English police want a children's DNA database

[Jack]

An example of the evolving police-state proponents relying on ongoing scientific studies to justify ignoring civil liberties.

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert. Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five. 'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.' Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place. There are currently 4.5 million genetic samples on the UK database - the largest in Europe - but police believe more are required to reduce crime further. 'The number of unsolved crimes says we are not sampling enough of the right people,' Pugh told The Observer. However, he said the notion of universal sampling - everyone being forced to give their genetic samples to the database - is currently prohibited by cost and logistics. A recent report from the think-tank Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) called for children to be targeted between the ages of five and 12 with cognitive behavioural therapy, parenting programmes and intensive support. Prevention should start young, it said, because prolific offenders typically began offending between the ages of 10 and 13. Julia Margo, author of the report, entitled 'Make me a Criminal', said: 'You can carry out a risk factor analysis where you look at the characteristics of an individual child aged five to seven and identify risk factors that make it more likely that they would become an offender.' However, she said that placing young children on a database risked stigmatising them by identifying them in a 'negative' way. Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, denounced any plan to target youngsters. 'Whichever bright spark at Acpo thought this one up should go back to the business of policing or the pastime of science fiction novels,' she said. 'The British public is highly respectful of the police and open even to eccentric debate, but playing politics with our innocent kids is a step too far.' Last week it emerged that the number of 10 to 18-year-olds placed on the DNA database after being arrested will have reached around 1.5 million this time next year. Since 2004 police have had the power to take DNA samples from anyone over the age of 10 who is arrested, regardless of whether they are later charged, convicted, or found to be innocent.

Put young children on DNA list, urge police | Society | The Observer

A society without individual liberties has the potential to be crime-free, but at what cost? Our governments are doing the terrorist's work for them.

[Chaossaber314]

A lot of over-protective parents in the states very willingly do this through private organizations as is...

[grandpa]

Quote by: Chaossaber314 A lot of over-protective parents in the states very willingly do this through private organizations as is...

You may be right. It seems this needn't be done through the appropriation of public funds, if it needs to be done at all (I don't think it should be).

Grandpa h.

[HelioPrime]

What's the big deal with it.

Having a DNA database can be a assistance to investigations down the road, especially if you target those who show signs of developing into criminals.

I'm guessing your just assuming the government will also use the DNA against you?

Additionally is there a constitutional bill of rights in the UK that protects your DNA? Is there on in the US? Seems to me everyone just cries violation of liberties all the time but we never really have laws defining what civil liberties are.

[grandpa]

Quote by: HelioPrime What's the big deal with it. Having a DNA database can be a assistance to investigations down the road, especially if you target those who show signs of developing into criminals.

The situation here entails projecting someone as a likely criminal. That is a rather big deal. For many of us, the implications might even be staggering. Currently, each state collects DNA samples according to its own laws and usually only from people who have already been convicted of crimes.

Grandpa h.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Isherwood An example of the evolving police-state proponents relying on ongoing scientific studies to justify ignoring civil liberties. Put young children on DNA list, urge police | Society | The Observer A society without individual liberties has the potential to be crime-free, but at what cost? Our governments are doing the terrorist's work for them.

Wasn't there a movie based on the premise of going after criminals before they commit crimes; something called Minority Report?

The sad thing about this, besides the obvious erosion of liberty, is that the sheeple will gladly go along with it, if not clamor for it, under some mistaken notion of feeling safer.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: HelioPrime What's the big deal with it. Having a DNA database can be a assistance to investigations down the road, especially if you target those who show signs of developing into criminals. I'm guessing your just assuming the government will also use the DNA against you? Additionally is there a constitutional bill of rights in the UK that protects your DNA? Is there on in the US? Seems to me everyone just cries violation of liberties all the time but we never really have laws defining what civil liberties are.

I don't know about the UK but in the US it's unreasonable seizure (see the fourth amendment). Congress can't simply pass a federal law mandating that a sample of every child's DNA be kept on file.

It is not the role of law to define what civil liberties are. If you read the Constitution's first 10 amendments, it's clear that certain liberties were already assumed to exist and that the amendments placed limits on the government with regard to those liberties.

[HelioPrime]

Quote by: Chancellor Wasn't there a movie based on the premise of going after criminals before they commit crimes; something called Minority Report? The sad thing about this, besides the obvious erosion of liberty, is that the sheeple will gladly go along with it, if not clamor for it, under some mistaken notion of feeling safer.

