Romney Signs DNA Bill-ALL PERSONS Having ANY Felony Convictions Must Submit Sample to State

The Boston Globe - Raphael Lewis ^ | November 12, 2003 | JT8D

[jt8d]

Romney to sign DNA bill today

Measure to cover all felons in state

By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 11/12/2003

All convicted felons in Massachusetts, from those who commit murder to those who steal live poultry, will be required to submit DNA samples to the State Police under a controversial bill being signed today by Governor Mitt Romney.

The legislation, which will expand the state's DNA database from 20,000 samples to nearly 100,000, has enjoyed bipartisan support on Beacon Hill and has been lauded by law enforcement authorities and the relatives of crime victims. John and Magdalen Bish, whose 16-year-old daughter was abducted from her Warren lifeguard post and murdered in June 2000, will be on hand for the signing ceremony today in Sudbury, home of the State Police crime laboratory, where the forensic data and samples are kept.

But even as Romney tells those gathered today that "the long arm of the law just got a little longer," detractors fear that the new law represents a serious encroachment on privacy rights, mostly because several of the hundreds of felonies on the books are low-level offenses. A felony is any crime for which those convicted can be sent to a state prison...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/11/12/romney_to_sign_dna_bill_today/

[Old Professer]

About the same thing that happens to your best white shirt when a cheap pen leaks in your pocket.

[Old Professer]

How much if you take the real thing - Avocados?

[philetus]

misdemeanors and library fines aren't far behind.

[Old Professer]

Multiple wrongs=fractional rights.

[Old Professer]

This is not the place or time for platidudinous monisms.

[Old Professer]

How about your code being used to re-engineer an avocado?

[patton]

All members of our armed forces are already required to do this.

Makes a lot of sense - forensic exams, and all that.

But one must note - they were not convicted of anything.

[Old Professer]

Damn!, back in 1959, when I spread my cheeks all they wanted from me was a healthy cough.

[Old Professer]

You see, it's like this - government redefines crime continuously, civil rights are engraved in stone (at least, they used to be).

[PLMerite]

"The military has been swabbing inner cheeks for DNA samples since the mid-ninties. I had mine swabbed in 1996."

If Clinton had been quicker on the uptake, he could have claimed that's what *he* was doing...

Sorry.

[StriperSniper]

...will be on hand for the signing ceremony today in Sudbury, home of the State Police crime laboratory, where the forensic data and samples are kept.

...will be on hand for the signing ceremony today in Sudbury, home of the State Police Police State crime laboratory, where the forensic data and samples are kept.

[StriperSniper]

LOL!

[PaxMacian]

Old P:"This is not the place or time for platidudinous monisms. "

Natural and/or God given rights are supremely relevant
regarding the distinct code which manifests each of us.
What greater gift has God given us than our distintive
individuality as encoded at the molecular level?
What property can one possess which could compare with
these coded molecules for personal import or privacy?
The Constitution expressly forbids unreasonable search
and seizure of citizen's property. This is absolutely
an unreasonable seizure of property!

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

[StriperSniper]

It's a brave new world and big brother will take care of us.

It's never been more important to be one of the more equal animals.

[tysont]

It's interesting. What this really means is that there's nothing you own that the government can't take from you.

They can take your home. They can take your car. They can take your address. Then can take your fingerprints. And now, they can take your DNA.

In America, you don't even own your own DNA.

[sourcery]

It's both a bill of attainder and an ex-post-facto imposition of a penalty for having committed a crime. Article I, section 10 of the Federal Constitution prohibits the States from making such laws. Therefore, it is merely an Unconstitutional act of the State legislature, and not a law.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

I really don't have a problem with this at all. We are talking about CONVICTED felons here.

Neither do I, as long as it stays with the convicted only.

[EGPWS]

This is a very bad development.

To felons anyway.

[PaxMacian]

Minority communites targeted for drug sweeps provide
felony possession charges which are the means by which
racists have purged the voter rolls of minorities.
This step is the next one on the way to purging
these races altogether. It is similar to the problem
of gun registration in that once they have all the
names they can come and take them away. Once they
have the codes of the targets it is only a matter of time
until the code for the targeted virus is completed.