DHS to Begin Collecting DNA of Anyone Arrested 483
Foobar of Borg writes "The AP is reporting that the US will soon be collecting the DNA of anyone who is arrested by a federal law enforcement agency and any foreigner who is detained, whether or not charges are eventually brought. This begins to bring the US in line with the UK which, as discussed before on Slashdot, is trying to collect DNA of 'potential criminals' as young as five. DHS spokesman Russ Knocke stated that 'DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool.'"
Balance of power. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you let the balance of power fall too far to the state, it's grossly naive to think it wont lead to use of that power over you, your friends and your children. History supports that as do numerous social studies.
perhaps I'm missing something (Score:5, Insightful)
DHS needs to go (Score:3, Insightful)
There has been very little that has been good since the DHS was formed. Maybe it's a matter of them preventing bad things from happening, but the tighter the grip, the more problems will seep through their fingers.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Balance of power. (Score:4, Insightful)
Since DNA will first be collected from foreigners, whose stay in the country is dependent on the government's good graces, it's not hard to imagine a Gattaca [amazon.com] style future where, if the government has your DNA on file and you might have some unpleasant genetic predisposition, your application for residency or citizenship suddenly falls though.
Re:perhaps I'm missing something (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure about *you*, but I'm a little uncomfortable with ANY government agency being able to tell me more about myself than I myself know.
This road leads to a Police State - plain and simple. Perhaps your comfortable living in a police state - I'm not.
What's next? Refusing you the vote cause your DNA shows a tendency to irrational behaviors or mental disease? Perhaps denying you a federal student loan cause you have genetic tendency of lower mental function? We aren't there yet - but moves like these are the first step
The government does NOT have the right to collect and store my DNA without my permission - PERIOD.
Anon.
Shred and Incinerate (Score:5, Insightful)
To avoid identity theft, not only should you shred everything with your name and address, but now you also need to flush or incinerate everything with your DNA on it.
"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple Solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Balance of power. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is yet to be ANY evidence that infallible ID of every citizen leads to better security, better safety, or in fact anything better.
In the end, its ONLY use is control.
Criminals with no record, no arrests, and perhaps no citizenship fall outside the view of such a system creating yet another situation where only the innocent are inconvenienced.
REAL ID and biometric IDs have only one purpose, control of the citizenry. period. anytime. in. history.
I could spend days figuring out several ways to defeat any system of ID presented, and if I can you can be absolutely certain that criminals will. In fact they have much better resources than I do and would probably do a much better job. When you have networks of 'friends' to help you out on both coasts, and on other continents, it's easier to fake things etc.
When criminals want to do something the phrase "papers please" do not stop them. These ID schemes will in fact ONLY harm citizens and their rights to do as they constitutionally are allowed.
Re:Fingerprinting in Texas (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:5, Insightful)
Please Read 1984 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
One more step in the loss of privacy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Balance of power. (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider for a moment. Do the supporters of oppressive regimes actually suffer under them? Is it not the case that those who tacitly or overtly support this kind of power imbalance actually benefit? Certainly a minority of top supporters do, but what about the silent and not so silent majority that prop up the regime? Does their support not in fact, pay off?
Are registered Republican voters who attend church every sunday, protest against abortion, call for lower taxes and "family values" really going to suffer under these DHS policies? I invoke Godwin because it is inevitable. Look at 1930's Germany. If you weren't communist or jewish, then you, as a german, probably did rather well under the Nazi's. Why wouldn't you support them? It's not like you valued abstract concepts like "freedom" and "democracy" now did you?
Most americans, no, most people in the western world, do not value these concepts. They support internment, executions, secret trials. I'm not being rhetorical here. As long as you mention the right groups; terrorists, pedophiles, minorities, lower classes, etc, the average joe will not see their freedoms as something worth valuing anymore. People do not believe in universal rights for all, only in rights for the right people, which of course includes themselves. It's sad, but that's the way it is.
A question of trust (Score:5, Insightful)
With the recent abuses of the Patriot Act, I don't trust the government not to overstep the stated purpose of this policy either.
Re:Ummm slightly misleading I think (Score:2, Insightful)
If you have stolen a car and take said car to a National Park where you get pulled over for speeding, the LEO is definitely going to arrest you.