And what's wrong with the minority report concept?

Obviously predicting the future is a little out of our reach but if you are able to gain intelligence suggesting someone is highly likely of doing a crime what's wrong with prevention? That's akin to saying even if the government knew 9/11 was being planned it should protect the liberties of the terrorists by waiting until they hijack a plane to do anything.

And as for feeling safer why yes, all the other students here at CCSU from the UK feel much safer in a gun free state, with camera's to stop crime, and a nice healthcare system. I wish we could see the US like that someday. Hopefully with a tad more media control so we don't have to be subjected to libertarian rants on how liberties are being violated as they spit their tobacco and cling to their shotguns.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: HelioPrime And what's wrong with the minority report concept?

You're an American and you don't understand the problem with that concept? Does the phrase "innocent until proven guilty" mean anything to you?

Obviously predicting the future is a little out of our reach but if you are able to gain intelligence suggesting someone is highly likely of doing a crime what's wrong with prevention? That's akin to saying even if the government knew 9/11 was being planned it should protect the liberties of the terrorists by waiting until they hijack a plane to do anything.

"Highly likely" doesn't mean the person will commit a crime! The premise of being innocent until proven guilty is an important part of American justice. As for 9/11, there is reason to believe the government knew the planning for it started in the early 1990s after the terrorists failed to blow up the WTC using a truck bomb. Besides, 9/11 was what the CIA calls "blowback" - retaliation for more than 50 years of American interference in Middle Eastern affairs.

And as for feeling safer why yes, all the other students here at CCSU from the UK feel much safer in a gun free state, with camera's to stop crime, and a nice healthcare system. I wish we could see the US like that someday. Hopefully with a tad more media control so we don't have to be subjected to libertarian rants on how liberties are being violated as they spit their tobacco and cling to their shotguns.

Those of you stupid enough to give up liberty for a little security don't deserve to have either one.

[Jack]

What is going on in Britain anyway?

MI5 seeks powers to trawl records in new terror hunt Millions of commuters could have their private movements around cities secretly monitored under new counter-terrorism powers being sought by the security services. Records of journeys made by people using smart cards that allow 17 million Britons to travel by underground, bus and train with a single swipe at the ticket barrier are among a welter of private information held by the state to which MI5 and police counter-terrorism officers want access in order to help identify patterns of suspicious behaviour. The request by the security services, described by shadow Home Secretary David Davis last night as 'extraordinary', forms part of a fierce Whitehall debate over how much access the state should have to people's private lives in its efforts to combat terrorism. The fear of cyber-warfare has climbed Whitehall's agenda since last year's attack on the Baltic nation of Estonia, in which Russian hackers swamped state servers with millions of electronic messages until they collapsed. The Estonian defence and foreign ministries and major banks were paralysed, while even its emergency services call system was temporarily knocked out: the attack was seen as a warning that battles once fought by invading armies or aerial bombardment could soon be replaced by virtual, but equally deadly, wars in cyberspace. While such new threats may grab headlines, the critical question for the new security agenda is how far Britain is prepared to go in tackling them. What are the limits of what we want our security services to know? And could they do more to identify suspects before they strike? One solution being debated in Whitehall is an unprecedented unlocking of data held by public bodies, such as the Oyster card records maintained by Transport for London and smart cards soon to be introduced in other cities in the UK, for use in the war against terror. The Office of the Information Commissioner, the watchdog governing data privacy, confirmed last night that it had discussed the issue with government but declined to give details, citing issues of national security. Currently the security services can demand the Oyster records of specific individuals under investigation to establish where they have been, but cannot trawl the whole database. But supporters of calls for more sharing of data argue that apparently trivial snippets - like the journeys an individual makes around the capital - could become important pieces of the jigsaw when fitted into a pattern of other publicly held information on an individual's movements, habits, education and other personal details. That could lead, they argue, to the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects. Critics, however, fear a shift towards US-style 'data mining', a controversial technique using powerful computers to sift and scan millions of pieces of data, seeking patterns of behaviour which match the known profiles of terrorist suspects. They argue that it is unfair for millions of innocent people to have their privacy invaded on the off-chance of finding a handful of bad apples. Jago Russell, policy officer at the campaign group Liberty, said technological advances had made 'mass computerised fishing expeditions' easier to undertake, but they offered no easy answers. 'The problem is what do you do once you identify somebody who has a profile that suggests suspicions,' he said. 'Once the security services have identified somebody who fits a pattern, it creates an inevitable pressure to impose restrictions.' Individuals wrongly identified as suspicious might lose high-security jobs, or have their immigration status brought into doubt, he said. Ministers are also understood to share concerns over civil liberties, following public opposition to ID cards, and the debate is so sensitive that it may not even form part of Brown's published strategy. The nightmare scenario now emerging is its use by terrorists as a so-called 'force multiplier' - combining a cyber-attack to paralyse the emergency services with a simultaneous atrocity such as the London Tube bombings. Victims would literally have nowhere to turn for help, raising the death toll and sowing immeasurable panic. 'Instead of using three or four aircraft as in 9/11, you could do one major event and then screw up the communications network behind the emergency services, or attack the Underground control network so you have one bomb but you lock up the whole network,' says Davis. 'You take the ramifications of the attack further. The other thing to bear in mind is that we are ultimately vulnerable because London is a financial centre.' In other words, cyber-warfare does not have to kill to bring a state to its knees: hackers could, for example, wipe electronic records detailing our bank accounts, turning millionaires into apparent paupers overnight.

