Free Republic

Homeland Security is collecting DNA from less than 40% of illegal immigrants encountered trying to enter the U.S., a whistleblower has told Congress.The department is required to collect the DNA under federal law, but Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said it’s usually not happening.Between Oct. 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023 the department’s Customs and Border Protection agency encountered 2.3 million unauthorized migrants. It only provided roughly 843,000 DNA samples to the FBI, which runs the national database, Mr. Grassley said, citing information provided by the whistleblower. He called the lapse “deeply concerning.” “This failure weakens our justice system...

On Jan. 26, 2023, detectives assigned to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) Robbery/Homicide – Cold Case Unit arrested 55-year-old Michael Lapniewski, Jr., for a murder that occurred in 1987. Detectives conducted an extensive investigation over a period of several years. A suspect was developed after advancements in DNA testing. According to detectives, on Feb. 9, 1987, deputies responded to a residence in unincorporated St. Petersburg for a deceased person. The victim, 82-year-old Opal Weil was located deceased by her sister-in-law after not answering her telephone. Weil had obvious and visible signs of trauma. Deputies discovered the suspect fled the...

Covid force to go door to door in Perth this weekend conducting voluntary tests About 875 people expected be tested for virus over the next two weekends Belmont, Bassendean, Claremont and Melville will be targeted by testing blitz WA is just days away from reaching its peak in Omicron cases, premier warns The state recorded 7,151 new cases and one Covid-related death on Thursday A Covid detection force will go door to door in Perth this weekend and conduct random testing amid fears Omicron is lurking undetected in the community. About 875 people are expected be tested over the next...

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department investigators on Monday will announce that they have solved the 1976 slaying of Karen Klaas, a Hermosa Beach mother of two and the ex-wife of singer Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers. The case was solved through the use of “familial DNA,” which identified the killer, the department said in a statement Friday. Detectives, forensic and law enforcement officers will hold a news conference on Monday, the 41st anniversary of the crime. Klaas, 32, was found in her Hermosa Beach home on Jan. 30, 1976. She had been sexually assaulted, choked and left unconscious. In...

Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood. It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers. "It just doesn't seem right that you can be forced off the road when you're not doing anything wrong," said Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Beach Street in North...

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. … The international police agency Interpol listed 54 nations with national police DNA databases in 2009, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany and China. Brazil and India have since announced plans to join the club, and the United Arab Emirates intends to build the world’s first database...

...Will those Americans who bitterly oppose registration of their guns, for example, go along quietly with the registration of their genetic codes? That's not quite what Obama is calling for, but it's a short slide down the slippery slope from keeping the DNA profiles of arrestees to keeping the profiles of everybody. And you don't have to be a so-called “birther” or “gun nut” to care about your privacy. In an interview with the president on the 100th episode of America's Most Wanted, host John Walsh strongly suggested collecting the DNA profiles of arrestees into a single, national database... For...

BRITAIN’S most senior murder investigator has called for DNA to be taken from babies. Commander Dave Johnston said it would build up a database to solve crimes and prevent others. He said samples could also be taken from Britons renewing passports and from migrants arriving here. The head of the Met Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Unit, went on: “We have 300,000 unsolved cases where we have taken a profile at a crime scene but have not yet matched it. “As well as solving crime, it would really make someone think twice about committing crime if they knew their DNA...

Diana Sue Sylvester had been living in San Francisco only six months when she was raped and killed in the Sunset District after walking home from work at UCSF, three days before Christmas in 1972. On Friday, San Francisco police said DNA evidence and a computer search of sex offender records finally had led them to a suspect. John Puckett, 72, a retired carpet installer living in Stockton, was arrested at a trailer he shared with his wife, Marlene, and is expected to be arraigned next week on murder charges in the slaying of the 25-year-old nurse. "Even though he's...

Attorneys for accused UT rapist Bruce Warren Scarborough are asking the state Supreme Court to hear their challenge of the state's collection of felons' blood for use in a DNA database. They are not hopeful, however, that the state's highest court will accept the case before Scarborough is tried in at least one of five rapes of which he is accused. "I'm not too optimistic," Knox County Public Defender Mark Stephens said. "The Supreme Court is probably going to refuse to take it." Last month, the state Court of Criminal Appeals backed up the state's method of collecting felons' blood...

HOMELAND INSECURITY Patriot Act II – is it a prudent step to stem terrorist activity in the U.S. and protect the homeland, or a Draconian measure designed to strip the last vestiges of freedom from the American landscape? Such is the question increasingly on the minds of Internet users, many of whom come down squarely on the side of legal experts who warn of the legislation's danger. Though an actual bill to further expand federal law-enforcement powers has not been introduced, activists for months have communicated online about what they see as potential Nazi-like developments. The first USA Patriot Act...

Thought for the day If you believe in a truly libertarian society, your only way to success is in working to build a society based upon traditional morality, shame and chastity. Contradictory? Actually, no. Given a little examination, it turns out to be rather obvious; almost self-evidently true. If you want to live in a country where every man supports himself rather than looking to the taxpayer, where crime is rare and so massive police powers, ID cards and DNA databases are superfluous, you will not do so on the back of the destructive policies of social liberalism. Libertarians traditionally...