why would you not try and do what you could to find someone that beat and stabbed a 77 year old woman to death?

Just to put one over on ‘the man’?

Why exactly do they need to “eliminate” you if you’re not a suspect?

Because I’m a bit of a loner who keeps himself to himself.

As a local resident who frequently passes the scene, I’ve been interviewed.

Presumably your prints and DNA are all over the gate/door/fence/whatever and they’d like to at least get rid of that from their evidence? Otherwise there going to be a lot of unidntified fingerprints and DNA all over the place? In the same way the guys in white onesies and lab technicians aren’t prosecuted for every single murder they breath on.

They are not having my fingerprints or DNA without good cause

Here they not only dont have good cause they have no cause

Or, to be a bit more serious, because she was murdered on Monday evening and I ran past the house and opened a nearby gate with bare hands earlier that morning, probably leaving fingerprints and DNA on it.

Cross posted with thisisnotaspoon.
The gate has probably got dozens of fingerprints on it. Surely it would help if they can match some of them to me.

I’m liking this idea of a cloned army of vegan trailquesters on 29er.

pretty sure 29erism isn’t genetic, it’s a lifestyle choice thing, obviously something deeply disturbing happened during your upbringing.

Trailquesting…not even going to comment.

😉

<edit> might be inclined to let them take prints if they made it clear it was for dismissing some of the many prints, dna sample I’d be a bit more worried/cynical/tinfoil hattery

Graham, assuming you were wearing your purple lycra at the time their thinking was probably along the following lines:

Big beard + purple lycra = GUILTY

If you keep yourself to yourself, why are you leaving DNA on old women’s gates?

Isn’t the information shared with the US who can invent all types of laws to keep the data?

Oooh one of my favourite debates. 😀

Do you think it would bring down crime rates if everyone was on the database?

Maybe.

I think it would definitely decrease the number of cases with no known suspects.

Whether or not that scared criminals enough to stop them doing crime is a different issue.

Personally I’m all for a compulsory national DNA database, but I understand why people find that idea outrageous.

she was murdered on Monday evening and I ran past the house and opened a nearby gate with bare hands earlier that morning, probably leaving fingerprints and DNA on it.

Seems perfectly reasonable to get you fingerprints and DNA then so they can eliminate them from the enquiry.

I’m liking this idea of a cloned army of vegan trailquesters on 29er.

Graham, I think you’re overestimating just how ‘charitable’ the rozzers’ cloning program might be.

They’ll fit your clones out in stripey silver & burgandy shellsuits and Reebok trainers. They’ll be riding Apollo 18 speed (“genuine Shimano SIS”) alloy MTBs from the back of your mum’s Littlewoods catalogue. They’ll be spinning the cranks at a ridiculous high speed with the heels of their trainers on the pedals. They’ll also be riding with one hand on the bars and a supersized KFC thickshake in the other. Oh, and the chain will be on the smallest cog at the back and the granny ring at the front. They’ll also be asking everyone they see for directions to the nearest amusements arcade. You’ll be so confused and embarrassed that you’ll confess to anything they want you to just to get these chav stylee lookalikes off your local streets.

Of course, it’s all too late now 😉

Its not so much what the police might do with DNA now, but how long that information is (perhaps illegally or secretly) stored and what non-benign governments might choose to do with it in the future. You are not just giving your own personal DNA but also information about your whole family line, both past and future – your kids, grandkids, other more distant descendents of your family…

In the past, large groups of people have been murdered because of their ethnicity, disability etc. Who knows what government we in the UK or anyone might have in 50 years time – its a total unknown. Also, what is to stop any government ‘helpfully’ sharing ‘security data’ or ‘health data’ with any other body such as private companies (life insurance, marketing), or other governments such as the EU (many unelected politicians already have strongholds there) or USA or anyone really, that they want to suck up to or get benefits from? And its your whole family line for generations, not just your own data.