If you are in a National Park (or virtually any other Federal property) and get into a fight, you are most probably going to be arrested by a Federal LEO.
Re:Balance of power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that depends how you look at it. Being silent lets you live your live normally for 99.99% of the silent ppl. Being vocal pays off in NOT being able to live your life. So relatively speaking, being silent 'pays off' more than being vocal.
Re:Balance of power. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people don't quite look at it that way, but you've got a point there - folks automatically assume that just because people support a regime that does bad things, the same people will suffer under that regime. That is not necessarily true. The reason they select the regime is because bad things happen to "others" that they've been conditioned to hate (brown people, Muslims, immigrants, whatever).
The Christian right is no different. The average Joe Republican is probably rejoicing at Gitmo and the fallout of our human rights, because hey, he's not affected - it's "someone" else. And if he does get pulled over, he feels proud that he's helping the system further its goals.
It is usually the powerless ones who are always affected - Jews, minorities and in today's America, the non-citizens. And I am particularly riled up about this because I'm typing this from an airport in Texas, where as a "brown man", I was "randomly selected" to be searched. Yet again. I told the guy that I travel twice a week, and that in the past couple of weeks, I've been "randomly selected" at Texas almost every single time. His answer? "Do you tell the cop that you've never gotten caught speeding except when he's patrolling"
I was at a loss for words, and this is the irony of it all.
Re:perhaps I'm missing something (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:perhaps I'm missing something (Score:5, Insightful)
Depending on the type of profile, you could for example calculate blood relationship between people. You do not need tthe whole dna for that, close relatvies will also have close matches for the indicators used for profiling.
Some ways to abuse this:
"The crime DNA does not match this person exactly, but he is probably a close relative of the criminal, detain and question him!"
"This person is closely related to several convicted criminals, keep watching him"
"This person is related to a charged terrorist, deny him the goverment job"
"This person is related to several people who died early, let's raise his health premiums and offer him life insurances"
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell us how much an Exxon CEO's income tax is compared to his income, then the same proportion for someone in the "bottom 50%" (less than $30k/yr gross income).
Re:Simple Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
And let's not forget about the Internet and the NSA and the phone companies. It's no secret they are tracking our online activities. There's no need for cookies; deep packet inspection and profiling online behavior and environment variables are all just part of the game.
I can imagine when ankle bracelets with tracking devices will be put on people who are merely arrested. With new laws being created every year, there is more likelihood of a person doing something criminal. It makes sense to be pro-active when it comes to crime; even thought-crime. Blogs and (I'm sure Slashdot user's [through their postings]) are being profiled by the government. Like the saying goes; if you don't have anything to hide, then there is nothing to worry about.
It's a strange new world.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fingerprinting in Texas (Score:2, Insightful)
Suppose I have been convicted of some crime like embezzlement or robbing banks. Does this make me a worse teacher of mathematics? Or if I have been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor, does that make me unfit for a position as a securities trader in bank?
I realise that certain jobs, like law enforcement and judges, must have a 'clean record' in order to preserve the credibility of the profession as such, but I think society as a whole is going too far in this respect.
Just because you _can_ check every employees fingerprints against a police database doesn't mean you _ought_ to.
If one single company barrs ex convicts from working there, no real harm is done, but when too many companies do this, you get the situation that the only way for an excon to make a living is to keep on being a criminal. Is that what you wanted?
And suppose I apply for a position at some company (or school/public employment....). They ask me for my fingerprints and an extract of my criminal record. Shouldn't I be allowed to ask for the managment's fingerprints/criminal records? If they don't want to take the risk of employing me without knowing if I have been convicted of anything, shouldn't I be given the chance of deciding whether or not to work for someone who has been convicted of abusing his/her employees? Suppose the CEO has a couple of convictions for embezzlement behind him, and his former employees lost a few months worth of wages, I would deffinitely want to know, before making a decision on whether or not to take the position.
Tourism (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, "welcome" to the land of the free.
Here's hoping the coming election brings SOME kind of change.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
Poor people pay a greater percentage of their total income in taxes than rich people do. Rich people get more of their income from capitol gains that are taxed at a lower rate than income taxes. Also, poor people are disproportionately affected by sales taxes, since they spend a greater percentage of their income.
