Posted on 07/13/2013 10:28:03 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
LONDON You can ditch your computer and leave your cellphone at home, but you can't escape your DNA.
It belongs uniquely to you and, increasingly, to the authorities.
Countries around the world are collecting genetic material from millions of citizens in the name of fighting crime and terrorism and, according to critics, heading into uncharted ethical terrain.
Leaders include the United States where the Supreme Court recently backed the collection of DNA swabs from suspects on arrest and Britain, where police held samples of almost 7 million people, more than 10 percent of the population, until a court-ordered about-face saw the incineration of a chunk of the database.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
I also gave them my fingerprints. They now have my DNA. Big (non)deal.
When I lived in Hawaii for two years to get a doctorate at UH I needed state ID other than my campus one. Since I didn’t take a car with me I just got the state ID, for which I had to give my fingerprints. That was over 25 years ago and it hasn’t caused a problem for me. But I live my life far away from the line between legal and illegal, so I doubt I have never had to worry that I might be engulfed in an investigation because of my associations
Id argue that a fingerprint does not contain information on heredity, propensity to disease, and all of the defining information of ones physical composition. So, NOT really similar.
The global hierarchy considers ethics to be bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary.
Cops in Boston followed a relative of the Boston Strangler to his job, and pilfered a used plastic water bottle to collect a DNA sample without warrant.
They say it “proves” that the Boston Strangler (who’d already confessed to the crimes) was guilty (he was not tried for the murders).
Meanwhile someone who did not participate in those decades old crimes has now been added to the police’s DNA database file. Wonderful.
interesting they can use DNA to free people on “death row”, but it doesn’t seem good enough to ever execute someone in a timely manner...
It’s a better tool for exclusion than positive ID.
I imagine increasing number of people are sending their DNA to companies like ancestry.com as well. Considering the feds have a backdoor to everything...
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