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Should we have a central DNA database?

Should we have a central DNA databse?


  • Total voters
    27

JoeyJoystick

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The question is weather we should have a DNA database or not.

I think there should be a DNA database. All people will supply DNA at birth or when entering the country. This way many problems will be solved.

Quick overview of some of the pros:

- DNA can help finding suspects of a crime.
- DNA helps identifying people with a very high rate of certainty in Hospitals, banks and of course with the elections when people vote.
- DNA helps to identify people who can not identify themselves. New born babies in hospitals are less likely to be swapped. It will be easier to identify a dead body in case of a crime or even just someone who passed away while on a walk in the woods. It will help greatly with identifying people in case of disasters.
- Reduced chance of identity theft.
- It will help science when they want to do research and all this data is available to them.
- It will potentially help doctors identify people with diseases before they even show symptoms.

Sure there is negative side effects as well, so here a similarly brief overview of the cons:

- People will try to hack this DNA database.
- There is a central database where a lot of information is stored. A lot of people will claim that this is an intrusion of your privacy.

I think the advantages are so big that a central DNA database is something that will eventually come and can not be stopped. It will be slowed down by opposition before we get there though. But the advantages are so big and it will eliminate so many of the problems that we face nowadays that introducing a DNA database is a must and the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages.

I also think that the technology needed to compromise a DNA database are less available and therefore help to tip the scale in favour of a DNA database.

Looking forward to hear what all of you think.


Joey
 
Last edited:
The question is weather we should have a DNA database or not.

I think there should be a DNA database. All people will supply DNA at birth or when entering the country. This way many problems will be solved.

Quick overview of some of the pros:

- DNA can help finding suspects of a crime.
- DNA helps identifying people with a very high rate of certainty in Hospitals, banks and of course with the elections when people vote.
- DNA helps to identify people who can not identify themselves. New born babies in hospitals are less likely to be swapped. It will be easier to identify a dead body in case of a crime or even just someone who passed away while on a walk in the woods. It will help greatly with identifying people in case of disasters.
- Reduced chance of identity theft.
- It will help science when they want to do research and all this data is available to them.
- It will potentially help doctors identify people with diseases before they even show symptoms.

Sure there is negative side effects as well, so here a similarly brief overview of the cons:

- People will try to hack this DNA database.
- There is a central database where a lot of information is stored. A lot of people will claim that this is an intrusion of your privacy.

I think the advantages are so big that a central DNA database is something that will eventually come and can not be stopped. It will be slowed down by opposition before we get there though. But the advantages are so big and it will eliminate so many of the problems that we face nowadays that introducing a DNA database is a must and the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages.

I also think that the technology needed to compromise a DNA database are less available and therefore help to tip the scale in favour of a DNA database.

Looking forward to hear what all of you think.


Joey

Do we already have such a database? Knowing the NSA, we certainly have started building one, you can be sure of that. I think it will eventually happen, but I do think it's a bad, bad idea. If our government didn't have the NSA spying on people, if it didn't have all sorts of registries and watchlists, if it wasn't already breaking the law, if the right to due process hadn't already been thrown out, if we weren't illegally detaining and torturing people, if the government wasn't so overtly corrupt, if the president-elect wasn't openly authoritarian... Yeah, maybe. But we don't live in a world with sunshine and puppydogs, and our government doesn't only have noble intentions.

So, no, weighed against the whole, it's a terrible idea, I think. Unfortunately, I'd be shocked if the NSA didn't already have an incomplete DNA database.
 
The question is weather we should have a DNA database or not.

I think there should be a DNA database. All people will supply DNA at birth or when entering the country. This way many problems will be solved.

Quick overview of some of the pros:

- DNA can help finding suspects of a crime.
- DNA helps identifying people with a very high rate of certainty in Hospitals, banks and of course with the elections when people vote.
- DNA helps to identify people who can not identify themselves. New born babies in hospitals are less likely to be swapped. It will be easier to identify a dead body in case of a crime or even just someone who passed away while on a walk in the woods. It will help greatly with identifying people in case of disasters.
- Reduced chance of identity theft.
- It will help science when they want to do research and all this data is available to them.
- It will potentially help doctors identify people with diseases before they even show symptoms.

Sure there is negative side effects as well, so here a similarly brief overview of the cons:

- People will try to hack this DNA database.
- There is a central database where a lot of information is stored. A lot of people will claim that this is an intrusion of your privacy.