Your numbers only account for income taxes paid. Your numbers don't tell us anything about the actual tax rate paid by individuals. Using these numbers to claim that the US tax system is not regressive is completely disingenuous. Look at the next paragraph in the wikipedia [wikipedia.org] article you quoted:
You're not telling the whole story here, and you know it. Shame on you.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a similar discussion on another board I frequent. Part of the difficulty in defining 'Rich' is that many try to use income to define it, but in reality it's more a statement of wealth. For example, a sole proprietor of a business could have a gross annual income in the millions, yet not be 'rich' because 99% of that is immedietly spent as business expenses.
Still, one guy made a general rule of thumb that I liked:
Poor - Income at or below basic expenses; IE unable to save
Middle Class - Has the ability to save money/live better.
Rich - Independent of work; capable of living indefinitly off of assets.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
When you figure in user fees, transaction fees (have you seen what it costs to get a passport or file a government application?) and the extra cost to you because you've had to repair your car and lost traveling time thanks to the cuts in spending for infrastructure and the road you take to work is crumbling, along with the indirect costs that you bear because the economy is tanking thanks to the war, oil prices and a money policy designed to enrich the President's pals, you have most likely experienced a net loss.
Taxes are more than just the deductions from your puny pay check.
And I wouldn't even mind so much if there was any expectation that the current administration was being even a little bit responsible with the revenue. But you can bet they're falling all over themselves to give tax rebates, "incentives" and givebacks to the corporations, the Chinese and other "sovereign investment funds".
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:5, Insightful)
And the figure that Exxon supposedly pays in taxes never seems to include the money they get back in "incentives" for drilling for the oil that they then sell to us at inflated prices.
What we have these days in the US is socialism for the richest Americans. When Morgan Chase was able to buy Bear Stearns with the 29 billion that the government gave them, it was one of the biggest handouts in US history.
And last week the Fed announced plans to loan money to banks (which include brokerages that are not banks) at 2.5 percent, and then turn around and allow those banks to loan OUR money back to us at 30 percent credit card rates, that sure sounds like a handout to me.
George Bush has presided over the greatest transfer of wealth in our history: from the working class to the rich.
Oops... (Score:3, Insightful)
Somebody who's 'Rich' in the midwest may be poor in NYC.
Re:Balance of power. (Score:3, Insightful)
take modern America as an example. middle-class Bush supporters are, in fact, suffering under that regime, they just don't realize it. our economy is a disaster; foreclosures and inflation don't care about political affiliation, nor (for the most part) did the massive job loss at the beginning of the Bush presidency nor the lower average wage of the jobs gained back in his second term. these are measurable ways in which his supporters still suffer. they either think those costs are worth it or are simply scammed into not seeing them (or not attributing them to his policies).
broadening it to hypothetical future abuses in the US is a bit harder, because we don't know what those abuses will look like. myself, i object to the concentration of power in the executive branch regardless of who's in office, largely because we don't know who's going to be in office a decade from now (which, on a personal aside, is why i support Obama instead of Clinton: i believe he's got a much better respect for the Constitution and our principles of government, whereas i believe Clinton's more likely to continue the centralization, although using that power for more positive things in the short term). we could imagine a regime where the federal government is explicitly targeting political/ideological rivals, but i think that's much further down the road (if we were to ever get there). in the shorter term, we'd see things like a chilling effect on media and dissent. the general repression of the free exchange of ideas hurts everyone both in abstract terms (weakening your society by creating a monoculture and constricting vision) and concrete (reduced global competitiveness compared to countries where free exchange is more valued).
take a less political example, in the other direction: public schools. i have no kids, yet i pay taxes to support public schools. i myself went to private schools my entire academic career (except a brief stint in a state university). still, i benefit from having a minimum level of literacy and education in the country. i happen to support taxes for education, but i know lots of people who don't; they still benefit from the system. same with roads (except for not really being able to avoid them): you might not like your taxes being taken (some people just object to taxes out of hand, after all), but you still benefit from the results.
