What Privacy? UK DNA Database Could Grow Fast 290
An unnamed and unsampled reader writes: "According to the BBC The UK home secretary is expanding the police DNA database to include innocent people. And, of course, these can be taken without your consent if the police have 'reasonable' grounds. The police state (RIP bill, etc.) emerging in the UK is looking less and less 'reasonable' every day." The article cites Home Secretary Jack Straw as making a comparison that may strike him as more attractive than it does me, namely likening DNA testing to widespread video surveillance. According to Straw, the "introduction of closed circuit television in streets and shopping centres had been seen at the time as an attack on civil liberties but [is] now welcomed by the public." Anyone from that side of the water feel that way?
Bye bye blighty (Score:2)
Cops are dangerous (Score:5)
DNA samples can be taken without consent from people who are arrested if there are "reasonable grounds for believing they are involved in a recordable offence (ie one for which they could serve a custodial sentence)".
Few refuse because to do so may encourage police suspicions about their guilt.
At present authorisation for the forcible removal of a sample - usually using a mouth swab - has to be given by a superintendent.
But Mr Straw is proposing reducing this to an officer of inspector rank.
My goodness. I do not want the police oin control of databanks like this! Nobody should have them.. DNA charts should be maintained by the families that possess them, and perhaps by doctors.
Obviously, more people have to refuse when officers demand a DNA search! Make it a political stand, not an admission of guilt- because DNA not only links you like a fingerprint would to a crime scene, it also provides information on your medical history and that of your family.
I do not know the UK law system very well, but does the system have a fifth amendment type protection against self incrimination? Then again, the right not to self-incriminate does not prevent law enforcement from encroaching upon DNA privacies in this country as well...
NYC Surveillance Camera Project (Score:1)
Won't take long. (Score:2)
How useful is this, really? (Score:4)
That said, I find it pretty creepy that any body would have the legal (if not moral) right to compile databases of DNA information "just in case." So much for the presumption of innocence!
FPP! (Score:1)
Re:White DNA is the best DNA (Score:1)
Fight censors!
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:2)
No, there is not. In fact, there have been several cases convicted purely on the basis of confessions that were later withdrawn! (Fortunately, that practice has since been outlawed in the aftermath of the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4 inquiries).
Re:How useful is this, really? (Score:1)
Too lazy to register (Score:5)
You are in violation (Score:1)
Secret Service Agents are following you right now to arrest you for impersonating a president.
Of course if you give me your userid, we might be able to make a deal...
The President of the United States of America
Guns! (Score:1)
(fear those 5 words).
________
Re:How useful is this, really? (Score:1)
Fight censors!
You may not know that (Score:1)
It's a different world out their.
So George Orwell was right after all (Score:1)
CCTV in the UK (Score:1)
CCTV is pretty widespread over here now, and yes, it is widely welcomed. It provides a feeling of safety and monitoring that many people welcome.
But to compare the keeping of DNA records on every citizen ever questioned by the police is an affront to our civil liberties, such as they are nowadays. I do not want the government to hold my incredibly rare personal make-up anywhere. The chances of mis-identification by DNA and the ability to abuse these data scares me.
Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:5)
DNA databases are an entirely different issue. A DNA database can be used to match repeat offenders of crimes, provided strict rules are in place to prevent the usage of this database for anything other than crime solving. (Yes, even convicted criminals have rights, that's necessary for the entire concept of rehabilitation to work.) But DNA databases of innocent civilians? This is unacceptable. The only acceptable use of DNA by government would be in solving crimes, but when government begins an investigation with a presumption of guilt, then a lot of innocent people are sent to prison. Is it justice to send a person to prison for murder because one of their hairs fell onto the murderer earlier that day and was carried to the crime scene?
We have no need to catalogue and number the general population using the body's serial number. This is no different from branding a person with a serial number on the arm and setting up a device that can track everyone wherever they go by their serial number. It serves no greater good, only abuse.
Re:OT- why don't nazis ever own up? (Score:1)
Fight censors!
Not just in the Uk (Score:1)
I think it more sinister having those damn security cameras everywhere - I am not in the actors guild but heck I am sure I get on film just as much...
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Re:Too lazy to register (Score:4)
If your DNA were needed to get criminals off the street, then you must be a criminal. Personally, I am not one. My DNA is of no use for crime prevention, and I resent the implication that it is needed.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Questionable (Score:2)
Judging by what is happening here, it looks as if the officials have used the above argument as a way to get their metaphorical foot in the door on DNA databasing, so that they can eventually build up a comprehensive database of the populous.
IMO, this stinks. I don't want to seem alarmist, but there are very real, very genuine privacy issues that are being dealt with here, and I'm willing to bet that the majority of the public in the UK doesn't know anything about it, and I think that's a shame.
As for the CC Surveylence, I have absolutely no issues with such systems being implemented in public places. These have been shown to decrease vandalism and violent crime drastically, as well as increasing the feeling of safety among members of the community. Good stuff.
Is privacy salvageable (Score:2)
Unfortunately or not, the list of dead certainties is long. If there is one thing that can be learnt from Western history, it is that, as a civilization, we will use any technology that we can use. That is what defines us. Economists now talk about "disruptive inventions" as a new thing. But they are as old as print and gunpowder, and if we know ourselves we know that we cannot have enough disruption ( as long as it increases our ability to do things).
