Tag: DNA

We’re All Suspects in a DNA Lineup, Waiting to be Matched with a Crime

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“Make no mistake about it…your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason… I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”—Justice Antonin Scalia dissenting in Maryland v. King

Be warned: the DNA detectives are on the prowl.

Whatever skeletons may be lurking on your family tree or in your closet, whatever crimes you may have committed, whatever associations you may have with those on the government’s most wanted lists: the police state is determined to ferret them out.

In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its muscles in a show of power, we are all guilty of some transgression or other.

No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

Now we are all suspects in a DNA lineup waiting to be matched up with a crime.

Suspect State, meet the Genetic Panopticon.

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There’s a 0.00002% Chance You’ve Got the Wrong Man

Guest Post by Ann Coulter

The use of DNA to arrest Bryan Kohberger for the murder of four college students in Idaho reminds me that it’s time to bring the death penalty back in a big way.

Notwithstanding the absence of a single example, the possibility of executing the “wrong man” has been the left’s main line against the death penalty for decades. It’s the only argument that has ever lessened Americans’ support for capital punishment.

Well, guess what? Thanks to the miracle of DNA, now there’s no risk! The murderer can usually be identified with greater than 99.99% accuracy.

Good news, right? Nope! As we now know (also with 99.99% accuracy), liberals never cared about executing the innocent. They just want to spring killers.

Until fairly recently, DNA was a one-way ratchet, used to free criminals, but rarely to catch and convict them.

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Real X-Men

Guest Post by John Stossel

Real X-Men

Soon, some of you will try to make “better babies.”

Already, people pay labs to examine embryos so they can pick ones with DNA they like. Some screen for gender or eye color. Some screen out certain diseases.

So far, they’ve been limited to selecting genes that exist in the parents. They haven’t designed genes. But that is about to change.

Chinese scientists recently altered DNA in human embryos.

The designed babies — twin sisters — were born with immunity to common strains of HIV, claims the scientist responsible. (The added gene might also shorten lifespans. Most scientists say it’s too soon to gene-edit humans safely.)

“He was put under house arrest … and the Chinese are right to punish that scientist,” says Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts’ medical school in my new video.

Most Americans agree.

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Uncle Sam Wants Your DNA: The FBI’s Diabolical Plan to Create a Nation of Suspects

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“As more and more data flows from your body and brain to the smart machines via the biometric sensors, it will become easy for corporations and government agencies to know you, manipulate you, and make decisions on your behalf. Even more importantly, they could decipher the deep mechanisms of all bodies and brains, and thereby gain the power to engineer life. If we want to prevent a small elite from monopolising such godlike powers, and if we want to prevent humankind from splitting into biological castes, the key question is: who owns the data? Does the data about my DNA, my brain and my life belong to me, to the government, to a corporation, or to the human collective?”―Professor Yuval Noah Harari

Uncle Sam wants you.

Correction: Uncle Sam wants your DNA.

Actually, if the government gets its hands on your DNA, they as good as have you in their clutches.

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Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) & DNA Phenotyping

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Being a student of human nature, I find the psychology behind human interactions fascinating.  These would include actions and counteractions, motive, opportunity, risk management, strategic speculation, and the revelation of secrets.

Of course, since all of these apply to crimes of passion, if I’m scanning through TV stations and stumble across…. say…. a “Dateline NBC” episode where Lester Holt might be summarizing a murder investigation after the commercial break – if I watch for more than thirty seconds, I’m toast.  For me, it’s the crack cocaine of electronic distraction.  (And, yes, I realize it’s likely by design; otherwise, Dateline would go back to real-time news reporting).

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How DNA Is Turning Us Into a Nation of Suspects

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“The year is 2025. The population is 325 million, and the FBI has the DNA profiles of all of them. Unlike fingerprints, these profiles reveal vital medical information. The universal database arrived surreptitiously. First, the Department of Defense’s repository of DNA samples from all military personnel, established to identify remains of soldiers missing from action, was given to the FBI. Then local police across the country shadowed individuals, collecting shed DNA for the databank. On the way, thousands of innocent people were imprisoned because they had the misfortune to have race-based crime genes in their DNA samples. Sadly, it did not have to be this way. If only we had passed laws against collecting and using shed DNA….”—Professor David H. Kaye

Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful.

By tapping into your phone lines and cell phone communications, the government knows what you say. By uploading all of your emails, opening your mail, and reading your Facebook posts and text messages, the government knows what you write. By monitoring your movements with the use of license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other tracking devices, the government knows where you go.

By churning through all of the detritus of your life—what you read, where you go, what you say—the government can predict what you will do. By mapping the synapses in your brain, scientists—and in turn, the government—will soon know what you remember. And by accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc.

Of course, none of these technologies are foolproof. Nor are they immune from tampering, hacking or user bias. Nevertheless, they have become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to render null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Consequently, no longer are we “innocent until proven guilty” in the face of DNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime, behavior sensing technology that interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check our biometrics, license plates and DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals.

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