Here's a broader privacy question: what should the policy for storing personal identifying information (like fingerprints and DNA) be? The two extremes are "it should only be used once for the immediate purpose it was taken and then it should be destroyed" and "it should be stored indefinitely", neither of which seems entirely reasonable to me. On the one hand, I see value of having that sort of information on record for people like parolees and sex offenders, as an additional deterrent against committing additional crimes. On the other hand, storing such things essentially forever seems overkill.
Honestly, I have a hard time considering that sort of thing private information in a lot of ways. As long as it's only available to law enforcement agencies, and they're only used to compare against samples recovered from crime scenes, who cares? People don't have some sort of inalienable right not to get caught after committing crimes; the fact that they were caught because their information was collected and stored at some point doesn't necessarily constitute a violation of privacy. I'd say that compelling people to provide that information solely for the purpose of storing it "just in case" when they're not under specific suspicion or in a high-risk position does constitute a privacy violation, but using previously-legitimately-collected information against someone later does not.
So, really, I don't have a good answer to my own question. Should it be stored for a year or two? Five? Ten? It seems pretty arbitrary, honestly; there's no good way to say "this is long enough" or "this is too long" in any objective sense.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.I've got a question for those who have sources on this, how are they asking for the DNA samples? Is it "if anyone wants to come foward with DNA we can cross them of our suspect list" or are they taking people in for questioning, putting them in a room with two angry looking cops and going "you're a suspect in the rape case, do you know how long rapists get? Do you know what other cons do to rapists in prision? Give us a DNA sample right now or we're going to be investigating you as one of our suspects."
edited 17th Apr '14 8:42:50 AM by SilasW
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranDo you know how long it would take to gather alibis and question literally hundreds of people? An hour is a serious underestimate for interviewing every single student and faculty member in the entire school. The DNA test gives hundreds of potential suspects the ability to rule themselves out right off the bat. If you could choose between questioning 500 people and questioning 30, which would you go with?
Why? That's how investigations work. If you have one group of people who submitted DNA evidence that has been analyzed and proven they aren't the culprit, and one group of people who refused, which pool is the rapist more likely to be in? Which group merits further investigation?
With the complete lack of information at hand, everyone at the school is a "potential" suspect until they can be crossed off the list and a more concrete listing of actual suspects can be made based on the information uncovered in the investigation.
...again, do you realize how long it would take to do that to five hundred people?
edited 17th Apr '14 9:17:19 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Less time than gathering 500 DNA samples, shipping them off to the lab, waiting for them to reach the front of the queue (DNA labs operate a backlog if my understanding is right), waiting for them to be processed and waiting for the results to be sent back.
I'll agree with you that an hour (which was not something I suggested) is far less time than it would take to interview 500 suspects, but I reckon it probably takes about 20-30 minutes to interview a person and ask for an alibi? Compare that with the multiple days that it takes to get a DNA test done, yeah interviewing would be quicker.
Seriously, you're acting as if DNA tests take no time at all when in fact they take ages.
edited 17th Apr '14 9:35:00 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranLet's say it takes half an hour to interview someone. Even ignoring the time it takes to organize interviews, etc, interviewing 500 people would then take 250 man-hours. A work week is 40 hours. Even if you want to say that our heroic police force should be tirelessly working double shifts (80 hours/week) to solve this horrific crime (while ignoring the rest of their caseload, etc), that's still having three people take a little over a week just to do interviews (3 * 80 = 240). Nevermind actually analyzing them to look for discrepancies, etc.
Or you can take DNA samples, ship them off to the lab, and in the meantime focus on people who haven't given samples. If you get a hit on the DNA results, someone immediately jumps to the top of your suspect list. If you don't, you've narrowed down the field considerably.
Now can we go back to talking about privacy and government instead of the specifics of this one case?
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
What he said.
While it's still important to run the DNA samples through analysis just in case, the more important thing about the samples is identifying who did not submit a sample. The rapist is far more likely to be in the "did not submit" category; focusing on those individuals creates a much smaller pool of suspects to work from. With the unlikely exception of anyone who does come back positive from the DNA tests, that the sample exists is more important than the analysis of it.
So while the lab boys are running the samples just to see if anyone does come back positive, investigating detectives can focus the brunt of their investigation efforts on just those people who didn't submit one and start using other methods such as alibi gathering and the like to weed through them immediately.
And if a sample does come back positive, that can also be remarkably useful; a positive DNA test still has enough leeway that it usually only identifies a family rather than an individual, but identifying a family still tells the officers who to look for. If the rapist's brother submitted a sample, for instance, that can still be a monumental clue towards the actual rapist's apprehension.
edited 17th Apr '14 10:04:33 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I love how you both say let's drop discussion of this one case and keep talking about this one case. Seriously, I'm willing to drop it, but it's kinda silly of you guys to say "look let's drop it, just after I make a final post about it".