That does not mean that technology is deterministic. we do shape it to fit our preconceptions; we do try to fit it within old legal and political structures ( cf. Napster) . But we ( as a civilization) just do not say, 'No Thanks'.
given this copious history, my feeling is that too many privacy mourners are barking at the wrong tree. We now have the technology to track individuals in their everyday life and access that knowledge with growing efficiency. Whether it is good or bad is rather irrelevent. Does this technology increase power? Can we do, thanks to it, what we couldn't do yesterday, or do it with less expenses? Does it create wealth? It seems that the answear is a triple yes. Extrapolating from the past, I believe it is a sure bet that this technology will be widely adopted across the developed world in two decades.
Culture matters! In the UK and France, the government will hold the keys. Scandinavians will put the new databases under public control while the Americans will pretend that as long as its Visa rather than Uncle Sam that knows all about you than it is ok. But we will all use it, ( to all those who think the US is different, btw, New York City is already widely covered by video surveillance)
So what should we do ,Give up? I think we need to recognize that while privacy as we know it is as good as dead, power isn't. We will lose our privacy. But it is up to us whether we will also lose the power over our life that privacy affords us and because of which we value it. Rather than bitch about privacy itself, we should concerns ourselves with the way the new technologies alter the balance of power in society and concentrate on new mechanisms that compensate for it.
NPR Discussion (Score:3)
-OctaneZ
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:4)
Although I understand what you are saying I completely disagree.
Yes, if someone kidnapped my daughter and all I had to do was give some spit to give her back, it all seems reasonable. But you're putting it in a context of a personal situation as compared to a societal, and one is different from the other. If you ask me if everone in the country should give a DNA sample to the government to solve a sticky case that pops up tomorrow, I would say no way in hell. Freedom has a price, and someone able to get away with murder sometimes is the price for us all not being followed around by a government policeman all day.
Let me ask you this. A better way of finding criminals is to put a non-removable tracking bracelet on every citizen, and the government records where everyone is at every moment of the day. That way when a body turns up, the just print out of list of everyone who was at that location since the murder.
Now the guy I work with would say, "I have nothing to hide, I don't care if everyone knows where I am all the time and what I am doing."
This is so insane to me I don't know where to begin, but I also can't make a good argument against it. It is as if he has no sense of personal freedom or self determination. If someone else can help me out, I would be glad to hear it.
Paranoia is Lame (Score:2)
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:3)
On the contrary, I'd say that everyone has an expectation that their day-to-day public activities are reasonably anonymous. In other words, you expect that it would be difficult for someone to know exactly how you spent your entire day, and that they would have to go to the expense of hiring one or more people to follow you to obtain this information (similar to how you expect privacy in your home, even though someone can spy through a window using binoculars.
The problem is that security cameras, combined with face-recognition software, makes it possible to automatically track a large number of people. Think cookies and web bugs, only for real life, and you can't turn them off. Worried yet?
Mmm, mathematical analysis (Score:2)
Now, the prosecution may say something like this: "There's only a 1 in 10,000 chance that your DNA print matches the DNA print found at the scene! Certainly that's beyond a reasonable doubt!"
But the defense can counter as follows, "What particular DNA print my client has is not in question. He shares that pattern with 99 other people here in Smog City. So there's only a 1 in 100 chance that you're accusing the right person! How's that for reasonable doubt?!"
John Allen Paulos does a nice treatment of just this kind of fallacy/paradox in "Once Upon A Number," his most recent book, as well as perhaps a couple of his other books (I'm guessing "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper").
Re:Bye bye blighty (Score:2)
OK, this is a troll, and it's already been modded down, but I should really clear this up. The RCMP don't do this, and, to the best of my knowledge, can't do this. They'd need a warrant.
Re:Guns! (Score:3)
Slashdoter: It's things like this that make me thankful for the right to own firearms.
At least with a DNA database we'll be aiming our non-existent guns at the right person, rather than just going on random killing sprees that you seem to prefer over there.
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Re:CCTV in the UK (Score:2)
Fancy a laugh?
Under the Data Protection Act in England&Wales (and Scotland IIRC), you have the right to a copy of any data held about you by a company.
This include security firms.
This includes CCTV cameras.
If you walk past a security camera, you can legally demand a copy of the tape every time you walk past.
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Sale of database to insurers? (Score:4)
How big a leap is it from this to "monitoring" people who have a genetic predisposition to violent or compulsive behaviours? Perhaps we'll see mandatory DNA sampling of those who get caught in the net of "geek profiling".
I'd like to make a few observations that may be offensive to people who hold certain political views. This is not a troll, but instead is a straightforward (blunt) statement of my opinions.
1. When you take a people's freedoms by force, there is some hope that they will rise up and reclaim them. When you convince them to give their freedom up willingly, those freedoms will never be restored.
2. Britain is (or soon will be) no longer a free country. Time to take it back or leave. Mayflower II, anyone?
3. This is why the Fourth Amendment [cornell.edu] is a good thing, along with the Second Amendment [cornell.edu] to guarantee that the people always have a last resort against a tyrannical government.
4. My genome is mine. The only people who have any sort of claim on it are my family members. If you want to record, patent, or copy my DNA without my permission, go fuck off and die.
Cops are VERY dangerous (Score:3)
If the police have reasonable cause to do so, they don't need your permission.... yet refusing to allow a search on principle leads to a confrontational situation that may or may not end in a citizen's favor.
Twice now I have been through this conversation:
"Do you mind if I search your vehicle?"
