Who's Up First? W3bbo or Sabot?

DNA Database For Everybody

Telegraph wrote:

Tony Blair called yesterday for the national DNA database to be expanded to include every citizen.

He said there should be no limit on the development of the database because it was vital for catching serious criminals.Way to go guys. Like this one has been really thought out.

UK has been infiltrated with Marsians, they need to figure out who is human and who is marsian.

As for me, I will never submit to such dehumanization by these thugs. They rape and destroy Iraq, and now they want to pick a fight with their own citizens. way to go.

Oh the British citizens are just some random laboratory rats to be sampled for DNA sequencing. What is next?  insert an electrode down your skull so they can read your mind and feed it to a central mainframe? This is like something from the twilight zone.

SecretSoftware wrote:

UK has been infiltrated with Marsians, they need to figure out who is human and who is marsian.

As for me, I will never submit to such dehumanization by these thugs. They rape and destroy Iraq, and now they want to pick a fight with their own citizens. way to go.

Oh the British citizens are just some random laboratory rats to be sampled for DNA sequencing. What is next? This is like something from the twilight zone.

What the hell is going on over there? Are Brits too polite to tell the government to shove it?

BTW, martians aren't hard to spot. They look like this guy:

billh wrote:



DNA Database For Everybody

Telegraph wrote:Tony Blair called yesterday for the national DNA database to be expanded to include every citizen. He said there should be no limit on the development of the database because it was vital for catching serious criminals.

Way to go guys. Like this one has been really thought out.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

They'll never get my DNA, I've done nothing wrong, yet I have to fear the government. Taking a DNA sample doesn't need anything as intrusive as a blood-letting, just a swab of the inside of your mouth is sufficient.

The last time I had my fingerprints taken was 9 years ago, by the government in the Philippines to do with immigration (required for the 2 year visa), I haven't had it done since (or not for anything official, but don't fingerprints change when you're a child?)

Either way, there'll probably be some kind of "right" to refuse. Having everyone's DNA on file just makes planting evidence easier. There was this case a while back when an innocent guy was incarcerated just because they found his fingerprints on stolen property, it turns out he touched the property in the shop before it was even sold, the actual criminal wore gloves to stop his fingerprints getting on it in the first place.

....but actually, this will cause an even bigger uproar than the ID card thing, it won't get pass the Parliament (let alone the Lords) any time soon.

There are ways to 'confuse' the system.  DNA samples are taken from mouth swabs.  If you were to introduce someone else's DNA to your mouth before the swab, the DNA fingerprint will be incorrect.
It's part of the plot of the novel Paper which was written by a geneticist.  The character used someone else's, um, 'body fluids' to mess with the forensic evidence.

You'd have to be pretty desparate not to get catalogued, though.

Herbie

W3bbo wrote:


The last time I had my fingerprints taken was 9 years ago, by the government in the Philippines to do with immigration (required for the 2 year visa), I haven't had it done since (or not for anything official, but don't fingerprints change when you're a child?)

I think a lot of schools (well at least mine) are taking the fingerprints of the pupils. They say it is to do with the library, but I think their might be more behind it, as, after all, why does one need to implement a biometrics system for people taking out books when we all already have cards with our picture on? It seems a bit strange to me.

Angus Higgins

W3bbo wrote:


There probably isn't, the school's headmaster just got sold by the smooth-talking salesman.

IRT the whole thread: This is just what Tony Blair said, he's no expert on national security or policing, this is his own opinion, and not that of the Met.

Yeah, I suppose; it just seems very strange to use a system like that for a simple library when a SMART Card system has already been implemented, and already works.

Angus Higgins

Angus wrote:



W3bbo wrote: The last time I had my fingerprints taken was 9 years ago, by the government in the Philippines to do with immigration (required for the 2 year visa), I haven't had it done since (or not for anything official, but don't fingerprints change when you're a child?)

I think a lot of schools (well at least mine) are taking the fingerprints of the pupils. They say it is to do with the library, but I think their might be more behind it

There probably isn't, the school's headmaster just got sold by the smooth-talking salesman.

IRT the whole thread: This is just what Tony Blair said, he's no expert on national security or policing, this is his own opinion, and not that of the Met. The article states that Blair was asking the police force to do this, not the other way around.

It's full of argumentum ad baculum. Aka "appeal to fear" and emotion. He's implying if you don't support this DNA database, then you're in favour of letting the guilty escape the law or allowing murder and rape cases to continue unsolved.

Which brings me to another example. Suppose there's this (shall we say...) "loose" chick down at the bar. Sleeps with a couple of men over the night, then gets a spiked drink and ends up being raped. She goes to the police who takes a sample and finds several different "samples". What happens next is an exercise left to the reader, but it sure ain't good.

What Tony Blair wants ... and what Tony Blair gets (like being the PM and leader of the Labour party by the next election) are two different things.