(Source)

[Compugasm]

Quote by: HelioPrime I'm guessing your just assuming the government will also use the DNA against you?

Jesus, they couldn't even lie about it, and say they wanted to identify some preventable diseases. The government wants to identify you as "an offender". The stated purpose, couldn't be any clearer to you Helio.

Quote by: HelioPrime And what's wrong with the minority report concept?

Whoa.... man. Seriously, what is it with you and punishment?

One solution being debated in Whitehall is an unprecedented unlocking of data held by public bodies, such as the Oyster card records maintained by Transport for London

For everyone who said "Slipery slope, slippery slope". What do you say now! I TOLD YOU SO! It's only a matter of time, before they want a nice database they can "trawl", as they put it. Shit, the only thing that could possibly be better is a pre-cog Minority Report method which many people just can't wait to impliment. You're delisional if any of this is belived to make you safer. It simply turns everyone into a criminal. I can't be the only one who sees this. It's sicking. I've had enough of this board for today.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Compugasm For everyone who said "Slipery slope, slippery slope". What do you say now! I TOLD YOU SO! It's only a matter of time, before they want a nice database they can "trawl", as they put it. Shit, the only thing that could possibly be better is a pre-cog Minority Report method which many people just can't wait to impliment. You're delisional if any of this is belived to make you safer. It simply turns everyone into a criminal. I can't be the only one who sees this. It's sicking. I've had enough of this board for today.

You are surely not the only one seeing it, as a matter fact, your often ridiculing the ones who attempt to warn you of such dangers.


How many of the things we ( allegely "crazed libertarians" ) predicted in our time on this boards have come to pass?


But go ahead, cling to your notion that the current government respects your voice, or protects your best interets.


Just imagine these control freaks with nanotechnology. ( shivers )

[Fangrim]

I really don't see what the big deal is here...

What civil liberty is being infringed, exactly?

On another point, like Helio, I don't see what's so wrong with punishing attempts to commit crimes, nor do I see the problem with identifying individuals who will be more prone to commit crime in the future.
There aren't even any liberties at stake here. It's an information database. Not even enough for right-to-privacy activists to get upset about. Just some stupid DNA configurations.

On the privacy part, it's as big a deal as the government taking your hair and eye color for your drivers' license.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Fangrim I really don't see what the big deal is here... What civil liberty is being infringed, exactly? On another point, like Helio, I don't see what's so wrong with punishing attempts to commit crimes, nor do I see the problem with identifying individuals who will be more prone to commit crime in the future. There aren't even any liberties at stake here. It's an information database. Not even enough for right-to-privacy activists to get upset about. Just some stupid DNA configurations. On the privacy part, it's as big a deal as the government taking your hair and eye color for your drivers' license.

Of course you don't, but then you don't have a problem with the concept of enslaving others to suit your own personal needs, so I don't think anybody was really attempting to appeal to your rational side.

[Fangrim]

Quote by: Milton Bradley Of course you don't, but then you don't have a problem with the concept of enslaving others to suit your own personal needs, so I don't think anybody was really attempting to appeal to your rational side.