"No, I see no need to search my vehicle."
"Do you have something to hide?"
"No, but you have no cause to search my vehicle."
"If you have nothing to hide, why do you mind if I search your vehicle?"
"Because there is no reason for you to be searching my vehicle."
"You seem nervous. Are you nervous?"
*repeat ad nauseum (for 20 or 30 minutes)*
Of course the cop knows better than the citizen that they have no right to search the vehicle without cause. But still this conversational tactic persists.
A swab in the mouth is arguably less intrusive in the short term than a cop digging McDonald's cartons from under the seat, yet in the long term... the possibility for abuse is terrifying, far more than the possibilities that exist in relation to your car.
"Do you mind if I swab your mouth for the database?" will only escalate the already contentious relationship between the citizenry and the police. And here, we have a situation where it's not only, "Do you have something to hide?" but, "Will you have something to hide in the future?" From the start, such a confrontation will not only set up the citizen as a potential perp at the moment, but a potential long-term criminal....
It has taken a great deal of strength not to look at that gun, get out of my car and say, "Fine. Whatever the fuck you wanna do. I have nothing to hide." People who (a) don't know better, or (b) have less contempt for law enforcement officers are probably at some disadvantage. And it's those people -- people with far less ability to protect themselves from abuse -- that will end up in this database.
But those people are all criminals anyway, right?
I am too drunk to sum it up in any less cheesy way. But you get the point.
And no, I'm not driving tonight.
DNA bank good. Government bad. (Score:2)
And if you deny that a government would misuse such a bank, you're also deluded.
The solution seems obvious. A private company who keeps the data, and only gives it out for legitimate purposes.
Camera on me, please! (Score:3)
I don't see the problem. If you don't want people to see you, don't go out in public. That's how it's always been.
I heard that street crime has practically disappeared in heavily monitored areas in the UK, but I may misremember that.
Re:Guns! (Score:2)
No it doesn't, this is a seemingly logical argument that really doesn't hold up at all when you think about it.
The british had "bigger guns" than the revolutionary army but we still won. The US had bigger guns than the vietnamese but we still lost, and so on.
The simple fact is that its pretty impossible to control a population through military force alone. you can DEFEAT them in a military sense, but then you have to live with them on a day-to-day basis and if they don't want to let you do that, you're in for a long life of painful terrorism -- never knowing if the barber is going to slash your throat or cut your hair. Being an occupying force isn't easy, and doesn't hinge on superior firepower...
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are you the same guy that always suggest this. (Score:2)
Not to mention guns haven't been made illegal in Australia, just many automatics and the more deadly guns have been made so. I'm not sure about policy in other countries.
So tell me, how many times did you rally up your troops about carnivore or when net porn was temporarily banned in America. Friggin None (I hope).
Ahh message was probably just flame bait anyway.
Re:How useful is this, really? (Score:3)
I've been taught (just this past semester, no less) that the accuracy of the test depends on the number of loci (specific places on the DNA strand) examined, and that there is no set figure for the odds of an incorrect match.
Here's why:
The human DNA sequence is too large to look at as a whole, so biologists realized that they could use things called restriction enzymes to isolate small fragments of the entire sequence. The trick is to find locations which vary a lot in the population. If you looked at a segment the codes for toes, for instance, the odds of finding a match would be pretty good.
So if you find a large number (say 15 or 20) of these loci which vary greatly in the population, the odds of an incorrect match are quite small. I can't remember exact figures, but they are much less than 1 in 10,000.
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chahast AT pangaea FOO dhs FOO org
s/FOO/dot
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:2)
He does have something to hide (Score:4)
Does your coworker ever pick his nose? Does he ever secretly read books written by Rush Limbaugh and assert that he is a Democrat to gain peer acceptance? Does he ever laugh at racist jokes?
Does your coworker ever dislike the government's policy about something? Has he ever felt morally obligated to disobey that policy because it was so heinous? There is a thing called Civil Disobedience - in America we regard it as a duty to disobey unjust laws. True, Civil Disobedience is supposed to be a public act, but the practical side of Civil Disobedience is that it can gain momentum by offering the anonymity of the group - anonymity which can be taken away when we let this kind of technology be used by those who govern.
And if we've learned anything with /., it's that if a technology can be used to do something, it will be. If a DNA database exists, it will be used by people who want to pick out political dissidents. It will be used whether you want them to or not, whether that use is "legal" or not, it will be used because it CAN be used. Our governments have the power to access this technology, to use it for nefarious purposes, and therefore they will. Maybe they'll get caught, but they'll do it.
Did you believe those websites when they said your credit card information would be securely stored where no cracker could ever possibly get to it? Do you believe them now? Now ask yourself - do you believe the DNA database will be uncrackable? Do you believe no one can be smart enough, or bribe enough people, or have the right friends, to get access to this knowledge?
And once access is gained, does your coworker KNOW everything that can be done with it? I don't. Neither do you. Neither does he. But I didn't know the flags set on your TCP packets could be used to tell what OS sent the packet, either, and therefore used to figure out how to crack the machine - now I do. All information given away gives away power. And this is an egregious amount of information - this is YOU, down to your toenails.
Don't let them just take it.
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Re:Too lazy to register (Score:2)
Your DNA isn't needed so much as your willingness to submit it. By submitting your DNA without protest, you silently advocate that a criminal's DNA be on file, when he first COMMITS a crime (which is when it is needed)... not after he gets caught. If you don't submit your DNA to the database, however, you allow a future criminal to make that same choice as you, and thereby make it more difficult to catch him when he does commit a crime.