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran<.< I didn't say let's drop it, because I think it's an important discussion. Yes, it's only about this one case, but one case can be both informative and important for directing government policy. That's what legal precedents are; a single case can affect the legal status of a given topic. I feel that more can be learned from discussing law as it is actively applied in the world, than from discussing hypothetical application, because any law can be applied an infinite number of hypothetical ways.
Hypothetically, your name can be used to put you in jail or oppress you. Hypothetically, knowing what your face looks like can be argued to be a violation of privacy because of hypothetical abuses of people's faces.
But I am willing to drop it if that's what folks want.
edited 17th Apr '14 11:57:33 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.If you don't think we should drop it then why did you agree with Jovian, who said at the end of his post "Now can we go back to talking about privacy and government instead of the specifics of this one case?"? I think it's reasonable to assume that when someone says "What he said." they're agreeing with everything the other person just said...
edited 17th Apr '14 12:00:45 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI don't agree that hypothetical violations should be used to set precedent. It's a very bad... precedent, if you'll excuse the redundancy.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
Because I agree with the points he made about the topic.
Exactly! We can talk about hypothetical cases of privacy, government, and surveillance, or we can talk about actual ones. I prefer actual ones.
edited 17th Apr '14 12:42:41 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Edward Snowden asks Vladimir Putin if Russia spies on its citizens.
Vladimir Putin tells Edward Snowden: Russia doesn't carry out mass surveillance.
edited 17th Apr '14 2:55:45 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
If by "right off the bat" you mean fucking months. Forensic DNA analysis tends to run just shy of a week with backlogs as they are. What do you think is going to happen when suddenly one lab in town gets an entire year's worth of samples to run? In a fraction of that time, you could collect class attendance lists, ask the teachers if anyone left for the bathroom, check any cameras around, ask around if the victim had outstanding grudges...you know, actual investigation.
Even if you were to ignore privacy concerns, what they're doing is completely bankrupt as an investigative method.
edited 17th Apr '14 7:38:00 PM by Pykrete
Unless they're only planning to test a handful of samples, but asked all the students for DNA in order to make use of peer pressure. There may be some people who, if asked individually, would refuse to give the police a DNA sample, but who will comply if that's what everyone else is doing (especially if who has or hasn't given a sample is made public knowledge).
edited 17th Apr '14 9:35:25 PM by RavenWilder
Even if you were to ignore privacy concerns, what they're doing is completely bankrupt as an investigative method.
No, I mean right off the bat, because the testing of the samples doesn't matter. That the sample exists is what matters. Anyone who turns in a sample is unlikely to be the culprit, so they can cross that name off the list before any DNA test is actually performed on the sample. If 350 people show up today with DNA analysis than the number of people that need to be investigated drops by 350 people today.
Unless the investigation of people who failed to turn in samples runs into a dead end, they don't even have to test the samples at all.
edited 18th Apr '14 7:44:49 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Now that is an idea, if they're just asking for DNA samples with no intention of testing them but simply so as to narrow down their list of suspects, well that's pretty smart. Though it makes me worried as to what they're going to do with all the DNA samples they've got, since if they're not being sent of to a lab they could end up lost or misplaced.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranAlright, I'm looking into the case, it looks like they will have to test the samples. As of right now, only one student
has refused the test, so either that kid is it, or the DNA analysis will have to be done.
Detectives have asked 475 pupils, 31 teachers and 21 other staff at the private Fenelon-Notre Dame lycee in La Rochelle, western France, to give samples.
The last few swabs are to be taken on Thursday. The samples will be analysed at two local laboratories.
Ms Pagenelle, who ordered the mass tests after months of inconclusive investigations, has warned that anyone who refused to be tested could be considered a suspect.
Is there a fallacy for assuming that whatever is being done now is the first and only thing to have been considered or attempted?
edited 18th Apr '14 7:56:02 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Well as until now nobody had provided a source with that information I don't think it was that wrong an assumption to make. Yes it makes perfect sense for them to run the tests after months of not being able to narrow down the suspect list, but there had better be some serious questions being asked as to how they are so incompetent as to not be able to narrow down the suspect list after months of trying.
edited 18th Apr '14 8:17:26 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran"Did you rape her?" "Nope." "Do you know who did?" "Nope." Repeat 500 times.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I wouldn't take that for a given. Who knows what go through these people's minds? Maybe 'they want to get caught', maybe they don't think it will be that big deal. They is after all a degree of arrogance stereotypically associated with rapists that think they can slime out of anythings.
Compliance is no more a sign of innocents than recalcitrant is a sign of guilt.
edited 18th Apr '14 8:21:35 AM by joeyjojo
hashtagsarestupid

Well, it IS an issue of government integrity and privacy breaching linked together....
I have no ideas on what newer things to bring into this topic though.
Same as usual.... Wing it.