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There already is a DNA database. It's just that it's unofficial, and information stored within cannot be admitted as evidence in a court of Law. The government/authorities simply want to legitimise this.
G-Man; I think the arguments against the legitimisation of a DNA database are quite clear, here, and have been put across very well by several people.
The long and short of it is; too much opportunity for corruption, and misuse. This governmet can't be trusted with a tinned fart, let alone everyone's personal DNA information.
Ok so, ID cards and the DNA DB are brought in; next step:
'Why shoon't everyone have a chip inside them, so the authorities can see exactly where they are, at any given moment?'
Who watches the Watchers..?
ok, il give it an explanation,
say for example I assaulted someone on the way home tonight, totaly out of character, unprovked etc etc,
no say i got into a habit of this,
under the current system my DNA would be stored and they'd know someone did it, but not who. Untill i messed up and got caught.
With a database i'd be expecting a nock on the door a few hours later and quite rightlyt o be heading off to jail.
The cabbie who drugged female passengers and asaulted them recently is a very good example of something that would not happen with a DNA database.
Who watches the Watchers..?
We do you plonker! Thats how the system works. Check it out right now. Do you honestly think miracles apart that the Government will survive the next election?
That's not what "repeat offender" means. A repeat offender is someone who commits another crime [i]after[/i] being convicted. What you have described is a serial attacker.
That being said your argument is essentially one of presumed future guilt, i.e. we'll take evidence from you now on the basis that it will make any future conviction we want to make easier. Sorry but that's not the sort of society that I want to live in.
appologies for being wrong on a technicality (I'm neither a lawyer or a good speller/typist)
You could argue that the entire system is one of presumed future guilt, why have a policeman on a street, where 99% of people are abiding by the rules, he's still watchign them to try and spot the bag snatcher?
We do you plonker! Thats how the system works. Check it out right now.
How? Can I gain access to Police, Goverment or MI whatever information? Can I ****! You have no idea how 'the system' works, my friend. You just think you do.
I'm not even allowed to take my own pics of the police, lest I use them for 'terrorist purposes'....
so you believe its ok to take pictures of the police (thus keeping a record of their whareabouts)
but CCTV/DNAdatabase/ID is wrong?
(devils advoctate, that argument would take too long)
appologies for being wrong on a technicality
Sorry I don't mean to labour the point but that's a bit more than a technicality.
The information viewed by a policeman on the street is not stored anywhere for future use (other than in said policeman's head) so it is not a valid comparison.
CCTV has it's place as does a DNA database I just think that holding the DNA of those [i]convicted[/i] of a crime is a good balance between the needs of protecting scociety at large and maintaining law and order whilst maintaining Civil Liberties. This is of course a subjective view point and as such cannot be proven to be right or wrong.
so you believe its ok to take pictures of the police (thus keeping a record of their whareabouts)
Yes. It [s]is[/s] was ok to take pics of [i]anyone[/i], in a public place, as long as you din't use the pics to suggest anything that was not true. I have very little problem with CCTV, if used in the correct manner; to provide surveillance of public areas, in order to help protect the freedom and safety of people there.
I don't want my 'phone tapped, my emails read, or any of my personal information stored in a way that might be vulnerable to abuse.
Simple, really.
And I believe it is a Human Right, of every person, to break any law imposed by Society, that they believe to be oppressive, unjust or that seriously impinges on their Human Rights.
Of course, that idea would be open to corruption by nonces, fanatics, etc, but it's the risk that we have to take, in order that Freedom is preserved.
I suddenly really fancy an ice-cream vayn cornet...
"CCTV has it's place...."
yeah - everywhere 🙁
They even asked me to design cameras that don't look like cameras a while ago.
To quote RudeBoy from above and then from a recent post on the "she won't do that again thread"
How? Can I gain access to Police, Goverment or MI whatever information? Can I ****! You have no idea how 'the system' works, my friend. You just think you do.
And then
At least it proves we live in a Society where we are free to have our own opinions.
So apparently, I'm hoodwinked by the system which frees me to have my own opinions then? I think I may be loosing you buddy.
To quote RudeBoy from above and then from a recent post on the "she won't do that again thread"
How? Can I gain access to Police, Goverment or MI whatever information? Can I ****! You have no idea how 'the system' works, my friend. You just think you do.
And then
At least it proves we live in a Society where we are free to have our own opinions.
So apparently, I'm hoodwinked by the system which frees me to have my own opinions then? I think I may be loosing you buddy.