I think the advantages are so big that a central DNA database is something that will eventually come and can not be stopped. It will be slowed down by opposition before we get there though. But the advantages are so big and it will eliminate so many of the problems that we face nowadays that introducing a DNA database is a must and the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages.

I also think that the technology needed to compromise a DNA database are less available and therefore help to tip the scale in favour of a DNA database.

Looking forward to hear what all of you think.


Joey

DNA can also eliminate suspects. Just as important to stop innocent people being accused and to stop police going down blind alleys.

I would be very willing to have my DNA placed on record. If/when I get old and confused (right now I'm merely old) and wander off DNA would identify me.
 
DNA can also eliminate suspects. Just as important to stop innocent people being accused and to stop police going down blind alleys.

I would be very willing to have my DNA placed on record. If/when I get old and confused (right now I'm merely old) and wander off DNA would identify me.

Thanks for bringing up the eliminating suspects part. I was meant to put that in as well but I obviously forgot. But yes, I think that is a very strong point. And having Alzheimer in our family, I am afraid I have to agree with the last one as well. haha.


Joey.
 
As if the government doesn't already have enough ways to follow us around and abuse us. I shudder to think what they'd come up with if they had our DNA, given that they'd found reason to make people "disappear" in black-out prisons using nothing but a phone number.

Absolutely ****ing not.
 
Do we already have such a database? Knowing the NSA, we certainly have started building one, you can be sure of that. I think it will eventually happen, but I do think it's a bad, bad idea. If our government didn't have the NSA spying on people, if it didn't have all sorts of registries and watchlists, if it wasn't already breaking the law, if the right to due process hadn't already been thrown out, if we weren't illegally detaining and torturing people, if the government wasn't so overtly corrupt, if the president-elect wasn't openly authoritarian... Yeah, maybe. But we don't live in a world with sunshine and puppydogs, and our government doesn't only have noble intentions.

So, no, weighed against the whole, it's a terrible idea, I think. Unfortunately, I'd be shocked if the NSA didn't already have an incomplete DNA database.

Yes, the NSA and other agencies have a partial DNA database. I agree that the government is not always the way we want it, but this will make it easier for them to do the things they should be doing and help them to do the things we should not know about. And this is something they are going to do anyway (hence SECRET service), so why should we not all benefit from it and avoid the presidential election circus regarding voter fraud that we have seen over the past few months and that is still ongoing with vote recounts and all that. Ok, that is not only down to DNA ID but also to hacking apparently, but it would surely help eliminate some doubt in the mind of voters.

Joey.
 
As if the government doesn't already have enough ways to follow us around and abuse us. I shudder to think what they'd come up with if they had our DNA, given that they'd found reason to make people "disappear" in black-out prisons using nothing but a phone number.

Absolutely ****ing not.

I hear you there. But! Although it is a little cliché, it still stands as a strong argument; If you don't do anything wrong, you will have little to fear/worry.


Joey
 
Yes, the NSA and other agencies have a partial DNA database. I agree that the government is not always the way we want it, but this will make it easier for them to do the things they should be doing and help them to do the things we should not know about. And this is something they are going to do anyway (hence SECRET service), so why should we not all benefit from it and avoid the presidential election circus regarding voter fraud that we have seen over the past few months and that is still ongoing with vote recounts and all that. Ok, that is not only down to DNA ID but also to hacking apparently, but it would surely help eliminate some doubt in the mind of voters.

The first bolded section should explain to you why the second is incoherent, or ought to be suspect. The third bolded item is a pipedream. You do realize that DNA is costly and time-consuming to analyze? You do realize that people could forge or fabricate DNA tests, too, right? It's hundreds of dollars to check DNA (let alone the weeks to process), so you really want to spend 100x120 million = 12 billion dollars every 4 years checking voter DNA? Are you serious?
 
The first bolded section should explain to you why the second is incoherent, or ought to be suspect. The third bolded item is a pipedream. You do realize that DNA is costly and time-consuming to analyze? You do realize that people could forge or fabricate DNA tests, too, right? It's hundreds of dollars to check DNA (let alone the weeks to process), so you really want to spend 100x120 million = 12 billion dollars every 4 years checking voter DNA? Are you serious?

