Op-Ed Contributor - To Stop Crime, Share Your Genes

from NYTimes.com:

OP-ED Contributor
To Stop Crime, Share Your Genes
By MICHAEL SERINGHAUS
Published: March 14, 2010

PERHAPS the only thing more surprising than President Obama's decision to give an interview for "America's Most Wanted" last weekend was his apparent agreement with the program's host, John Walsh, that there should be a national DNA database with profiles of every person arrested, whether convicted or not. Many Americans feel that this proposal flies in the face of our "innocent until proven guilty" ethos, and given that African-Americans are far more likely to be arrested than whites, critics refer to such genetic collection as creating "Jim Crow's database."

In truth, however, this is an issue where both sides are partly right. The president was correct in saying that we need a more robust DNA database, available to law enforcement in every state, to "continue to tighten the grip around folks who have perpetrated these crimes." But critics have a point that genetic police work, like the sampling of arrestees, is fraught with bias. A better solution: to keep every American's DNA profile on file.

What a *COLOSSALLY* bad idea!

What about the right to privacy?

What about folks who DISAGREE with the idea that the USG should have the genetic patterns of every American on file?

Imagine the power that it would give them--you could be tracked anywhere you left a hair or skin cells, or blood. The potential for abuse and misuse is *STAGGERING*.

But Seringhaus goes on, at one point explaining away our security fears by saying:

Your sensitive genetic information would be safe.

*HA!*

Sure, like mercury levels in the fish in the rivers of the continental US? Or like my parents who grew up thinking cigarettes and DDT were generally safe?

Asking anyone to trust the United States government with just about anything these days proves the low IQ of the one asking.

And what's with Obama's attitude about wanting to keep all DNA of *everyone* ever arrested? Is Obama becoming Big Brutha? (HA! Sorry, couldn't resist.) But seriously, this kind of attitude from a guy promising change is bringing change from the wrong direction.

So, thanks, Michael "police state" Seringhaus, for wanting to bring us back in time to 1984.

Funny--I was just commenting on a netfriend's Buzz post about how I've been saying for years that the only thing Orwell got wrong was the date.

Posted via web from thepete's posterous