Police arresting people "just for the DNA"

[cali]

Tue Nov 24, 2009 4:44am EST

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has built the world's biggest DNA database without proper political debate and police routinely arrest people just to get their DNA profiles onto the system, the genetics watchdog said in a report on Tuesday.

The Human Genetics Commission, which advises the government on the social, legal and ethical aspects of genetics, called for a review of the database and said new laws must be passed to govern its use.

In a damning report, the commission said "function creep" had transformed the system from a DNA store for offenders into a database of suspects.

More than three-quarters of young black men aged between 18 and 35 are on the system, the report said.

Set up in 1995, the database contains the DNA profiles of five million citizens, eight percent of the population, making it the world's biggest in proportion to population size.

<snip>

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5AN1FA20091124

"Parliament has never formally debated the establishment of the National DNA Database and safeguards around it," commission chairman Professor Jonathan Montgomery said in a statement.

[Taverner]

1. Difference between the UK and US: we had this legal discussion in the 90's

Granted, nothing was resolved

[elehhhhna]

2. yanno, in perfectworld, this would be a good idea...

preventative dna storage so IF the guy commits a crime he's already in the system. Could be a deterrent. But this intrusive type of power in the hands of the state is always frightening. It WILL be abused.

[Posteritatis]

3. If they're arresting people without cause it looks like it's already being abused. (nt)

[elehhhhna]

4. yeppers.

[nebenaube]

5. this DNA database and others like it are a eugenisist's wet dream...

[pundaint]

6. Do they have a 4th amendment equivalent?

I don't know, but if they don't there's no problem there.

[peacetalksforall]

7. Sounds racist. It is still Northern European superiority over the rest of the world. It's the same

in the US. The US goes further - it pulls able bodied men off the street and puts them in prisons - then tortures some of them under contracts using human haters in other countries and our own. Psychiatrists and military brass included.