I think you should read the act (Score:4)
They still do not have the right to do anything that is contrary to the Human Rights act. That includes taking DNA without permission or a warrant and keeping it without a conviction.
I have not read the BBCs article but I have read the act. I also have a copy of RIP and that does not give them the super powers that you read about here either.
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:2)
The one thing i'm afraid of is the complete accuracy of the DNA information, they said it was accurate to 1 in 10,000 people. I don't like those odds. Just the other night I was arrested by a Cop because of inaccurate information. The dispatcher reported to the cop that My license was suspended, so they arrested me. I lost a day of work because someone didn't know how to do their job.
Re:Paranoia is Lame (Score:4)
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.
Why you are wrong (Score:2)
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:2)
Nonsense. In a high profile rape case in Australia (an elderly woman was raped and savagely bashed), the entire adult male population of the town where the crime occured volunteered to provide DNA samples. Except one... I believe he tried to flee, but was arrested and eventually convicted.
DNA screening is not grounds for conviction on its own, so unless your DNA matches and there are other grounds to believe you were responsible for the crime. DNA samples are just as important - if not more important, given limited police resources - for determining who isn't a suspect. If you're not a criminal, what have you got to hide?
Re:Bye bye blighty (Score:3)
There's two major points wrong with this comment, apart from the rhetoric:
1) The UK Labour party is socialist? When did that happen? They haven't been a socialist party for 20 years. Even they don't claim they're socialist.
2) Socialists don't have respect for individual rights? What about: abolition of slavery, votes for women, votes for non-landowners, vote by secret ballot, abortion rights,national health service, state pension, minimum wage, gay rights etc. All of the above were (or are) opposed in the UK by the Conservatives and supported by the socialists.
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Re:Won't take long. (Score:2)
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:2)
We do have some form of self-incrimination protection - firstly we have a right not to answer questions put to us (and silence, as I recall, can't be taken to infer guilt) while the Human Rights Act [hmso.gov.uk] gives us some protection, too. Sorry, not a lawyer so I don't know the details.
I can actually see why they want to do this - there have been cases in Britain of convictions getting thrown out as, even though there was good evidence, part of the evidence was a DNA sample which was taken in a previous investigation but didn't result in a conviction and it wasn't thrown away (whew!). Still not sure it's a good idea, mind you, but it's not as bad as it might look.
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:3)
Tell me you haven't fallen for that old and tired fallacy. I do have things to hide just like everybody. That's, in fact, why we have the concept of privacy in the first place.
If a horrific crime had been committed and the police would come to me asking for a DNA sample I most definitely would NOT give it to them if it was for screening purposes only. I didn't do it and that's it. I don't want my DNA ending up in some database even after I've been found innocent.
On the other hand, if the police could come up with GOOD reasons regarding why I, in particular, should provide a sample then I would consider it. Good reasons would be like a witness reporting that I had been near the crime scene just before the incident, or someone claiming that I did it. Limited police resources are not a good reason to go rounding up all the people for a test.
But for a brute force method like in your case... no way.
Re:are you the same guy that always suggest this. (Score:2)
It is worth noting that the American freedom to own a gun is seen here as a reason that they have a per capita murder rate 100 times greater than ours. If guns were kept in cabinets in the US then their children might stop taking them to school. Also, in America, the criminals also find it easy to get guns because of the freedom. Here because all guns are kept in safes, it is hard to get one illegaly.
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:2)
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:2)
Someone did the research a little while ago and looked up how long a cop on the beat would have to walk around for before they were statistically likely to catch some criminal act. Assuming normal work patterns and so on, the figure was something like 80 years!
All it does is pacify a nervous, misinformed public who've been told by right-wing politicians and media that it's the only metric worth considering. No matter that they actually caused most of the problems, because the current bunch aren't attempting to tackle them in the misguided way they'd like and pandering to ignorance, they're clearly not doing a good job.
A greater percentage of our policemen on the beat would increase crime levels as they wouldn't be able to properly develop and use intelligence, or respond rapidly to distress calls. After all, which would you prefer if you've just dialled 999 / 911 / 112 (pick one depending on area) - to hope there's a policeman within 5-10 minutes walk who can amble across to you, or to know there's one in a car who can drive over and thus cover a far greater area with the same response times?
We need to get beyond kneejerk politics and listen to the academic researchers, people.
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:3)
"You have the right to remain silent, but it may harm your defense if you fail to mention something which you rely on in court"
Not quite the same really...
I left the UK just over a year ago and moved to amsterdam, the police here are *nice*, *Friendly* and *helpful*. The laws are vaguely sensible, and Jack Straw isn't here.
Oh, and street crime is almost non-existant. Funny that.
The UK disgusts me now, the way they are going...
Re:Questionable (Score:2)
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:2)
The Netherlands are interesting as a social study in some ways so glad to hear you like it.
And I'd happily work to get rid of Jack Straw
Re:Sale of database to insurers? (Score:2)
Re:One solution... (Score:2)
This confuses me. Do you yanks really think perfect teeth are more important than being thin? I'd rather have one tooth out of place and weigh 210 pounds than have perfect teeth and weigh 400 pounds. And if you knew anything about the UK you'd know that we haven't joined the Euro yet. Anyway why would I want a gun when I can defend myself fine with my fists and feet, although I wouldn't expect a yank to know anything about exercise more strenuous than a walk from the car park to McDonalds.
