO has my respect for articulating those ideas I can only intuit. Bobbo is scary..
DeLeMa (and Matto as well)–please identify as specifically as you can what the worst downside is to proving the innocence of defendants, of catching criminals, curing diseases, and identifying unknown tissue.
36,
The worst downside is that this information can be used by those unscupulous in our government against us. The line “Who will watch the watchers” is as old as those it is directed against.
We have documented cases of peaceful anti-war groups being infiltrated by plainclothes cops. WHat if your biometric ID info was used to track your actions just because you were saying things people in power don’t agree with?
What if you were on a street-corner eating an ice pop right before someone else was stabbed there? What’s preventing the prosecutor from rounding up everyone whose DNA was found at nor near the murder site? What if you were on the corner and dropped a roach(pot) and they tracked you down by the saliva on the end? THen they’d have you as a murder suspect who does drugs, even easier to get a conviction on.
If our police and “justice system” actually did their jobs we wouldn’t need this level of intrusion into individual privacy. Then again, as a veteran everything about me is already in government databases. I only point out the dangers and why we shouldn’t have a blanket mark of the beast on everyone just to make control of the populace easier.
#37 – I only point out the dangers and why we shouldn’t have a blanket mark of the beast on everyone just to make control of the populace easier.
Good points… I’d like to say too, controlling the populace should not only not be easy… it shouldn’t even be a goal.
No good ever come from pacification.