There already is a DNA database. It's just that it's unofficial, and information stored within cannot be admitted as evidence in a court of Law.
Is this another RudeBoy conspiracy? There are criminal DNA databases, yes. And no doubt there are intelligence services databases that contain DNA of suspected criminals. But there is no national DNA database of everyone at the moment.
If you're suggesting that there is: that authorities perhaps secretly collect DNA samples from all newborn children to put in a secret database, then what exactly is the supposed point of it if no police or medical personnel have access to it??
'Why shoon't everyone have a chip inside them, so the authorities can see exactly where they are, at any given moment?'
People would never agree to that. But you could probably persuade them to carry around a [i]mobile communication device[/i] that has a unique serial number and can be tracked very accurately via radio towers.
You could even put a microphone in it so it can be used as a remote evesdropping device...
Being free to have your own opinions, and actually knowing the truth, may not necessarily go hand in hand.
I feel free to have my own opinions, but there's loads of stuff I don't know, so I keep an open mind, rather than blindly accept what I am told.
Like I've said before Rudy, if it smells like a fish, looks like a fish and tastes like a fish theres a good chance its a fish!! Mind you we could all be living in an alternate reality and actually not be here at all..
if it smells like a fish, looks like a fish and tastes like a fish theres a good chance its infected and she should get it looked at. 🙂
Eeeeeuuuuw!
Nasty! 😯
Crab paste...
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It's an interesting aspect of modern British culture that the government is always assumed to be benign.
Benign government can change overnight, even in a civilised society. There are many cases of governments turning on sections of their citizens - Jews in Germany; Armenian Christians; Mormons in USA (19th cent) etc.
Simple - never ever trust your government.
Benign government can change overnight, even in a civilised society. There are many cases of governments turning on sections of their citizens - Jews in Germany; Armenian Christians; Mormons in USA (19th cent) etc.
And your point is ?
I think you will find that the evidence above of the number of people on this thread slating the government for all sorts of crap kind of debunks your initial statement, and as pointed out on a number of occasions already in the case of a totalterian state occurring there is nothing to stop them doing it anyway, so therefore its not a valid argument for not doing it when there clearly isn't one in place and is hardly likely to be.
The point is don't voluntarily give the government more info than you feel comfortable with.
As for the rest of your comments, I think they are naive, and I hope you never end up as a member of an unpopular minority group.
I think they are naive
And I think you are one of the lizard people, but it doesn't make it true though does it?
and I hope you never end up as a member of an unpopular minority group.
I am, white middle class, middle aged male, still happily married after 29 years with the same woman, two kids both of which are hers and mine.... apparently
I remember doing this my genetics module debate at uni and posted this question on the forum-fury! thanks to forum I received 92%.
Lots of ethics to be discussed and reliability of the tests.
So far 100,000 admin errors.
We've only managed to prove genotypes and phenotypes.
I've been invited by a collegue to work for an insurance company as a consultant for the possible development of life assurance and DNA testing for disease. Hmmm
What's wrong with privacy?
I conceed to divulge personal information in exchange for services and privileges - my choice.
To me, freedom means not having to justify my lifestyle or risk being penalised because someone who has my details doesn't like it.
You don't need to know, the Govt. doesn't need to know.
If you had bothered to read the thread or even the first post you would see that I’m asking for help to argue against a database, so that’ll be you agreeing with me then!
Well **** you big fella. Next time you ask for help I will know what to do.
"if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"
"I fear having to prove I have nothing to hide"
Also: "neccesity is the excuse for every infringement of human liberty. It is the argument of tyrants and the creed of slaves" Edmund Burke
One police spokesman has stated that DNA from innocent people will be kept untill they're 100, despite such a database being decreed to be illegal under European law. Chip and pin has already been proved to be totally ineffectual against fraud, soif someone can steal your details from an ATM for financial fraud, then having all your other details available to be cloned onto a card in another country should terrify everyone. We have signed agreements which allow British subjects to be arrested and deported for things which are not even crimes in the UK. Imagine being arrested for the rape and murder of a child in France when you've never been there, because the Gendarme have a card with your details on. How do you prove it wasn't you? After all, it's YOUR DNA they have so you must have been there and done it.
Who watches the Watchers..?We do you plonker! Thats how the system works. Check it out right now.
We do? Considering the raft of laws that this particular Government has brought in that will infringe on our privacy, I don't hold out much hope for this meek population.
Do you honestly think miracles apart that the Government will survive the next election?