Sorry, but that is not true simply because it was merely an observation not a statement or opinion. At the same time this is also something that needs to be tackled but I will start more polls on things like this later and get back on that. In any group (in this case a whole country) you will have as many opinions as there is people in that group. It is therefore not possible to make everybody happy. A government will always have to make decisions with which some people do not agree. And as long as there is people that disagree and think that they have the right to destabilise a country by means of violence or manipulation to achieve their own goal there will be secret services. It is a fact of life. I should have added to the previous post that not only does it help the government do what they should be doing, it also offers us the option to check if the government does what they should be doing. The knife cuts on both sides.

And regarding the costs of instant DNA analysis for the purpose if identification you are right, but not for long. This technology exists. It is on the market in very limited numbers right now. In a few years time this will go into mass production and will cost the same as fingerprinting. This argument does not stand for much longer. And really we are talking of only a few years here. So here the bottom line is very simple, by the time that any government has the balls to push this through, we already have affordable tests on the market. And time is all it is. It will happen, the question is when...

Kuwait has recently tried to introduce mandatory DNA sampling but seems to be slowly backtracking on this now.


Joey
 
The question is weather we should have a DNA database or not.

I think there should be a DNA database. All people will supply DNA at birth or when entering the country. This way many problems will be solved.

Quick overview of some of the pros:

- DNA can help finding suspects of a crime.
- DNA helps identifying people with a very high rate of certainty in Hospitals, banks and of course with the elections when people vote.
- DNA helps to identify people who can not identify themselves. New born babies in hospitals are less likely to be swapped. It will be easier to identify a dead body in case of a crime or even just someone who passed away while on a walk in the woods. It will help greatly with identifying people in case of disasters.
- Reduced chance of identity theft.
- It will help science when they want to do research and all this data is available to them.
- It will potentially help doctors identify people with diseases before they even show symptoms.

Sure there is negative side effects as well, so here a similarly brief overview of the cons:

- People will try to hack this DNA database.
- There is a central database where a lot of information is stored. A lot of people will claim that this is an intrusion of your privacy.

I think the advantages are so big that a central DNA database is something that will eventually come and can not be stopped. It will be slowed down by opposition before we get there though. But the advantages are so big and it will eliminate so many of the problems that we face nowadays that introducing a DNA database is a must and the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages.

I also think that the technology needed to compromise a DNA database are less available and therefore help to tip the scale in favour of a DNA database.

Looking forward to hear what all of you think.


Joey

No. The most obvious con is the cost of producing a DNA profile to match against any such database. Your last pro could also be a con - it would allow employers to reject applicants that might eventually get sick. All of the pros seem to ignore the cost (at least $100?) to produce a sample DNA profile to match - far higher than fingerprints which can be digitally checked.
 
No. The most obvious con is the cost of producing a DNA profile to match against any such database. Your last pro could also be a con - it would allow employers to reject applicants that might eventually get sick. All of the pros seem to ignore the cost (at least $100?) to produce a sample DNA profile to match - far higher than fingerprints which can be digitally checked.

The cost is high as we speak, but not for long. Trial production runs for this kind of equipment have started and once mass production starts and their is competition the price will fall drastically and the cost argument does not stand anymore.


Joey
 
The cost is high as we speak, but not for long. Trial production runs for this kind of equipment have started and once mass production starts and their is competition the price will fall drastically and the cost argument does not stand anymore.


Joey

Will DNA ID ever be less expensive than fingerprint ID? For me it comes down to cost benefit analysis and potential for abuse (which you seem to ignore as a con).
 
Will DNA ID ever be less expensive than fingerprint ID? For me it comes down to cost benefit analysis and potential for abuse (which you seem to ignore as a con).

I am not sure whether it will be cheaper than a fingerprint scanner but a finger print scanner can not compete with many of the advantages that DNA offers. It will become very cheap though. Everything that goes into mass production becomes cheap. But fingerprint scanners are not used for identification if it is important. They may be used in conjunction with other technologies to increase their reliability. Heartbeat and temperature are already incorporated in some of the better fingerprint scanners. And of course there is alternative technologies such as iris scanners as well. But no technology offers the same advantages that DNA does at this point. It is even possible now to distinguish between identical twins with DNA analysis.

