Privacy & crimes - Too far? Not far enough?

I agree with you. I honestly don't mind my information (fingerprints/DNA/whatever) being available for identification purposes. I'm not going to do anything unlawful (that I know of.. ) so it won't affect me at all. At least in my opinion. Of course I have an identical twin brother so I share my DNA with another person but still...

I think the same about cameras in public areas. I don't care if you capture me driving down the highway at x time of night. This won't be publicly accessible and even if it is who cares. If cameras in public can be used to save lives/capture criminals I'm all for them.

I do know this is a very contentious issue though so I'm not saying what I think is the correct or best way it is just how I feel.

 

This whole case is riddled with inconsistencies. But the key point is that this is an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The Court trying to redefine that a DNA swab is more reasonable that a blood test because the skin isn't punctured is a weak qualification.

The determination of Fourth Amendment violation is in weighing whether the governments interests outweigh the individuals right to privacy. If the right to privacy is upheld during an arrest for the search of property (e.g. being arrested does not give the police to search your house without a warrant.) then I would say that the privacy of my body should be held to the same or higher standards. The interest of the government put forth is both inadequate in general, and inapplicable in this specific case. The governments interests in this case are "identification of arrestees and DNA identification’s unmatched potential to serve that interest." DNA is not "unmatched" in its ability to identify the arrestee, it is no more effective and more intrusive than other methods already accepted. And more importantly, the DNA taken from the person in this case was demonstrably not for the purpose of identifying him. It took weeks for the DNA sample to be processed, by which time, presumable the person in question had already been adequately identified by other means.

It's a slippery slope, and that's why we need to be aware of it. It's a popular view to say "It's just like fingerprinting" or "I didn't break the law, I don't have anything to worry about." But you do. You have your individual expectation of privacy to worry about, and that can be taken away little by little if you don't defend it.

 

For 90% of the crimes people are arrested for, I have no problem with it. It is the protestors (on both sides) that might get arrested or might even resist arrest that shouldn't be entered into some database. There are probably some other crimes too that I'm not thinking about. It is all dependent on how they define "serious crimes".

 

Fingerprints i don't mind, they already have mine because of my Naval service. DNA however, is a totally different monster. I'm sorry, just because "I " do not plan to do anything illegal, does not make it ok. "I" am but one of 5 BILLION people on this planet. I and the 250+ MILLION in the US and it's territories have a CONSTITUTIONAL right (ahem 5th Amendment) to NOT testify against myself. Getting DNA WITHOUT a warrant, breaks that 5th Amendment because you are basically FORCED to testify against yourself. Again, it probably won't ever affect me, but it is another right that 250+ MILLION people in this nation and territories are losing. I feel it would be selfish of me and short sighted of me to say "OK, take DNA without a warrant." Because once you GIVE WILLINGLY AND BLINDLY to the government the ability to take a right away, it will and it will push their position as far as they can. So, that "violent and serious" crime that the COURT now states is acceptable to take your DNA, some states and territories, in reality may claim speeding as a "serious" crime because technically speeding is endangering others on the road. Shoplifting could be "serious" because insurance companies have to cover the losses and want restitution and your DNA so that they can not track you to "prevent your further costing society money"....... It's an extremely slippery slope and with NO definitive description as to what qualifies for a "serious" crime (some states Marijuana possession is a FELONY, some states it's legal or a misdemeanor), opens the door for states to abuse this new power.

Again, to me, it's a question of the 5th Amendment. EVERYBODY protected under the US Constitution has a right to NOT testify against themselves. By taking DNA WITHOUT a warrant you are forcing someone to testify against themselves in reality. So while this loss of a protected right HOPEFULLY, never will apply to me, I just don't want to sit idly by and blindly give it tacit approval. I just can see the government abusing this to the point where they'll get everyone's DNA at birth, is that what we truly want as a "FREE" society? We have for profit prisons that are going to need beds filled.... our government is extremely pro business and corrupt just look at what they have GIVEN Monsanto on a SILVER platter.