This Government won't. Its the giving information over and placing it in the hands of "a future Government" that concerns me. And considering we don't know what the future holds in this Country, what Economic/Social upheaval there may be, theres always a chance that the wrong kind of Government may come to power.
From coffeeking
1) If you match 49 other people in your country and can explain your whereabouts, as can 48 others, the guilty party is going to stand out. If you can't and someone else can't then theres doubt. Combined with other evidence it should be pretty safe.
So lets assume you unfortunately share the same DNA as a serial offender.
And, as I do, you have difficulty remembering what you were doing more than a couple of days ago;
Or you don't use Facebook to document every minute detail of your boring life;
Or let's say you went out for a few beers after work and the guys said lets got to a strip club. You went but you didn't want to tell your wife.
And then the police come knocking on your door asking you to explain where you were at a certain time and date, which may be many days/weeks/months ago.
And then, lo, the serial offender strikes again. And the police come knocking again...
How many times do you think having the police questioning you is reasonable?
How many times do you think having to 'pop into the police station to make a statement' is reasonable?
What happens when you can't/don't want to have to account for every minute of your life?
How many times do you think that this would happen before the police start to draw their own conclusions?
OK, so most of this is circumstantial but I for one don't want to have to justify my life to the authorities just because I happen to be a match to someone else on a database. Even if this happened once, that's once too often and I for one would never 'pop into a police station' without a solicitor present.
...and as pointed out on a number of occasions already in the case of a totalterian state occurring there is nothing to stop them doing it anyway, so therefore its not a valid argument for not doing it when there clearly isn't one in place and is hardly likely to be
But which comes first? By the erosion of privacy and civili liberties first, it makes it much easier for a totaliterian state to develop, so it is an entirely valid arguement.
Thanks for the help people.
Ultimately we got down to the fact that it might be the thin end of the wedge as being the only real argument for not doing it that actually holds water. The rest really doesn't bear much scrutiny, in our opinion.
Cheers
G
PS: El-bent - that comment was aimed at RudeBoy and was in the context of the ongoing conspiracy theory he is expounding regarding 9/11, rather than anything else.
Ultimately we got down to the fact that it might be the thin end of the wedge as being the only real argument for not doing it that actually holds water.
I know it's not something that you should really do but I'd have responded by simply asking the question
National DNA Database, Why?
I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to exactly what it aims to achieve and the mechanism by which it will achieve those aims
"I am, white middle class, middle aged male,"
Oh, that's OK, then - white middle aged men have nothing to fear from the police! Oh...
In the news today [url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7989141.stm ]Man arrested in 26 year old murder case[/url]:
During the case, detectives developed a DNA profile of the killer after items recovered during the inquiry were re-examined.Hundreds of officers worked on the case after the teenager's body was found just over a mile from where she disappeared.
Following the DNA breakthrough, police have used it to eliminate about 800 suspects.
If they had a national DNA database then they could have gone straight from that DNA profile to their suspect, without ever hassling 800 other innocent people.
Anyone know of any sources of good respected research relating DNA profiling to crime detection and, I guess more importantly, crime reduction between countries that do and don't have DNA databases? Google hasn't been great yet.
Following the DNA breakthrough, police have used it to eliminate about 800 suspects.
Yeah 'coz I'm sure that the only way to eliminate 800 people from their enquiries was via DNA testing.
Yeah 'coz I'm sure that the only way to eliminate 800 people from their enquiries was via DNA testing.
It's a 26 year old case. Are you suggesting they hadn't had time to eliminate the suspects through other methods?
My point is that it's very easy to talk detachedly about privacy concerns and so on, but would you feel so strongly if you were confronted with a family whose daughter's killer could have been caught earlier if such a system existed.
Imagine a worse scenario, perhaps where a murder could have been prevented if police had been able to find a quick match for DNA at the scene. Could you face that family and justify your concerns?
It's a 26 year old case. Are you suggesting they hadn't had time to eliminate the suspects through other methods?
Whilst the case may have remained open I doubt very much that any police officer was working on it everyday for each of those 26 years.
Policy on this sort of thing should be developed based on rational thought and not the sort of "straw man" arguments that you are presenting. If the best you can come up is a hysterical "won't-somebody-think-of-the-children" type of argument then you don't have much of an argument at all.
If you are that concerned however why don't you go down the police station and have your DNA and fingerprints put on the existing police database. I'm sure they won't mind.
Actually I have been DNA swabbed twice as part of two separate murder investigations (I used to live in Glasgow), but they are not currently allowed to store that data.
