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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

AnSTH Lawful Evil Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#55626: Jun 3rd 2013 at 10:20:46 AM

Well then there's no good reason to object to the government having your DNA. Not like they'll realistically develop a biological superweapon that only kills people with specific genes.

But that's a story for another time.
Barkey Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#55627: Jun 3rd 2013 at 10:48:35 AM

To be honest, I think there are plenty of good reasons why I don't consider it ethical for the government to keep banks of DNA on everyone. If you've been booked before, I'm ok with it.

Now remember, the government does have my DNA, since I'm a soldier. I've got no qualms about that, but the event that I don't want to happen is the government collecting samples at birth and getting too into biometrics. It's a privacy issue. Keep offenders on file, but leave innocent people alone and let their genetic code be their own secret. We don't need everyone logged like that, I feel it's supremely unethical to do that.

However, some civil rights and civil liberties groups have warned that given racial patterns of interaction with the criminal justice system, the databanks governments’ are establishing will include large numbers of minorities who may be disproportionately investigated and prosecuted for crimes.

This sounds rather stupid though. If you're arrested for a crime, you're arrested for a crime. The racial makeup of the majority proportion of criminals is immaterial. DNA is colorblind in that fact. If you collect DNA from a rape victim that points to someone, regardless of race, that DNA doesn't say "Obviously a black guy". That DNA says "It is this dude."

Now, DNA by itself is not enough evidence, nor should it be. DNA is a solid back-up for making a case a slam dunk, but if you have an actual proven alibi it doesn't matter if they find your DNA or not. But if you match DNA at a scene of a crime to someone on file, of course they are going to get investigated, and if most people who have committed prior crimes and have DNA in the database are of a certain race, then whatever. It isn't any form of profiling, because profiling is a guess, it's an "art" you could say, or even a soft science. DNA isn't. DNA is proof that somehow that person was associated with the source of that DNA.

I'm sort of surprised at who was on which side of this on the Supreme Court though... Usually it's the more liberal side of things that's like "Oh, giving up privacy so the powers that be can track and control you? What could go wrong?" I would have expected all the conservatives to have Scalia's opinion on the subject, and all the liberals to side with Justice Breyer.

edited 3rd Jun '13 10:49:10 AM by Barkey

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#55628: Jun 3rd 2013 at 11:31:07 AM

I don't see the problem with them collecting DNA. People shed skin and lose strands of hair all the time and never think anything of it; why feel protective and private about something you leave behind everywhere you go?

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#55629: Jun 3rd 2013 at 11:32:48 AM

Because generally, people aren't allowed to run behind you, scooping your DNA. I can see taking DNA in investigations, after all, we allow breathalyzers and fingerprinting, and medical examinations of a person's body.

But I really, really, REALLY hope I don't need to point out the inherent danger of wholesale DNA cataloguing.

I'm not seeing any obvious ways of abusing that information regardless, but even if some came up - it seems worth the price.

It really is amazing what we sacrifice for "security".

edited 3rd Jun '13 11:36:27 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
Karkadinn Karkadinn from New Orleans, Louisiana Since: Jul, 2009
Karkadinn
#55630: Jun 3rd 2013 at 11:39:22 AM

Err, I wasn't talking about security - I was talking about KEEPING INNOCENT PEOPLE OUT OF JAIL.

Don't straw man me.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#55631: Jun 3rd 2013 at 11:41:30 AM

I thought we already did it for serious arrests.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#55632: Jun 3rd 2013 at 11:45:32 AM

Because generally, people aren't allowed to run behind you, scooping your DNA.

Wait, is that actually a law? If I see someone get up after lying down on a couch, I'm not allowed to pick up a strand of hair they left behind on the cushion?

Xopher001 Since: Jul, 2012
#55633: Jun 3rd 2013 at 11:46:30 AM

I don't think U r allowed to do that. Because it counts as stalking.

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#55634: Jun 3rd 2013 at 11:52:45 AM

If you need me to add a disclaimer, Karkadinn, that you did not use the word "security" and that I added it, so be it. You didn't say security. I did.

With that out the way, my point is that I find this clear step toward cataloguing people (on par with chips and implants) to be too police-state-like for me, even with the ostensible benefit of "fewer innocent people in jail."

Additionally, the lack of DNA testing is not the reason for all the wrongful convictions, so linking DNA testing to wrongful convictions is a smokescreen that solves nothing.

People get locked up because until recently; withholding exculpatory evidence, coaching and intimidating witnesses; and coercing testimony were considered acceptable investigative and prosecutorial techniques. In many cases, they still are.

