DNA Dragnets

[Mota Boy]

You live in a small town, only a few thousand people. Everyone knows each other and the local diner begins frying up your order as soon as you walk in the door. It's the type of place where people leave their doors unlocked at night and their cars running when they get coffee on cold mornings.

An eleven-year-old girl gets raped and murdered in your town.

The police try to solve the case. All immediate suspects are tested to see if their DNA matches up, but they all come up negative. Time passes and the brutal murder remains unsolved. Suspicions settle in and make the town uneasy. The FBI has a solution - get DNA samples of every male in the town, relatively cheaply, by swabbing the insides of peoples' mouths. By law, these samples are voluntary

Assume that you're male. Would you ideologically approve or be opposed to this measure? If such a measure is passed, would you submit a sample? Now, would you answer be the same if you lived in Las Vegas and the victim was a forty-four-year-old hooker?

[Betty]

Is this hypothetical?

Because way more fucked up things (murders, freak accidents, etc.) happen in small towns per capita than big cities.

Anyway, I think I would provide a sample. I would have nothing to lose and it would in a small way contribute to the killer being caught. If everybody thought that way, only a few people would not want to cooperate, and possibly one of them being guilty.

Edit: Oh, and I'd still do it in situation #2, even though it would seem less productive.

Not sure if I'm supposed to comment about who's life seems like the bigger deal... so I won't.

[Mota Boy]

It's only partially hypothetical. The same situation happened in Germany a few years ago. 16,000 men submitted samples and the killer was pressured into submitting one himself by friends and family. There's an article in the latest issue of Time about a brutal small-town murder and local citzen's wariness to provide samples. Apparently, Americans are generally more suspicious about these types of activities than Europeans. The article didn't mention Canadians.

And you're not supposed to decide who's murder is worth solving more. It's just that humans are much more likely to resort to more extreme measures when particularly brutal crimes are involved. You can rally a suburban couple to a cause much better if your posterchild could be their daughter than if it could be someone harassing them on the streets.

I'll add my $.02 tomorrow.

[NOAMR]

I think it's against privacy and freedom. When the government collects everyones DNA, you aren't free to do the slightest mistake, and you get a police state. When u commit a small crime, like just, I don't know, driving too fast or something (can't find a good example, cuz here you can't get DNA ), they can allready caught you, and you got no freedom and privacy anymore. Hm, other example: spraying graffiti on a bridge or something.

[wheelchairman]

I'd be against it. Unless the police promise to destroy all records (they have done this in some instances). But even then I would be hesitant, I certainly don't want to be a part of any police database for as long as possible. Especially if I've committed no crimes.

I agree with NOAMR, which makes me shudder uncontrollably.

[Betty]

I prefer to think that if there were a huge database thing it would be run by the ultra secret CIA-type agency that worked for the good of the country and knew everything and didn't GIVE A FUCK about somebody doing some graffitti... as opposed to the whole 1984-style scenario.

And it is certainly 21 years later than 1984 and the world isn't at all that way so I'm really not too concerned about it. You can't say that's automatically what would happen. I have a certain amount of faith in "the system".

Also, it's just DNA. That's different than having cameras/microphones/satellites everywhere, etc. I think that would be much more intrusive. They can only really collect DNA after the fact and from specific sources, so I don't see what the big deal is. That 1/1000000000 chance that you'll get accused of something you obviously didn't do? If my giving my DNA can help catch the hypothetical murderer of my sister/father/best friend, I'm all for it.

[wheelchairman]

Despite the fact that the American government claims the cold war is over, the persecution of communists in all fields in the states is downright outrageous. I believe it was almost a year ago today that Rumsfield declared the RCP (A Maoist party) as a terrorist organization along with other communist parties.

It's common policy for all communist parties in the states to advice members to avoid all chemical substances like hash purely for the reason that sentences always come down harder on communists than the average white guy. It's even worse for members of the African Socialist Party.

And besides, a top-secret government organization like the CIA, is corrupt as fuck. The CIA generally only does mistakes. I mean their last greatest achievemnt was the rescue of hostages after post-revolution Iran. Which I would call one of their biggest fuck-ups. I would never trust a top-secret government organization with such material, for the sole reason that no government should have a top-secret organization, that is undemocratic down to the bone.

[RXP]

I'd give a 'sample' fo sure as long as nurses are doing the handy work.

[Betty]

Yeah, but if you're dealing with "top secret" things, the public just can't find out about it. It might not be something that has to be secret from our country, but if you let the citizens of that country know, then all other countries would be able to access the information as well. Also, something like DNA, you wouldn't want just anybody to have access to that information. Hence, the fact that it is secret protects the public. And also, I don't know much about the CIA, besides things I see on TV which are fake, but if it were top secret, wouldn't you not KNOW about a lot of the things they do anyway? Hence cannot say everything they do is bad and evil and wrong? I personally really have no idea. And I highly doubt you do.

[wheelchairman]

We learn a lot about CIA fuck-ups through whistleblowing actually. Also documents become de-classified after x-number of years.

Any government that hides things from the people, is not of the people. That is just plain to see in my eyes. I find this to be in shining example, after the Bolsheviks took power, they published all secret papers of the Czar and Februarist Government, showing how they were leading the wool over the eyes of the people.