Nope (Score:2)
And not because of some triumph of principle, but because after a while it just wasn't entertaining for them anymore, and there were other things to occupy their time.
I keep reading the sentence that I just wrote, and each time I get a little more frustrated. In both cases, I was pulled over for trivial things, like failing to use a turn signal at 1AM on a deserted street. Technically, I guess, I broke the law. But you know... why should I ever be in a position in which I am forced to defend myself like that? We all know I was pulled over not because of an exceedingly minor traffic violation, but because the cop harbored hopes that something more significant would arise. Yes, his job is to enforce even exceedingly minor traffic violations. But if I were a 50 year old woman driving a brand new Cadillac... who here thinks that violation would have been enforced? (You caught me! I'm a twenty-something male in a not-so-new vehicle...)
If I had been stopped and simply reminded to use my signal -- or even ticketed for it -- and left to go on my way, I wouldn't be writing an enormous diatribe on Slashdot right now.
The "Why are you nervous?" question both cracks me up and infuriates me. Yes, when I'm driving down the street doing nothing horrendously wrong, transporting nothing illegal, minding my own business, and a person with a gun (and the power to do, ultimately, pretty much anything they want) forces me to stop and begins questioning me with the clear presumption that I must be a criminal, using rhetorical techniques and body language and other actions expressly designed to intimidate, I'm probably not going to be reacting to things "normally." Especially when I'm trying really hard to exercise my rights in the face of someone who ought to understand them better than me, and yet is pretending not to in hopes of an entertaining bust. And of course, all the while I have to work equally hard not to be the irritating smartass I want to be, to prevent the situation from escalating. Best of all, this all plays nicely into their game: sufficient "nervousness" or "hostility" can probably be construed as probable cause, if they want it to be. And then I'm going to have to open my mouth for that swab if eight cops have to hold me down to do it.
Re:I think you should read the act (Score:2)
Re:ok now what? (Score:2)
Actaully don't do that - it'd just be creating a martyr...
The british tabloids are great at discrediting politicians - surely Jackie boy must have some odd little habits like old J.E. Hoover did....
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:2)
So when you hear "I'm from the government, trust me", you believe it?
Here's a good example:
Census is only supposed to be used for statistics, nothing more. Guess what they used to round up Japanese Americans in WWII? Without any proof that they had or will do anything wrong
Now let's extend this some. X % of the people with this RFLP polymorphism are criminals. Let's throw 'em all in jail to prevent crime.
Re:I think you should read the act (Score:2)
Apparently, Brits don't have the distrust of government that seems inherent in Americans. It just seems amazing to me that people are so willing to trade liberty for (perceived) saftey.
+1 Insightful (Doesn't help tracking prob, though) (Score:2)
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Re:Par for the course (Score:2)
For example:
"America has in there bill of rights stuff about free speach but if you say what you think then you get your yourself taken to court."
The actual fact is that it is much harder to bring a libel case in the US than it is in Britain. In the US public figures cannot bring libel cases unless you can prove intent to do harm by publishing facts that you knew were incorrect, which is extremely difficult. The libel standards in Britain are much lower, making it much harder to publish freely.
The fact is that the US rights to freedom of the press and freedom of speech are MUCH stronger than they are in Britain, and have been for over 200 years.
Other Perspective (Score:2)
1. ths subject was convicted of a serious crime (rape, manslaughter, blackmail, ...)
2. there is the expection that the convict will be recidivous.
The simple collection of a DNA sample to compare against a given piece of evidence is allowed (with certain checks) but the sample and collected information has to be destroyed afterwards.
So what happens if we go to war... (Score:2)
Re:Sale of database to insurers? (Score:2)
I am afraid the British found out in the case of the Dunblane massacre that laws against guns don't prevent shooting sprees.
Re:British are Masochists Anyway (Score:2)
Travel to these other countries, and you will find NO English restaurants! British cuisine is the WORST in the world.
Fish paste sandwhiches! Pah!
Companies can keep privacy (Score:2)
One example is banks, whose secrecy is famous and hated by governments everywhere. Auditing and accounting are other fields where loose lips will kill your business.
Re:How useful is this, really? (Score:2)
update [dna_table]
set dna = crime_scene_dna
where name = 'Some shleap we brought in and want to nail this on'
That'd take, what, 1ns to do?
My quick viewpoint, for what it's worth. (Score:2)
Certainly child molesters and serial killers commit deplorable acts against individuals, but they don't frighten me in the least as compared to a controlling and all powerful government who commits equally deplorable acts against entire nations!
Re:Cops are dangerous (Score:2)
Someone did the research a little while ago and looked up how long a cop on the beat would have to walk around for before they were statistically likely to catch some criminal act. Assuming normal work patterns and so on, the figure was something like 80 years!
Without more information, that statistic is useless. For example, might that be because there will be little or no crime to catch in an area where there is a cop on the beat just around the corner?
Other useful things would include setting 'quotas' based on the importance and prevalence of a crime rather than on potential revenue. One armed assault should be worth 1000 speeding tickets for example. (Consider this, would you as a citizen rather encounter 1000 speeders or one armed assailant?)
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:2)
If there are already crowds around you, then you have no expectation of privacy, and you already know you're being observed directly by the crowd around you.
