It is my understanding that the government now plans to collect DNA from anyone who is arrested by federal law enforcement, and that the samples will be stored in an effort to reduce violence in our society. Moreover, the U.S. government reportedly now intends to take a cheek swab from foreigners we detain, whether they've been charged or not.
While Congress may have authorized Justice to expand DNA outreach, as citizens, and taxpayers, we're entitled to know what your intentions are.
The concept of DNA collection is, in itself, not a heinous thing. Indeed, if science were to be used to combat wrongful conviction instead of setting up a blueprint for pursuing future incarceration, then I would be a strong proponent of taking DNA samples from everyone who is arrested, and storingthe samples.
But, instead, the database in which the DNA will be stored, CODIS, may one day be a holding cell for vital genetic information, as well as familial associations which may be used against a defendant in a court of law.
As one has no more control over one's genetic blueprint than over the weather, the potential for misuse of this information is staggering. Further, what entitlement does our government have to collect, and store, the DNA of foreigners?
Unfortunately, we do not live in the kind of world in which evidence is used to exculpate people, but one in which it is routinely gathered to incriminate. After all, the U.S. now has the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world; fully 10% of our population is imprisoned.
Clearly, too, the Justice Department and the National Security Agency aren't fine tuning ways to immunize telecommunication companies who eavesdrop on ordinary, and innocuous domestic phone calls as a means of preventing citizens from being ripped off by their credit card, or mortgage, companies.
So, one is understandably cynical when learning of plans by federal law enforcement to take swabs of DNA from those merely arrested, not convicted, of a crime.
Alarming, isn't it, how the concept of privacy, as we once knew it, has now become to modern America what speaking Latin is in Italy--antiquated, and irrelevant. The consequence of this state-sanctioned invasion of privacy is the stuff of Greek tragedy, without a doubt, and the aftershocks of governmental intrusion continue to be felt,and will doubtless outlive the tenure of whoever next occupies the White House.
We have not only descended into a moral maelstrom, but a legal morass. The current administration has rendered the Constitution, once a great document, a vestigial organ, and just another victim of conspicuous consumption.
On your watch, sir, the Eighth Amendment was ravaged with respect to your reluctance to classify waterboarding as torture, and with the Supreme Court's recent decision on lethal injection. Is there a connection? You know, there is. There is a mindset that threatens the foundation upon which the framers built the Bill of Rights, and you, sir, have succumbed to it. How can we not expect you to defer to those who would further compromise the First Amendment by nullifying an implied right to privacy.
And, for what it’s worth, if reducing violence in American society is what’s most desired, then I submit we withdraw all troops from Iraq, as soon as possible, for what kind of role model do we set for our youth when we invade, occupy, and plunder a sovereign country?
If, and when, the machinery of state may come to be used in such a way that it ensures economic equity, and to obviate social, and political disenfranchisement, DNA samples may be used to protect innocent men and women from rotting away behind bars, or falling prey to lethal injection.
Until then, we must proceed with caution, and do with the DNA samples of those under arrest what was done with millions of White House e-mails in the lead-up to the war in Iraq---namely, destroy them. Whatever is left of our freedom may depend on it.
http://ladyjaynestahl.blogspot.com
Widely published, poet, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter; member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA.
It is more than one percent of our adult population (about 2.3 million) who are imprisoned at any given time which is truly horrendous and stupid. About 1.7 million of those prisoners are used as slave labor to private corporations. The private prison corporations have a vested interest in long prison terms and lots of recidivism. Taxpayers' money is being poured down a larger and larger hole to feed these monsters. Families are left to suffer. Children are often thrown, needlessly, into the overwhelmed foster care systems where many are doomed to become part of the next generation of prisoners.
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Pat Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 81 comments)
on Monday, May 12, 2008 at 10:10:01 AM
The question is, will it fall on deaf ears? Most likely. I was thinking on this incarceration issue for some time now. I was attempting to pin point the real cause. After some research and much reading, I found that the War on Drugs policy that the Reagan Administration cramed though via his wonderful Vice President, Herbert walker George Bush, was indeed all about smuggling. What better way to insure your drug trafficking from other countries a sure flight of success than to OWN or operate via Government authority, the transporatation therein. Ahh, drugs have become the greatest grassfire of destruction since this War On drugs policy. Prison populations ahave increased to ONE out of every HUNDRED ppl lay wait in a cell somewhere in the USA. That doesn't even account for all the poppy farmers and other countries that have ppl we nabbed and threw in our world prison camps for "drugs".
That's my take and if anyone of you are aware of the BushSr and Rev Moon connection(brotherly love more like it), you'd know I am on the right track with my long thinking on all of this War On drugs, high incarceration, availibility of drugs in this country(any corner of a street--a phone call away).
Slippery slope indeed, the DNA planting will overwhelmingly put any and all of us away at the Dictator's discretion. Of course, this is just my "take" on the matter of drug policies in our country but the shoe fits right on Bush walker herby.
Walter Cronkite is a sponsor of the "Drug Policy Alliance" of which he states, "the 'war on drugs' has ben a dismal failure". But it's all the way you look at it. In a smuggler's eyes, it's been a GREAT success! How much$ is MUKasey making on this war on drugs? How much are some of the administration's appointees making on smuggling? How about the Justices? The only way to stop drugs is stop the smugglers and shut down the DEA and War on drugs completly. Then and only then, will the prison population go down, and drug trafficking curtail or stop.
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shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 198 comments)
on Monday, May 12, 2008 at 11:11:36 AM