I have pretty much the same privacy concerns as everyone else, but I'm not sure I would have the courage of my convictions when faced with a situation where a murder could have been prevented by such a database.
No "straw man" argument here. Just a straight hypothetical question: if someone dear to you had been murdered and the police had samples of the killer's DNA but no idea who he/she was then would you honestly still oppose such a database?
No "straw man" argument here. Just a straight hypothetical question: if someone dear to you had been murdered and the police had samples of the killer's DNA but no idea who he/she was then would you honestly still oppose such a database?
That's exactly what a straw man argument is. But yes I honestly would still oppose such a database, especially as the vast majority of murders are solved and result in a criminal conviction without the need for such a database.
Hmm.. my understanding of a [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man ]straw man argumment[/url] is [i]"an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[/i]
I apologise if I am misrepresenting your position but I'm certainly not introducing a fallacy here.
[url= http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb1507.pdf ]In 2007 there were 1391 murders and attempted murders known to police.[/url] 1121 of these resulted in a sanction detection. That means around 1 in 5 were unsolved. The results for rape were far worse with less than 25% of the 12,630 known rape cases being solved.
This is the reality of the actual situation - not a straw man.
So 80% of murders and attempted murders [i]were[/i] solved without any recourse to a DNA database. Not sure about you but that certainly seems like a "vast majority" to me.
I take your point about the logical fallacy but to introduce an emotional element
into a hypothetical questions betrays your arguments inherant weakness.if someone dear to you...
Why introduce results for rape now? Trying to change the goalposts? I doubt a DNA database would have any impact on rape conviction as the reason those conviction rates are low is due to the difficulty in proving or disproving consent not on whether or not intercourse had actually taken place.
So 80% of murders and attempted murders were solved without any recourse to a DNA database. Not sure about you but that certainly seems like a "vast majority" to me.
It is a majority, but it is hardly vast. 1 in 5 unsolved is a pretty significant minority.
Okay the emotional element was perhaps unnecessary, but if you think of these things purely as figures then it is easy to miss the impact they have on actual lives. 1 in 5 unsolved isn't a great stat if you are directly effected by that 1.
Why introduce results for rape now? Trying to change the goalposts?
No change. It's a serious crime and presumably the main use of such a database would be to aid in solving serious crimes. Murder was an example of such a crime. So is rape. Feel free to look at the figures for armed robbery, GBH etc.
a DNA database would have any impact on rape conviction as the reason those conviction rates are low is due to the difficulty in proving or disproving consent not on whether or not intercourse had actually taken place.
Which is why I used these figures, which relate to "sanction detection" (e.g. charges being brought in a known case), rather than figures on the subsequent conviction rate.
One of the issues here is that the attacker may be completely unknown to the victim, so police may gather the attacker's DNA but have no suspect to compare it to.
It is a majority, but it is hardly vast. 1 in 5 unsolved is a pretty significant minority.
Well it's a subjective term but if I could predict the outcome of horse races 80% of the time I'd be a very happy man.
Implicit in your arguments for a database is the assumption that failure to gain a conviction is a direct result of not having this database. How many of those failures actually fall into that category, some perhaps but certainly not all. The huge (there's another subjective term again) cost of creating, updating and maintaining such a database could be better spent on more and better policing reducing the crime rate. Rather than see a criminal punished I'd prefer the crime not be committed in the first place.
GrahamS - MemberActually I have been DNA swabbed twice as part of two separate murder investigations (I used to live in Glasgow), but they are not currently allowed to store that data.
I think you will find that both those samples remain on file.
Well it's a subjective term but if I could predict the outcome of horse races 80% of the time I'd be a very happy man.
Not if your life depended on winning ALL the races you wouldn't.
..the assumption that failure to gain a conviction is a direct result of not having this database. How many of those failures actually fall into that category, some perhaps but certainly not all.
Well we're talking about charging someone here, not the subsequent conviction, which is up to the courts.
But yes I think in many cases that such a database would be useful. To put a figure on it you'd need to know what percentage of all current criminal cases have unidentified DNA samples in the case evidence.
I've no idea what that number would be. But it wouldn't be representative anyway, as if such a database was available then it might result in more DNA collection being done at crime scenes.
The huge (there's another subjective term again) cost of creating, updating and maintaining such a database could be better spent on more and better policing reducing the crime rate.
Possibly true. Though one might argue that using modern technology to catch more criminals IS "better policing".