Really, in that case, it depends on how the video is being used. If it is sinply displayed in the security office, or even recorded and wiped the next day, it is fine. If it is archived, the problems start. While I have no expectation of privacy in a crowded mall, I do have the expectation that just a short time later, all of those people will remember me only in the aggrigate and couldn't describe me or anything I did or said at all. They certainly wouldn't be able to say this person comes in every friday at 7PM, walks around the mall twice and leaves (or whatever).
I am in full agreement wrt. DNA database.
for a change ?? (Score:2)
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:2)
I think you're jumping the gun a bit there. Facial recognition (at anywhere like human levels of ability) is one of the hardest problems in AI, and it's nowhere near to being solved just yet.
It will be solved one day. When it is, it will be far too easy to quietly plug it into the existing infrastructure of cameras without any fanfare. Decisions made now strongly affect the future.
In the U.S., we are strongly affected by decisions made over 200 years ago by people who could never have imagined our daily reality. All things considered, they did a good job, but we do have problems from things that they (understandably) failed to anticipate.
That's a good point (Score:2)
Now it's a simple matter to figure out how to make one of them be around the area you plan a crime, and plant 10% of the loot somewhere in the vicims home. The police come looking based on the database, they find some evidence - case closed!
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:2)
DNA testing can always demonstrate innocence without a massive database. If law enforcement has a sample of DNA they suspect belongs to the guilty party, and you are wrongly a strong suspect, you can vindicate yourself by giving a DNA sample and demonstrating that they don't match, Databases do not help the innocent, they only threaten them.
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:2)
Nothing more than stops police from doing this to people they see on the street. I bet it already happens sometimes, but surveilance in areas where the cop could already be walking effectively wouldn't really change the current state of things very much.
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:2)
DNA doesn't ensure a conviction. A solid alibi trumps DNA (DNA can hang around for quite a while). It simply helps confirm whether a particular suspect was or was not the perp. It is not the end-all, be-all of modern crime scene investigation. You would certainly be crying out for DNA if you were jailed and you didn't do it...
Actually, you have just demonstrated the pitfalls of a DNA database! Scientifically (and they do claim science in the courts by calling it scientific evidence), DNA can only exclude a suspect. The presense of a matching sample only says the person is still a suspect, it's absence strongly (but not absolutely) excludes the suspect from further suspicion.
Solid alibis are hard to come by. I was on my way home at the time: did anybody see you on your way home who would recognize you?, I was at home with my wife: Of course she WOULD say that, I was working late, I signed out after the crime : so you slipped out, offed the guy, then came back to sign out...
You also presume that in the presence of a 'cop-o-matic' type database where you just go collect samples, run them in the database, and out pops a list of suspects in order of liklihood (based on amount of DNA, criminal history, race [yes, racial profiling happens every day in the U.S. at least] etc), that detectives won't get lazy or simply be overworked. Believe me, the DNA database will become the FIRST tool used, not the last. All other investigation will be colored by the results from the 'cop-o-matic'. This isn't the case now simply because there is no such database. The legwork is done now because they have to track down suspect samples to compare.
If I were jailed and I didn't do it, I would then be perfectly willing to provide a sample to hopefully exclude me from suspicion. There would be no need for it to have been on file already, and no need for a general database of DNA. I would hope that after being cleared by the test that the sample would be destroyed. I notice no big push to require this final confirmation before convicting a citizen.
Even if a sample of your DNA (in some cells) were transported to a crimescene by the perp, it would not convict YOU. The perp, beyond his or her control will leave behind their own DNA. In any case, there is DNA all over the place belonging to a whole host of different people who have been in the area of the crime.
According to witnesses, the defendant and the victim very nearly came to blows earlier that day ofer a heated financial arguement. They have had a years long dislike of each other. The defendant was seen in the area shortly before the crime was comitted. The defendant's DNA was found at the scene.
The real story: You (the defendant) and the victim DID nearly come to blows that day. You went and had a drink on the way home. The victim also stopped for a drink on the way home. A co-worker who would have lost his job if the victim won the arguement killed the victim. Your DNA figured more prominantly because you (like most people) spray find droplets of spittle when you yell. The real killer fired a single shot from a distance and walked away.
The jury, who thinks that DNA tests work just like on TV is convinced 'beyond reasonable doubt' by the 'smart' scientist (we all know scientists are really smart) who said that this is SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. They didn't understand the slides and diagrams, but he must know what he's talking about. After all, he IS a scientist. What the jury didn't hear is that he's a scientist in the same sense that a custodial engineer is an actual (bridge designing type) engineer.
I suspect this is in reaction to... (Score:2)
My memory is a little shaky here, but I suspect this is in reaction to a recent court case where a man was found to be guilty of a particulary gruesome rape - but had to be let go. The DNA evidence they had taken from the scene was matched against DNA of his taken during an earlier investigation into another crime - one he had been found innocent of. That's how they caught him. But under current UK law after an investigation is concluded all DNA evidence collected has to be destroyed (not sure about the DNA evidence of the accused but I think that has to go to).
So the police shouldn't had had the earlier DNA on file - it should had been destroyed years ago. The only evidence that could had convicted him was inadmissable in court and he was found to be innocent.
Oh, as regards CCTV camera's they are everywhere here! Mark Thomas said recently that we have the highest camera/person ratio in the world! (I'm told by an American friend of mine that schemes like this would never fly in the states.) And lots of studies have concluded that they do nothing to reduce crime - and in many case crime goes up. It's seen as an alternative to putting real officers on the beat and CCTV footage can't be used as proof of identification in court.
