[HN Gopher] Orange County Prosecutors Operate "Vast, Secretive" ...
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       Orange County Prosecutors Operate "Vast, Secretive" Genetic
       Surveillance Program
        
       Author : newman8r
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2021-07-03 16:56 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (theintercept.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (theintercept.com)
        
       | procombo wrote:
       | Don't U.S. states all already do this immediately after birth?
       | 
       | https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18945-do-you-care-wha...
       | 
       | https://www.healthnutnews.com/cbs-dna-from-newborn-blood-sam...
       | 
       | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23136040/
       | 
       | In my state even when you home-birth you are required to submit
       | samples. You have a right to "request" they destroy the samples
       | after 90 days, but in the fine print it says they will process
       | your request but they won't guarantee that all
       | samples/digitizations will actually get destroyed.
        
       | oceanghost wrote:
       | OC law enforcement is famously corrupt. Lived there for years. I
       | can't tell how many times I got pulled over for BS reasons for a
       | fishing expedition. I was once given a ticket for "incorrect
       | instrumentation" for a completely unmodified (and unremarkable)
       | 350Z.
        
         | coolspot wrote:
         | Some people think driving a 350Z is already a probable cause.
        
           | oceanghost wrote:
           | My point exactly.
        
       | anm89 wrote:
       | One thing that always makes me curious about this kind of thing
       | is how people that enact these programs justify them to
       | themselves and the people around themselves. This is evil villain
       | level stuff to strong-arm people into submitting genetic samples
       | for your private database by abusing your position of power to
       | invent felonies for them and I don't think these people are dumb,
       | they know that what they are doing is awful.
       | 
       | Just weird to me how I feel like everyone is infuriated all the
       | time by everything, things order if magnitude less messed up than
       | this, but then these people exist in this magic bubble where no
       | one is bothered by this. Doesn't make sense to me.
        
         | akudha wrote:
         | Few years ago, the Kuwaiti govt started collecting DNA from
         | _every_ person in the country.
         | 
         | There was also a news article about British schools collecting
         | DNA of their students and passing it to the cops (don't know if
         | this is fake news or not).
         | 
         | We are not far from the scenario where some every human's DNA
         | is in some massive database, Wikipedia style.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | No, they think they're saving the world, or at least their part
         | of it, from crime. People use that as justification for all
         | sorts of abuse. After all, who would prosecute a prosecutor?
        
         | AtlasBarfed wrote:
         | Maybe because the underlying assumption is that the
         | dark/little/poor people are the only ones this will be used on?
         | The ivory towers care about virtue signalling and property
         | values.
         | 
         | But if you notice, there is a big crime wave in SF... which
         | threatens property values. Genetics database? Double plus good!
        
         | NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
         | The Maryland (?) Supreme Court case made me think that some
         | involve just misunderstand DNA...they think of it as something
         | like a very long random string that makes for a good, unique
         | identifier. That is, of course, completely wrong. I can know
         | all sorts of things about you that are, or should be,
         | private...like who your real parents / kids are, whether you're
         | likely to get cancer or not, whether you are intersex, etc.
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-03 23:02 UTC)