And I do not ignore the potential abuse of DNA databases. As a matter of fact it was the first con I wrote down. Yes people will try to compromise this. They will probably achieve doing this as well. But the chances that this gets compromised are smaller and therefore the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks. The risks are certainly smaller than the risks with current information gathering systems in place. Because obtaining this information is already difficult as it is. And for comparison sakes let us say that the risk that a DNA database gets compromised is the same as that a fingerprint database gets compromised. To abuse of DNA data is much more difficult than the abuse of a fingerprint. I have once tried, and succeeded, to hijack a fingerprint (my own by the way...) and it was not all that difficult. Well, if I can do it that means that most people can do it if they put their minds to it. And therefore you still have a nett gain in security, reliability and trust in the DNA database, because the technology needed to use and abuse DNA data is not so easy to obtain, use and consequently use to abuse the systems in place.


Joey
 
I am not sure whether it will be cheaper than a fingerprint scanner but a finger print scanner can not compete with many of the advantages that DNA offers. It will become very cheap though. Everything that goes into mass production becomes cheap. But fingerprint scanners are not used for identification if it is important. They may be used in conjunction with other technologies to increase their reliability. Heartbeat and temperature are already incorporated in some of the better fingerprint scanners. And of course there is alternative technologies such as iris scanners as well. But no technology offers the same advantages that DNA does at this point. It is even possible now to distinguish between identical twins with DNA analysis.

And I do not ignore the potential abuse of DNA databases. As a matter of fact it was the first con I wrote down. Yes people will try to compromise this. They will probably achieve doing this as well. But the chances that this gets compromised are smaller and therefore the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks. The risks are certainly smaller than the risks with current information gathering systems in place. Because obtaining this information is already difficult as it is. And for comparison sakes let us say that the risk that a DNA database gets compromised is the same as that a fingerprint database gets compromised. To abuse of DNA data is much more difficult than the abuse of a fingerprint. I have once tried, and succeeded, to hijack a fingerprint (my own by the way...) and it was not all that difficult. Well, if I can do it that means that most people can do it if they put their minds to it. And therefore you still have a nett gain in security, reliability and trust in the DNA database, because the technology needed to use and abuse DNA data is not so easy to obtain, use and consequently use to abuse the systems in place.


Joey

Nonsense. With DNA data alone one could find the perfect organ donor or reject a job applicant based on future illness risk - that cannot be done with fingerprint data alone. BTW, you may need to do more research on "identical" twins and their fingerprints.

Do Identical Twins Have Identical Fingerprints?
 
Nonsense. With DNA data alone one could find the perfect organ donor or reject a job applicant based on future illness risk - that cannot be done with fingerprint data alone. BTW, you may need to do more research on "identical" twins and their fingerprints.

Do Identical Twins Have Identical Fingerprints?

I'm lost here. What about the nonsense part? I agree that DNA will allow you to find a donor and I agree that rejecting a job applicant falls under potential abuse. Did I say otherwise? With the identical twins I was referring to DNA and not to fingerprints and I have never claimed that this is or is not possible with fingerprinting. That this is possible with DNA is a fairly recent development. The basis of DNA for an identical twin is indeed the same and the differences in DNA between identical twins are very very small indeed. What happens is that after the twins start growing there is some slight changes in DNA over time. And these changes, however slightly, can now be detected. It is also my understanding, that all people have even smaller variations of their own DNA in their body.

reference:

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ll-identical-twins-apart-just-melt-their-dna/
Understanding Genetics

Sorry, but I throw the research part back at you for now. :)


Joey
 
I hear you there. But! Although it is a little cliché, it still stands as a strong argument; If you don't do anything wrong, you will have little to fear/worry.


Joey

Maybe that would be close to the truth is the US still believed in trials for everyone they arrest (it will never be entirely true since convictions are never 100% accurate), but they don't. So, yes, you do, actually. Lots of people in our black-out prisons never even got a trial. A lot of them never did anything wrong.

And beyond that, your right to be unmolested by the government should not be contingent on letting them turn your entire life inside out and commander your bodily fluids against your will. The government does not have a right to invade your body simply for you having the audacity to be born.
 
The question is weather we should have a DNA database or not.

I think there should be a DNA database. All people will supply DNA at birth or when entering the country. This way many problems will be solved.

Quick overview of some of the pros:

- DNA can help finding suspects of a crime.
- DNA helps identifying people with a very high rate of certainty in Hospitals, banks and of course with the elections when people vote.
- DNA helps to identify people who can not identify themselves. New born babies in hospitals are less likely to be swapped. It will be easier to identify a dead body in case of a crime or even just someone who passed away while on a walk in the woods. It will help greatly with identifying people in case of disasters.
- Reduced chance of identity theft.
- It will help science when they want to do research and all this data is available to them.
- It will potentially help doctors identify people with diseases before they even show symptoms.