In Bridgewater, Devon there was a spate of robberies in the town centre timed to conincide perfectly with the shift change at the CCTV centre. Most CCTV footage is very low resolution - incredibly blurry. I believe they typically multiplex about seven feeds onto one tape. Unless the police eating doughnuts in front of the TV screens notices something happening and flicks it to a higher quality output they can be next to useless.
Oh this is amusing. Under the Data Protection Act 2000 any organisation, company or government body has to provide you with any information they have about you. It cost a tenner. And as Mark Thomas pointed out recently it include .. dah dah dah dah daaah... CCTV cameras!
That's right - you too can act like a loon in front of CCTV cameras, then write to your local council with a tenner inclosed and they have to send you a copy of the tape!
Been taped by the police at a local football match/protect/err...riot recently? They get a copy off the police to prove you were there..
Hours of fun...
Re:Par for the course (Score:2)
This is just some figment of your imagination. The fact is that people publish uncomplementary opinions regarding companies ALL THE TIME without any such actions. Hell, if your theory were true people would be getting sued for publishing bad movie reviews. It just isn't so.
Look at the recent Firestone case - this company was dragged through the media and whipped on by the press beyond all imagination. Show me ONE instance where Firestone sued any of it's critics.
Our press have a history of freely saying what they like
Perhaps, however government censorship of the press is a lot easier in England than in the US. There is NO guarantee of freedom of the press at the level of the US in Britain.
If you don't believe my assertions regarding British libel law vs. free speech in the US, look at the case where Dr. Godfrey sued several people outside the US for libel and won, where in the US his case was thrown out for infringing on free speech. Here is some background from an article in the NYT:
Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:44:46 -0400 (EDT)
Dr. L. Godfrey is suing Cornell university and a former Cornell grad student for libel in London complaining about messages posted by the student
(M. Dolenga) on the usenet group soc.culture.canada 3 years ago. Dr. Godfrey has previously settled a case in which he sued a British physicist and won a libel suit against an Australian ISP. He also has two other Internet defamation cases he is pursuing. The general issue here is that UK libel law often prohibits speech which in the US is protected by the
first amendment. If the usenet articles were written in the US and transmitted to the UK, which laws apply? "English Court May Test U.S. Ideals on Online Speech" -- *The New York Times* (5 Jun 1998, electronic edition)
One of the most famous cases showing the problems with British libel law was the Living Marxism suit, which prompted Noam Chomsky to come out and write "reform of libel law is crucial for British democracy" in a letter to the London Times dated March 16, 2000.
Here we have cases which CLEARLY illustrate what I am talking about - what is protected speech in the US can and DOES get you sued in other countries, including Britain.
I have about had it with people outside the US critcising the state of our freedoms when in FACT they are better than the home country of the person doing the criticising, and a little research can easily turn up factualy evidence to illustrate the truth.
Re:Sale of database to insurers? (Score:2)
What you have now is an outright ban on handguns larger than 22 caliber, which has been in effect about 3 years. Whether or not that will stop such events remains to be seen.
Re:Guns! (Score:2)
Tell that to the Russian soldiers in Chechnya.
OK, in an all-out war of destruction, a neighborhood full of rifles isn't going to stop the military. They could obviously bomb the place into dust. But you are making the critical mistake of believing THAT IS HOW A REVOLUTIONARY WAR WOULD BE FOUGHT. It isn't.
The military needs to SUBDUE the population. Not destroy it. And an occupying, invading, pacifying force is terribly susceptible to the kind of warfare that armed citizens can produce. When every door and window might hide a rifleman, it makes the job of rounding up the malcontents a lot harder.
Going back to Chechnya, the Russian Army found this kind of warfare SO terrible that they DID resort to bombing the city. They shelled the hell out of Grozny. They bombed it with aircraft. They destroyed MOST of the city, and killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians, who were not actively resisting. And to this day, Russian soldiers in Grozny take their life in their hands. Snipers and carbombs still abound. Armed resistance against a "superior" military force can be effective.
The first time the Russians invaded Grozny, they occupied the city for a time, then were SOUNDLY whipped by the rebel forces. The Russians retreated. A couple of years later, they started the war we see today. (At least we used to see it, before it stopped being news.) Are the Russians in control of the city now? Technically, yes -- but only technically. But at what cost to them? And the Chechens show no signs of letting up. Those guys have some serious spirit.
A revolution isn't an easy thing. You don't do it overnight. But even against the standing army of a nation, the citizens CAN prevail. It has happened in our recent history.
Re:are you the same guy that always suggest this. (Score:2)
We have equal access to fists and sticks, and I bet our murder rate is higher with those weapons too. America is just a different culture -- it IS more violent here. I don't know why. But it isn't the guns.
In US cities where they pass laws allowing you to carry a concealed weapon, crime rates tend to go down. Check this link [kc3.com], which has stats on that, especially Florida, a recent case.
We can argue about statistics and sampling methods and all that crap if you want, but at the least the numbers make one thing clear: concealed carry laws don't make cities into Wild West bloodbaths, despite what anti-gun advocates may hope for.
I have OFTEN had discussions on this matter with friends from Australia. Their gun attitude is similar to the UK. It always amazes me how different we are, culturally, on this matter. The Aussies in the office thought the gun-totin' Americans were just INSANE, while we thought they were crazy for not caring about personal freedom, self defense, government control, etc. But we still managed to get along.