Then I guess you'll concede that there IS indeed no liberty being infringed here, but you are all just abiding by your knee-jerk reaction of "the government is doing something, bad"?

[Chaossaber314]

Quote by: grandpa You may be right. It seems this needn't be done through the appropriation of public funds, if it needs to be done at all (I don't think it should be). Grandpa h.

They're always advertised as being beneficial in the event that your child is kidnapped, but short of implanting a GPS transponder in your child (which as far as I know most of these systems or services don't do), I never understood what this would really do except allow you to identify the body should your child end up kidnapped and mutilated so badly they can't figure out who they are from more traditional means like say... dental records. Frankly, if my kid gets abducted and is mutilated in the process so bad that their teeth are missing, I'd rather not know what happened to them so at least I can retain hope that something that terrible didn't happen to them...

Maybe that's just me.


In terms of the safety vs. liberty argument. Can someone explain to me how this would really make us safer? I think I'm missing something. If you identify traits common in hardened criminals you focus on things that tend to go together like race, gender, socioeconomic status, education, substance abuse, family history of mental illness, family structure, etc. All things you can figure out without a DNA database, and all things most countries already have databases covering. Fact is, the information they claim to be wanting to obtain from this is already available and thoroughly researched. We already know the factors that tend to go together with criminal activity. We already know the people who are the most likely to become criminals.

In that respect, it is for this very reason that we cannot prejudge people based upon their likelihood of committing crimes.

I mean, we know that your average criminal is disproportionately a black male coming from a low socioeconomic background, lacking education, lacking a strong family structure courtesy of young ill prepared parents, all of which provides a good foundation for antisocial personality disorder, who is abusing at least 2 substances habitually if not more, etc etc.

However, does this mean that all black males fitting this criteria are criminals? Of course not. Not even close. That's why you can't prejudge people based on general qualifications. It makes the system inherently flawed by mistaking correlations for causations.

I listed all those criteria with the agenda of pointing out that socioeconomic status has been shown linked to every single item I listed. So if you want to prejudge people before they commit crimes, arrest all the poor people. If you don't have the stomach for that then your only solution is to wait for the pre-cogs.

[Compugasm]

Quote by: Milton Bradley You are surely not the only one seeing it, as a matter fact..

You misunderstood. I agree with you MB.

Quote by: Fangrim Then I guess you'll concede that there IS indeed no liberty being infringed here, but you are all just abiding by your knee-jerk reaction of "the government is doing something, bad"?

I will concede one point. That people willingly give up information because at the moment, there is no harm in doing so. But explain how "suspicious" transportation records will defeat "the fear of cyber-warfare" as the article claims. It can't. At least until they snap your picture on those TV cameras, and instantly access your transporation history, your phone records, bank records, and now, even your DNA! Technically, you're not guilty of anything, yet! But sure enough they'll pass some law to create offenders out of that ripe database of potential criminals. See, you've given them the access to that information willingly, without understanding it's importance. All they need, is enough centralized databases. It isn't crazy talk, because the article above states these facts, you just refuse to belive it, or simply don't understand what the big deal is.

Quote by: Zbigniew Brzezinski It will soon be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and to maintain up-to-date, complete files, containing even most personal information about the health or personal behavior of the citizen in addition to more customary data. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. - From the book Between Two Ages, pub:1971

Knowledge is power.

[Fangrim]

Quote by: Compugasm I will concede one point. That people willingly give up information because at the moment, there is no harm in doing so. But explain how "suspicious" transportation records will defeat "the fear of cyber-warfare" as the article claims. It can't. At least until they snap your picture on those TV cameras, and instantly access your transporation history, your phone records, bank records, and now, even your DNA! Technically, you're not guilty of anything, yet! But sure enough they'll pass some law to create offenders out of that ripe database of potential criminals. See, you've given them the access to that information willingly, without understanding it's importance. All they need, is enough centralized databases. It isn't crazy talk, because the article above states these facts, you just refuse to belive it, or simply don't understand what the big deal is.

Sure I'll believe it. The government will use information for many purposes, including criminal justice.

I say, go for it.

[Compugasm]

Just hypothetically, what if Volconvo becomes a "site of interest" to the government? Are you willing to risk posting here?

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Compugasm Just hypothetically, what if Volconvo becomes a "site of interest" to the government? Are you willing to risk posting here?

I assume it is already on that list, but I'm not crossing any lines, so I have nothing to worry about.