 

I agree with Pan (except that it is a 4th amendment issue of search and seizure, not 5th amendment issue of self-incrimination)...and the dissenting minority on the Court (three liberals and Scalia).

Scalia wrote a scathing dissent.

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This is the right-leaning Supreme Court expanding police powers at the expense of civil liberties....not the first time in the last few years.

 

I'm not an expert on DNA, but if they find some at a crime scene, can they tell the age, race, and (obviously) gender from the sample?

While we are at creating a national gun registry, we might as well get the DNA to go along with it.

But, I am at 5-4 in my mind too as to weather this is good (criminals should get caught for serious crimes that should be spelled out), verses how this will be used if it becomes trivial to collect DNA and search a huge database for any crime.


Oh, and last time I checked there were something like 330-350 million Americans, and a few million undocumented workers.

 

This is the fundamental problem with amassing vast quantities of data about everyone, under the presumption that "only criminals need fear being known:" the data, once collected, are subject to abuse. And the government has shown no evidence to support the idea that it will not abuse the data. To the contrary, it has given ample evidence that the right to privacy exists for good reason: that those in power can never be trusted unilaterally with power too great, for they will surely misuse it.

This nation was founded by those who had suffered an imperial government unashamed to dispense with the personal liberties of those who threatened it, and therefore those founders valued personal liberty greatly, and sought to balance strong central republican government with democratic procedures and forms, and created not only a multi-branched government to act as check and balance upon itself, but sought to promote and preserve a free press to act as a further check upon the government. Among their basic premises were that those in power had a responsibility to hold that power wisely for the benefit of the rest of the people, and that the people in turn had the right to expect not only wise actions but honesty from their representatives (and I mean honesty about matters political and social, since actually our founders were far more tolerant of discreet personal foibles than we tend to be today).

And now we have a government that does not merely capture foreign nationals and imprison them indefinitely without trial, does not merely operate an intelligence-gathering machine of unthinkable proportions against the entire rest of the world, but turns that apparatus, and that willingness to overlook the law and its principles, against its own populace. It culls data without warrant, without specific cause, en masse, and keeps that data. It arbitrarily takes DNA from everyone arrested in certain jurisdictions and keeps the data, regardless of whether the suspect is then tried and proved guilty or not. Cameras are everywhere, sprouting like weeds from cracks in the concrete: do any of us even question where that data goes, much less how often each one of us is captured on film without our permission? And what is more, all of this is deemed "legal" because of apparently secret laws that even members of Congress are not permitted to discuss or disclose to the public, and because of secret warrants-- apparently including mass warrants for general categories of people-- have been granted by secret courts.

We are told that the intelligence community is gathering information about "terrorists." What just cause, what reasonable grounds of suspicion are there to collect information about Occupy protestors, LGBT activists, anti-war activists, environmental activists, activists for educational reform, anti-corporate activists, anti-poverty activists, and all the others about whom it has been revealed that the NSA is collecting information?

In this system, people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty; they are supposed to be free of official suspicion unless there are reasonable grounds for such suspicion. And their personal lives are supposed to be private unless a specific warrant is granted by a judge to search for specific evidence.

But not anymore. Poor George Orwell is finally vindicated, his terrible vision beginning to come to pass, even if thirty years "late." The great joke, of course, is that all of this is happening under a president elected as "moderate" and "somewhat progressive." This, if anything, should show us that politicians, regardless of their party, are all the same: power-hungry oligarchs, rich and powerful parasites that feed off the body politic like maggots at a festering wound. They are not there to help anyone or care for anyone: they are too busy creating the infrastructure of their own authority, the Lidless Eye That Never Sleeps:

 

Yes, security and IT have too much access and not enough people watching them IMO. Plus there is too lax of security on computers which hasn't caught up to where the old fashioned paper documents are.

Think of how much leaking could be going on that foreign governments are coordinating but doesn't make it into the papers. Sure they government monitors the activities of people with access, but still there is too little oversight and too little restrictions on accessing 'need to know' files without a need to know.