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:2)
Just because there isn't GNU software out for it doesn't mean that it isn't solved. The gov't is typical years ahead in crypto and other technologies, right?
Look, I used to work at a gov't shop where they were doing some crazy image-recognition work in the lab next door to mine. They had a table full of Hotwheels cars that they used to test the system. The computer's task was to pick a car out from the "parking lot", having been told what it looks like. You could partially cover the target, rotate it, etc. and the computer nailed it most of the time. This was in the early '90s, in an UNCLASSIFIED lab at JPL. I am sure the CLASSIFIED systems are much more advanced by now!
The problem ("problem," I should say "salvation") is that for now a computer that is fast enough and smart enough to understand "call the cops when you see THIS person") is too expensive to put on a lightpost. Probably too expensive and classified to be centrally located by a city government. But that isn't going to last. Someday those $99 webcams will have enough logic in them to spot people, license plates, crimes in progress, wayward youth and diaper rash. Then they'll infest our cities.
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:2)
So I should just set a good example so the (future) criminal will do as I did?
If setting a good example works on criminals, then why not just set the good example of obeying the law?
Criminals don't follow society's rules and expectations -- that's why they are criminals.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Re:Bye bye blighty (Score:2)
"Alright, who is it?"
"A mammal!"
book recommendation and where this is going (Score:2)
Re:Closed circuit video surveillance. (Score:2)
Oh well, it's just your family, at least it doesn't happen very often.
Re:Sale of database to insurers? (Score:2)
Open battle is a good way for a resistance movement to get wiped out, true. There are other ways to fight -- just ask the Chechens, the Muhjadeen, the Viet Cong, the Maquis...
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:2)
The rapist did not flee (from the sampling). He was indeed arrested and convicted.
The rape and bashing happened on New Years Day 1999, to a woman in her nineties (media sources vary on her exact age). Sixteen months later, the police still hadn't been able to solve the case. The town's male population (~600) was asked to volunteer DNA samples in a public call for help. About 420 were actually sampled, about 20 refused (media sources again vary on exact numbers). The rapist was not one of those who refused, and turned himself in to the police before his sample had even been tested.
Five months later all but one set of samples (the rapist's) were incinerated under independant witness.
(data compiled via www.google.com search, a suggested article is http://www.smh.com.au/news/0009/20/text/national16 .html)
As a sidenote, I hope the UK's genetic database is nowhere near as prone to error and inaccuracy as the news reports I looked at for this post.
Re:Par for the course (Score:2)
That is a silly claim. I present facts regarding cases where it is clearly illustrated that free speech is NOT as well protected in Britain, and you try to dismiss this as irrational. Well, I think that this dismissal is in itself irrational as you have not presented any countering argument to my evidence that the legal protection of free speech in the US is greater than in Britain.
As far as speaking what you think, there is in any society a social norm as to what is considered polite, and what is considered impolite. Clearly your voicing of your prejudices against America might be considered impolite to your American hosts. Surely Americans get much criticism for voicing their views when visiting other countries. Perhaps you percieve this as lack of freedom of speech. Other people might feel that you are merely being rude and obnoxious.
In regards to your run-in with the immigration service, well, I too have had problems with petty bureacrats - in many countries. It is universal.
As far as eToy goes, that was simply a trademark dispute. As such it has NOTHING to do with censorship.
Re:British are Masochists Anyway (Score:2)
Calm down.
The chances are that you'll soon get to bash the U.S.A. again -- most probably under an MPAA or a patent article.
Maybe. But just because a few people with poor judgement in positions of authority (government, industry standard setting bodies, major corporations) make a bad decision or two, I won't take it as carte blanche to fire off banal, inaccurate, semi-racist blanket comments at Americans or any one else.
Thankfully, most Slashdotters have a brain and can distinguish between the few and the many, and don't sully themselves by making xenophobic statements. Freedom of speech is a great thing - but so is using your head.
Re:Too lazy to register (Score:2)
In any case, I wouldn't have liked to have been one of the men who refused to take the test. Small towns can get rather nasty in these kinds of situations.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:British are Masochists Anyway (Score:2)
Not entirely fair. British cuisine is superb: it's just impossible to serve economically in a restaurant without buggering it up completely - so much of it depends on coming straight from the oven to the table that you can't make the pre-preparation economies that restaurants have to make in order to serve food that the mass market can afford.
It's not an act till it's passed (Score:2)
Well the broad history of Britain has largely been about moving the power from the monarchy to the elected parliament. We still don't have an entirely elected legislature.
It's a small island. In England, at least, the govenment never seems that far away. There isn't really the idea that the national government is some alien thing.
That isn't to say that I agree with the legislation. There seems to be a tradition on /. to believe that bills get passed without amendment. Some of the worst provisions of the RIP Bill were removed. I confidently predict that this Bill will be heavily amended.
Re:Questionable (Score:2)
The claim against the effectiveness of CCTV was that it didn't reduce crime, it merely moved it to areas that don't have CCTV.
"
It was also that extensive surveying of people demonstrated it didn't make people feel more safe when walking through CCTV areas.
Re:One solution... (Score:2)
Not as exciting as blowing them away with an Uzi, but then you won't get arrested either.
Finally why do good teeth matter more than good physical condition? You've still failed to answer that.
Warning Alarmists! (Score:2)
You might want to look into one of those plastic keyboard covers if you are considering keeping your fingertip skin sliced off...