This isn't the first time Tony has asked for all of us to hand over our DNA ... but remember the only place we get to use the new biometric part of our new passports is the good ol' US of A.

Hmmm, isn't only recent that the you guys discovered that the finger-print wasn't unique, 1 in 200,000,000, so how did you guys work that stat out then ???

Anyway ... don't believe anything from our newspapers, geez don't you Americans know anything about us ? [6]

Oh ... and W3bbo always wins, I play to much BF2 ! (now BF2142 ... there goes my life!)


... oh by the way cue comment fromt Eagle ....[6]

I don't find all the stuff scary. I know how it works in Britain. CCTV, yep loads of cameras, no bugger ever looks at the tapes unless there is a murder to investigate because can't get the man-power. So we get on camera 200 times a day and know the likelihood of anyone seeing us is very slim ... unless we get bumped on the head.

DNA database won't get off the ground because the ROI isn't there, we will all moan that it's costing an arm and a leg, we'll all go why and politicans will jumping on the bandwagon and talk it down and then it will get canned.

Now things that make money like, congestion charging and 'safety' road camera's well they are going to be ultimately very successful.

Remember things only happening in the UK if it makes cash or people get killed.

Sabot wrote:

I don't find all the stuff scary. I know how it works in Britain. CCTV, yep loads of cameras, no bugger ever looks at the tapes unless there is a murder to investigate because can't get the man-power. So we get on camera 200 times a day and know the likelihood of anyone seeing us is very slim ... unless we get bumped on the head.

I'm not concerned about CCTV either, because the systems aren't interlinked and presume you're a pedestrian, and the data is only kept for a few weeks at most.

Now if the CCTV cameras had ID card detectors, that showed your name and vital stats floating above your head in the CCTV video, or were accessible to marketing types, then yes, I'd be against them.

Sabot wrote:

DNA database won't get off the ground because the ROI isn't there, we will all moan that it's costing an arm and a leg, we'll all go why and politicans will jumping on the bandwagon and talk it down and then it will get canned.

Now things that make money like, congestion charging and 'safety' road camera's well they are going to be ultimately very successful.

The government is well aware of this, that's why they're charging us for ID cards. I reckon the same thing will happen with the DNA database, you'll have to pay the collection fee or be thrown into prison as an unco-operative "terrorist suspect".

Sabot wrote:

Remember things only happening in the UK if it makes cash or people get killed.

Viz argumentum ad affectum, quod erat demonstrandum.

billh wrote:

I don't have the time to dig up the relevant articles, but this isn't the first time this issue has come up, and this isn't the first paper that has mentioned it. Although if it really does come to pass (and I actually think at some point it might), I believe you would very willingly go along with it.

It won't happen. As Sabot said he doesn't always get his own way and it going to be out of office in the next six months.  If it did manage to get passed then I'd leave and go live somewhere else, I am already worried about towns and cities being asked to 'volunteer' to have nuclear waste stored in the ground near them (and I know my council) and I am already taxed far more than is really fair. 

billh wrote:

I don't know why I feel that way, but I really don't think you see all the implications involved with this.

We do, most of us have read 1984 and can also draw parallels with perpetual war against an ever-changing enemy as well. On top of this the fact that I probably wouldn't be able to get insured or take up a particular profession is a step to far - yeah at first they'd claim that it could never be used for that - but we all know how that story goes.

billh wrote:

My point is that too many people are putting way too much faith in the systems that will house this "information" (and worse, the people that will maintain them) without thinking about what the ramifications will be.

Dude, this is the UK - we must have *the* worst record for delivering Government IT systems. It's take decades and billions to get anything like this done, and we all already know who'd get the contract to do it.

Rossj wrote:



Dude, this is the UK - we must have *the* worst record for delivering Government IT systems. It's take decades and billions to get anything like this done, and we all already know who'd get the contract to do it.

Shouldn't that read "several years and hundred of millions before it get scrapped" ?


Herbie

If memory serves, last time I read about DNA fingerprinting it could only distinguish a million different patterns. (i.e. you shared your fingerprint with one in a million other people)

So for every crime they're going to have - even with a highly unlikely good sample - at least 60-odd suspects?

Bollocks to that, if it looks like someone is going to try to put that into law I'll start looking into ways to impeach them.

Massif wrote:

If memory serves, last time I read about DNA fingerprinting it could only distinguish a million different patterns. (i.e. you shared your fingerprint with one in a million other people)

So for every crime they're going to have - even with a highly unlikely good sample - at least 60-odd suspects?

Bollocks to that, if it looks like someone is going to try to put that into law I'll start looking into ways to impeach them.

The problem with DNA fingerprinting in forensics is that it's all based on a theoretical model that says that mating within the human population of a country is totally random (panmictic is the scientific term for this).
This is untrue -- not only do people tend to have children with someone from the same geographical region, they also tend to stay within their own social class. So the chances of a DNA fingerprint being wrong are up for debate.

Herbie