Sure there is negative side effects as well, so here a similarly brief overview of the cons:

- People will try to hack this DNA database.
- There is a central database where a lot of information is stored. A lot of people will claim that this is an intrusion of your privacy.

I think the advantages are so big that a central DNA database is something that will eventually come and can not be stopped. It will be slowed down by opposition before we get there though. But the advantages are so big and it will eliminate so many of the problems that we face nowadays that introducing a DNA database is a must and the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages.

I also think that the technology needed to compromise a DNA database are less available and therefore help to tip the scale in favour of a DNA database.

Looking forward to hear what all of you think.


Joey

I think I will go with the Swede on this one and vote "yea".
 
Lots of people in our black-out prisons never even got a trial. A lot of them never did anything wrong.

Sad but true. Also a different subject though. But while we're at it, don't you think that a DNA Database will at least help to reduce the number of innocent people in prison and not make it worse?


Joey
 
Should we have a central DNA database?

should we? good question.

do we? an incomplete one, almost surely.

how? my preference would be that the DNA be entered into the database upon conviction for any crime if we're going to do that.

what will probably happen? they'll take a DNA swab at birth eventually, and that will go into the database.

all speculation, but i doubt that i'm far off.
 
If y'all thought "no health insurance for pre-existing conditions" was bad, just wait for "no health insurance for conditions you're genetically predisposed to."
 
Sad but true. Also a different subject though. But while we're at it, don't you think that a DNA Database will at least help to reduce the number of innocent people in prison and not make it worse?


Joey

No, it really isn't. It's exactly the subject. And no, it really won't.

Firstly, DNA tests are a lot less reliable than people seem to think. There are false positives on DNA samples with some regularity, and there are people who have gone to prison wrongly because of inaccurate DNA results. This is not always correctable by rerunning the test; DNA tests can't detect every little quirk and epigenetic switch within a sequence, and some of the aspects of DNA we look at can be identical between people, so there is no way for the DNA test to differentiate between them. So, as a matter of fact, the more people are in the DNA database, the higher the odds of an incorrect test result, which then sends the wrong person to jail.

Secondly, that's to say nothing of the fact that there might be all sorts of reasons why someone's DNA is at a crime scene -- including that they came 'round for dinner last month. Any given crime scene probably has between 5 and 100 people's DNA within it. If you just lazily lock up whoever's DNA is at any given crime scene, you'd wind up with basically every American in the country in jail within a year or two. So DNA alone really doesn't do anything at all to help us find the actual criminal, and it wouldn't do anything to reduce investigative work. If anything, it would just increase it. You still need a full-blown investigation, just like you do now, but you would also have to eliminate dozens or even hundreds of false flags that every DNA test would give you, both from people who walked through the area at any point in the last several weeks or months, and from people who weren't even there but have identical DNA markers according to the test. What the hell is the point of that?

And finally, if the government is perfectly happy to throw people in jail without even doing an investigation, what on earth makes you think they'll suddenly change their minds and decide to do all this extra work once they have a complete DNA database? That's absurd and naive. Our government can't even be trusted with phone numbers, and you want to give them everyone's DNA? Not on my life, thanks.
 
Last edited:
The question is weather we should have a DNA database or not.

I think there should be a DNA database. All people will supply DNA at birth or when entering the country. This way many problems will be solved.

Quick overview of some of the pros:

- DNA can help finding suspects of a crime.
- DNA helps identifying people with a very high rate of certainty in Hospitals, banks and of course with the elections when people vote.
- DNA helps to identify people who can not identify themselves. New born babies in hospitals are less likely to be swapped. It will be easier to identify a dead body in case of a crime or even just someone who passed away while on a walk in the woods. It will help greatly with identifying people in case of disasters.
- Reduced chance of identity theft.
- It will help science when they want to do research and all this data is available to them.
- It will potentially help doctors identify people with diseases before they even show symptoms.

Sure there is negative side effects as well, so here a similarly brief overview of the cons:

- People will try to hack this DNA database.
- There is a central database where a lot of information is stored. A lot of people will claim that this is an intrusion of your privacy.

I think the advantages are so big that a central DNA database is something that will eventually come and can not be stopped. It will be slowed down by opposition before we get there though. But the advantages are so big and it will eliminate so many of the problems that we face nowadays that introducing a DNA database is a must and the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages.