Re:Fingerprinting in Texas (Score:5, Insightful)
Note you won't be told *what* they were arrested for they just won't be teaching anymore
So if you want to be a teacher don't protest
Re:Jon Stewart recently said (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Balance of power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:5, Insightful)
For a huge company like Exxon, with many, many foreign investors, corporate investors, etc, this would admittedly take about three to five years to fully transition, as it couldn't just remain monolithic and declare itself a single S-Corp or LLC . There would have to be a number of staged pass through entities which separated stockholders ineligible to join S-corps from ones who were, for example, until all stockholders ended up members of an S-Corp, partnership, LLC, or even a sole propritorship that had contracts with other parts as needed. But, the corporation itself would avoid more and more taxes every year of the transition.
So why not? Corporate immunity. Whatever taxes Exxon pays, it thinks are worth it to reduce its shareholder's liability for 'incidents' such as the Exxon Valdez. If those taxes were ever too high, as determined solely in Exxon's own opinion, they could pick from several of the many alternatives and transition.
This doesn't stop corporations from complaining that their voluntary taxes are too high just like an individuals non-voluntary ones.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
All ten men paid equally 10% of the bill.
The poorest 5 couldn't afford it, so they didn't drink.
6 and 7 could afford to drink a little.
8, 9, and 10 Could drink the most.
Then they realized that the analogy didn't work at all- substitute drinks with roads, police, firemen, public services. Either they happen or they don't.
Re:"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool." (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh well that's ok then
Re:Balance of power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Gawd, you should know better than to post on slashdot while committing such a heinous crime such as being brown.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a similar discussion on another board I frequent. Part of the difficulty in defining 'Rich' is that many try to use income to define it, but in reality it's more a statement of wealth. For example, a sole proprietor of a business could have a gross annual income in the millions, yet not be 'rich' because 99% of that is immedietly spent as business expenses.
Still, one guy made a general rule of thumb that I liked:
Poor - Income at or below basic expenses; IE unable to save
Middle Class - Has the ability to save money/live better.
Rich - Independent of work; capable of living indefinitly off of assets.
Proven Law Enforcement Tools (Score:3, Insightful)
Its also true that:
"Security cameras are a proven law-enforcement tool"
Perhaps DHS spokesman Russ Knocke would be ok with surveillance cameras being installed in his home. I mean, hey, its a proven law enforcement tool, so he should be happy to submit to it.
Re:I wish they had more insight (Score:3, Insightful)
When I went to the DMV to get my license, I needed 3 original documents to prove I was who I said I was.
Now if I get arrested with a convincing fake ID- then my DNA gets immediately tied to a fake persona - or worse, somebody else REAL. Why should such hardcore evidence have such a shakey foundation? They should require 3 positive forms of identification to get DNA- otherwise it'd be easy to tamper with the database on purpose! And who, when committing a crime, would have 3 positive forms of identification on them? Or any at all??
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:1, Insightful)
While, on the surface, it looks like the government is once again throwing all kinds of money at big business at the expense of the average American, if you look deeper, you'll see that this really isn't the case. The actions by the Fed and Treasury have really helped us dodge a bullet. The fallout from this whole credit crisis and the pain felt by average Americans is far less than it would have otherwise been.
A BIG missed point (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Balance of power. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, perhaps things would have been touch and go for a while if the government let Bear Stearns collapse ungracefully instead of gracefully, if the government wasn't pumping huge sums of cash into the industry that it may never see again. So? All the government is teaching the financial industry is "feel free to take risky positions, we'll come bail you out by taking on your riskiest investments and lending you money at killer rates". In the long run, it is far more important that banks learn to only take positions that they have properly evaluated and that they can survive. If a dumb bank has to collapse every now and then, so be it.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
Since I'm no the subject, after the Bush tax cuts, more people on the low end of the scale were paying no taxes at all, the tax burden shifted UP, not down.
Since 2000, the tax burden of the bottom 40% of income earners dropped from 0% to NEGATIVE 4%. Conversely, the burden on the top 20% went UP to 85% from 81%.
I'm sick and tired of people claiming the tax cuts were for the rich; if the rich benefited the most it's because they were paying the most, but everyone got a piece of the pie. Moreover, our tax system is still highly progressive... the tax cuts actually made it MORE progressive (accounting for increasing the percentage of the tax burden for the wealthy and lowering it for the poor). If you still think it's not "fair," then I'd like to see some alternative that you think wouldn't destroy the economy beyond it's already dead in the water behavior.