But let's not fix that, let's all tag each other like cattle instead.

edited 3rd Jun '13 11:54:17 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#55635: Jun 3rd 2013 at 12:15:22 PM

You know, guys, all this talk about workers staying positive in the face of non-meritocratic systems and such... it reminds me of the first act of They Live!

I think the protagonist even says something specifically that amounts to just that and sums it up in one sentence.

Well, but that was when he was still mellow and resigned to his fate and hadn't put the glasses on...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
AnSTH Lawful Evil Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#55636: Jun 3rd 2013 at 12:18:45 PM

[up][up] I'm down with the branding idea. We can call the hot iron "A taste of justice." Remember folks, pain is just weakness leaving the body. Hemophiliacs, sucks to be you.

But that's a story for another time.
DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#55637: Jun 3rd 2013 at 12:39:10 PM

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case that limited the ability of the press to cover elections from polling places.

Representative Peter King: If I were Eric Holder, I’d resign

Senator Graham: ‘No evidence’ IRS targeting directed from White House

So with Lautenburg dead their are no more WW 2 vets in the Senate.

edited 3rd Jun '13 12:51:46 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
AnSTH Lawful Evil Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#55638: Jun 3rd 2013 at 12:56:07 PM

OH THANK GOD THE SOUTH CAROLINA SENATOR FINALLY SAID SOMETHING REASONABLE! I was beginning to think Lindsey was complete bonkers.

But that's a story for another time.
DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#55639: Jun 3rd 2013 at 12:59:27 PM

House panel seeks to boost Pentagon war spending by $5B

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#55640: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:05:55 PM

[up]

didnt the pentagon already tell them multiple times 'stop giving us more money" ?

Oh wait. this is to fund yet another random military jetplanecoptertank hybrid nobody wanted, innit.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#55641: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:08:22 PM

Yes. They've asked for cuts since long. They could've moved the spending around to more useful things at least, but nooooo...

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
AnSTH Lawful Evil Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#55642: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:25:07 PM

Wait, the Pentagon has actually asked for budget cuts from Congress?

Well you can only throw so much money at a problem before more becomes effectively useless.

But that's a story for another time.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#55643: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:26:11 PM

They aren't throwing money at a problem. It's mostly pork-barrell spending.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#55644: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:33:25 PM

[up][up]

basically, Congress conceals "giving fuckloads of money to Boeing and other big vehicle design firms" under the guise of 'military R&D"

Thats what people refer to when they say "The Military-Industrial complex"

Its also why even though the pentagon has specifically proposed budget cuts and other such things, Congress will hear no part of it because closing military bases or thinning the number of troops/research projects would make those congressmen look bad to voters who rely on their jobs at said military industrial complex factories.

edited 3rd Jun '13 1:35:15 PM by Midgetsnowman

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#55645: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:48:26 PM

The military says: "We have enough tanks, we need more healthcare and more body armour."

The congress critters decide: "But we make the tanks in my district. We can't get rid of that. Let's cut your healthcare and give you more tanks. You won't need body armour in a tank."

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#55646: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:51:31 PM

[up]

Yep. Theyve even rationalized it as 'well, if we dont make tons of tanks despite modern wars not really being conducive to tanks, what if we suddenly need tanks and have to buy them from china? Therefore, build tanks."

edited 3rd Jun '13 1:53:34 PM by Midgetsnowman

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#55647: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:53:45 PM

Not to mention the World Trade Organization actually found the way in which the US government chucks money at Boeing to be illegal in Boeing's titanic legal showdown with Airbus (who won).

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Enkufka Wandering Student ಠ_ಠ from Bay of White fish Since: Dec, 2009
Wandering Student ಠ_ಠ
#55648: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:53:53 PM

When one of the generals said that the military didn't need more money, Paul Ryan accused him of lying.

[up]How was it illegal, out of curiosity?

edited 3rd Jun '13 1:54:24 PM by Enkufka

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry
AnSTH Lawful Evil Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#55649: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:57:13 PM

These people can't even take defense seriously.

edited 3rd Jun '13 1:57:22 PM by AnSTH

But that's a story for another time.
Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#55650: Jun 3rd 2013 at 1:59:06 PM

[up]

To them, the Military serves three purposes, really.

1: jobs for constituents at factories to keep them in office.

2: convenient symbols to wave around while the actual troops are overseas and cant speak for themselves.

3: throwing money at the military allows them to appear patriotic and strongly worried about national defense to uninformed voters.

Its less about the actual people i the army so much as what they can use the symbol of the military for.

edited 3rd Jun '13 1:59:38 PM by Midgetsnowman


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