Its sad to feel so distrustful, but so many government/political cons and cover ups and greed have come to light in the last few years – how can you trust such people to have a shred of integrity?

We went to war almost entirely based on one mans ego and religious beliefs. We all know that should not have been why there was an act as tragic and terrible as war. If asked a decade ago, people would have said it could not have happened… the UK would not have fought and killed and sacrificed people for one mans ego and greed. But we did.

Midnighthour – have you considered that if we had such a government in the future they may just force everyone to give a dna sample there and then rather than relying on stuff that was collected 200 years ago (or whenever)?

Because I’m a bit of a loner who keeps himself to himself.

Hey, welcome to Trailquest, meet the guys!

I had DNA taken from me last year. for something that happend near my place of work (not just me the whole unit). I asked the same question about what happens to it after the investigation and does the same get destroyed.

I was told after the investigation was close the sample gets stored for 5 years then destroyed.

not too happy about it but hey what can you do if you refuse then youlook like you got something to hide

wwaswas – Member
Midnighthour – have you considered that if we had such a government in the future they may just force everyone to give a dna sample there and then rather than relying on stuff that was collected 200 years ago (or whenever)?

And?

In the past, large groups of people have been murdered because of their ethnicity, disability etc. Who knows what government we in the UK or anyone might have in 50 years time

A very common straw man this.

A DNA database is NOT a database of complete DNA genomes.

It is just a statistical profile of your DNA. 20 numbers long.

You can’t secretly sell it on so that unscrupulous insurers, big-pharma and the new master race can look for people with genes for cancer or brown eyes, because that information is simply not recorded in there.

And?

errm, it therefore really would make no difference to your nth generation grandchildren whether your dna is taken now or not?

Graham S – they keep the original samples as well do they not?

You can’t secretly sell it on so that unscrupulous insurers, big-pharma and the new master race can look for people with genes for cancer or brown eyes, because that information is simply not recorded in there.

Phew! If some random on the internet says so, it must be true. 😉

why would you not try and do what you could to find someone that beat and stabbed a 77 year old woman to death?

Just to put one over on ‘the man’?

This has already been explained. I have no interest in putting one over on ‘the man’ – I have lots of interest in not getting arrested for something I didn’t do. Also the amount of help the police will get from having my DNA in such a situation is minimal.

not too happy about it but hey what can you do if you refuse then youlook like you got something to hide

If you don’t have anything to hide, why does that matter?

Graham S – they keep the original samples as well do they not?

And this is the confusion / obfuscation.

Nowt wrong with a National DNA database as I see it.
But indefinite storage of original physical samples is very dubious.

Fortunately they can’t keep them forever as they degrade over time and they wouldn’t have enough storage anyway.

And they don’t match against the original samples – that’s what the database is for.

Yes, I have considered that. But its much easier to get info slowly and then say ‘we have all this data, how could any one object to giving theirs too? – how suspicious to avoid what so many others have complied with’. If the government tomorrow said there will be a national database of everyone there would be much more questioning and resistance.

I figure its like politics in general. You make a big announcement, say, all car tax will be £5,000 from now on. You ‘leak’ it so its a rumor. Then you announce that rumor is rubbish, its only going up to a mere £2,000 per year. Then people complain, and you spin out responses to that complaint and CRUCIALLY people start to get bored of ‘old’ news and come to expect there will be a big rise. Then you as a government say ‘hey, we listened to all of you and the rise will be only to £1,000 – we have cared, we have backed off by 50%’ and the population goes around thinking ‘thank god, we had a lucky escape, it could have been double that. And so they mostly willingly pay £1,000 despite it being a massive hike, cos they have got bored and because they feel they have successfully ‘influenced’ a reduction. And the government is happy cos the £1,000 was the original real target amount anyway.

If you watch the papers/news you see this technique of leaks, denial, declared backtracking, public boredom and acceptance dozens of times in a year over all sorts of things.