Re:Balance of power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Looking at places like the UK, which has been doing this for quite some time, not to mention having one of the most comprehensive surveillance networks, etc...
The petty criminals don't care. They vanish into the noise. When you have thousands and thousands of criminals, a low res camera picture of a thug in a hoodie isn't enough to do more than get a few matches - it would still take traditional police work to find him.
Take the DNA example. Sure, you know it belongs to Joe Crook, but you don't know which temporary girlfriend he's living with this week, and his crime isn't enough for the police to spend the resources to track him down. So he stays free.
Even with the inevitable catches, normally more because of stupidity on the part of the criminal rather than brilliance on the part of the police, it's often along the lines of a 'catch and release' system.
This proposal reminds me of the murder investigation in Gattaca. They come in, vacuum the whole place and find the hair of somebody who doesn't 'belong'. Their search for and fixation on him delays the catching of the real murderer - who worked there and had left, as a matter of course, fragments of himself all over.
DNA is all fine and dandy, but it isn't magic and doesn't replace good investigation methods. It's just one tool in the box.
Heck, get the database too large and you might actually undermine the system as comparisons take longer to spit back matches, where false positives become so common that people start discounting them. Heck, we see it already in the ballistics databases set up by a couple states - so many firearms are never used in crime, yet so many ended up in the database that false positives rendered the database useless.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the gist of your argument, but let's keep in mind that the Fed didn't just 'give' Chase $29b.
It was a loan, and Chase will have to enter payments to Uncle Sam.
The government spends tons of money in really stupid ways, but I don't see a $29b loan to be a 'stupid way,' provided it prevented further financial meltdown.
This $600 stimulus package, however IS a dumb waste of money. Give my family $1200 in May so you can come at me in April for $1400. That money comes from somewhere...
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:5, Insightful)
Followed by...
You both came close. A considerable amount of Exxon's income (doesn't matter if it's moved to the CEO's pocket or part of a new drill bit or tanker) comes from what? -- selling gasoline, of course. And who is it that pays for that gasoline? The private citizen.
Corporations pay taxes, sure, but everything they pay is built into the price of the items they sell, and you should keep in mind who pays that: The consumer. Who also pays their own taxes.
When someone says "corporations pay XXX and the consumer doesn't have it so bad because they only pay X", they're blowing smoke. Those corporations got a good proportion of that money from the consumer.
For every item you buy, you're paying built-in costs for income tax (and other taxes in some cases) that went into the materials, manufacture, transport, marketing, retailing, etc... of that item. This is with the money you have left over after paying for your own income taxes.
The bottom line is that the tax load on the average consumer is much higher than you think it is.
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:4, Insightful)
The actual tax burden on the lowest income group will never drop to 0%, much less to a negative number, because the income taxes (and other taxes) of all the people involved in producing everything they consume are 100% built into the prices of those things they consume. From natural gas to a loaf of bread, everything carries a built-in tax burden.
Furthermore -- for instance in the case of natural gas or electricity -- where the utility company has a health care plan in place for its employees, anyone paying for natural gas is forced to pay for that health care plan before they can address their own health care needs, unless they're willing to live in the cold. This is true for all benefits that accrue to workers supplying low income people with services or goods for money.
Painting low-income people as a tax-free or contribution-free group is either naive, or disingenuous. It just isn't so. Less than the middle class? Sure. The middle class carries a huge load.
Re:Balance of power. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a VERY dangerously naive position. Who are these "criminals?" Are all "criminals" alike?
A person arrested for chaining him/her self to a poll during a protest, should they be "controlled?"
We are *all* every man, woman, and child in the U.S.A. in violation of some law and probably have no idea. We are all criminals. Are we all to be controlled?
A serious crime like rape, murder, being a member of the Bush administration, should bring a penalty of DNA identification. Short of that its totalitarianism slowly creeping up on us.
Re:Balance of power. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ummm slightly misleading I think (Score:4, Insightful)
Not yet...
Re:Cut taxes until the federal government collapse (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's a better tool (Score:3, Insightful)
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution is a *better* freedom-enforcement tool -- *and* it has been used a lot longer than this new-fangled DNA stuff.
Re:Ummm slightly misleading I think (Score:3, Insightful)