I also think that the technology needed to compromise a DNA database are less available and therefore help to tip the scale in favour of a DNA database.

Looking forward to hear what all of you think.


Joey

This data base, if it doesn't already exist in some form, will eventually exist. But it's complete Big Brother horse**** the way the government will end up using it. It won't turn out well for us.
 
The question is weather we should have a DNA database or not.

I think there should be a DNA database. All people will supply DNA at birth or when entering the country. This way many problems will be solved.

Quick overview of some of the pros:

- DNA can help finding suspects of a crime.
- DNA helps identifying people with a very high rate of certainty in Hospitals, banks and of course with the elections when people vote.
- DNA helps to identify people who can not identify themselves. New born babies in hospitals are less likely to be swapped. It will be easier to identify a dead body in case of a crime or even just someone who passed away while on a walk in the woods. It will help greatly with identifying people in case of disasters.
- Reduced chance of identity theft.
- It will help science when they want to do research and all this data is available to them.
- It will potentially help doctors identify people with diseases before they even show symptoms.

Sure there is negative side effects as well, so here a similarly brief overview of the cons:

- People will try to hack this DNA database.
- There is a central database where a lot of information is stored. A lot of people will claim that this is an intrusion of your privacy.

I think the advantages are so big that a central DNA database is something that will eventually come and can not be stopped. It will be slowed down by opposition before we get there though. But the advantages are so big and it will eliminate so many of the problems that we face nowadays that introducing a DNA database is a must and the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages.

I also think that the technology needed to compromise a DNA database are less available and therefore help to tip the scale in favour of a DNA database.

Looking forward to hear what all of you think.


Joey
Not only no but hell no.As citizens its not our job to make the job of authorities much easier.Police need a warrant if they want our DNA. If police want my DNA then they need a warrant Or rummage through my trash.
 
No, it really isn't. It's exactly the subject. And no, it really won't.

Firstly, DNA tests are a lot less reliable than people seem to think. There are false positives on DNA samples with some regularity, and there are people who have gone to prison wrongly because of inaccurate DNA results. This is not always correctable by rerunning the test; DNA tests can't detect every little quirk and epigenetic switch within a sequence, and some of the aspects of DNA we look at can be identical between people, so there is no way for the DNA test to differentiate between them. So, as a matter of fact, the more people are in the DNA database, the higher the odds of an incorrect test result, which then sends the wrong person to jail.

Secondly, that's to say nothing of the fact that there might be all sorts of reasons why someone's DNA is at a crime scene -- including that they came 'round for dinner last month. Any given crime scene probably has between 5 and 100 people's DNA within it. If you just lazily lock up whoever's DNA is at any given crime scene, you'd wind up with basically every American in the country in jail within a year or two. So DNA alone really doesn't do anything at all to help us find the actual criminal, and it wouldn't do anything to reduce investigative work. If anything, it would just increase it. You still need a full-blown investigation, just like you do now, but you would also have to eliminate dozens or even hundreds of false flags that every DNA test would give you, both from people who walked through the area at any point in the last several weeks or months, and from people who weren't even there but have identical DNA markers according to the test. What the hell is the point of that?

And finally, if the government is perfectly happy to throw people in jail without even doing an investigation, what on earth makes you think they'll suddenly change their minds and decide to do all this extra work once they have a complete DNA database? That's absurd and naïve. Our government can't even be trusted with phone numbers, and you want to give them everyone's DNA? Not on my life, thanks.

DNA tests can fail. I will agree with that. Back to the failing of DNA tests. Yes they can fail. There is a variety of reasons for that. One is of course that 'old' DNA may be damaged. Quick tests may also not be conclusive. However, when you collect the DNA for a database then this is fresh DNA and the argument does not stand strong anymore. Same when you ultimately try to identify a person 'live'. ('live' as in not collected from the table after 3 months, but taken from a person who stays in front of you.) Not using a technology when it is available is backwards and naïve. It won't solve a case by itself, but at least it has the potential to help. That by itself is reason enough to justify it.

I share your concerns in the sense that it should not replace other methods in an investigation but not using it would be a dumb thing to do.

But I have a question for you. One of the most common reaction I see in this poll is the lack of trust in the government. You also bring this up. And I agree that this is a major concern. If this was not the case and you could trust the government. Would you agree or still disagree?


Joey
 
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