MPs expenses is one really – as they did all sorts of things to appease the public, but its already sliding back towards nice handouts.

How many times have we heard – ‘we will do something about big bonuses’ and its stated again and again and they do nothing solid, just minor posturing and people generally are getting bored to the point where the public are saying ‘they will never do anything about it, ITS JUST HOW IT IS’ ie giving up in the face of lots of publicity, no action and eventual boredom via frustration.

Its just my view/observations, no one else has to share it! 🙂

Or, to be a bit more serious, because she was murdered on Monday evening and I ran past the house and opened a nearby gate with bare hands earlier that morning, probably leaving fingerprints and DNA on it.

A wooden gate which lots of other people will have touched? Chance of getting any usable prints of yours are minimal I’d have thought (not being an expert in prints, but I understand you get far better ones from smooth hard surfaces). DNA also seems unlikely.

“If you don’t have anything to hide, why does that matter?”

The comment of oppressive governments throughout history 🙂

You can’t secretly sell it on so that unscrupulous insurers, big-pharma and the new master race can look for people with genes for cancer or brown eyes, because that information is simply not recorded in there.

ok

they keep the original samples as well do they not?

hmm

Personally I’m all for a compulsory national DNA database, but I understand why people find that idea outrageous.

As am I, and ID cards as well, unfortunately I don’t believe we will ever achieve the required levels of honesty and integrity in the mechanisms of governance and authority required to be trusted with administering it.

Phew! If some random on the internet says so, it must be true.

😀

They quite literally cannot electronically store the entire genome sequence for everyone. It is just too big!

The human genome consists of around 2.9 billion base pairs, so you are talking ~700MB of data per person.

Multiply that by 62 million people in the UK (or even just the 3 million off currently in the UK database) and you see that PC World are going to struggle to find them a hard drive big enough!

They could use more than one hard drive 😉

MSP – Member

“Personally I’m all for a compulsory national DNA database, but I understand why people find that idea outrageous.”

As am I, and ID cards as well, unfortunately I don’t believe we will ever achieve the required levels of honesty and integrity in the mechanisms of governance and authority required to be trusted with administering it.

Because ID cards are a sure fire way of reducing crime.

🙄

From the OP:

I gave the police some information on a couple of unusual things I’ve seen recently

This!

have you seen just how often the murderer turns out to be someone who came forward as someone helpful, offering information, assisting with the case etc.

When a murder occurred in our town I was in the same area when it occurred. They’d already arrested someone (who was later charged and convicted) but as a good citizen I phoned the police and told them I’d seen someone on a bike nearby at that time.

Copper came round, asked me if I minded giving DNA and prints and I said no as long as they were destroyed afterwards, and then he took ’em. Said he wasn;t interested in the milk bottle full of sperm I produced for him.

You’ve been watching too much Frost Morse Lewis crime drama, Z11.

1) You can’t be convicted on DNA evidence alone, there has to be something else.

2) If DNA from a crime scene matches someone on the database, a new sample is taken from that person and compared against the crime scene sample. The info on the database, or the original sample, are not used as evidence.

And that’s when they want my milk bottle full of sperm?

Am I paranoid..

This “If you don’t have anything to hide, why does that matter?” gets wheeled out every time something controlling is attempted to to be imposed on us all…

Id cards
Biometric passports
Black boxes in cars to check speed or whatever
GPS tags for everyone to track where we are
Number plate recognition for the whole of the country and road pricing

Sure there must be others…

Piss boiler for me…

1) You can’t be convicted on DNA evidence alone, there has to be something else.

I’m sure this is the sort of thing investigating officers find really distressing when they’re sure of your guilt because of DNA evidence…

Black boxes in cars to check speed or whatever

Personally, I’m all in favour of cars being speed limited to that set for the road they’re travelling on.

being prevented from breaking the law is hardly a civil liberties infringement, is it?