please" One small step for man; one [more] giant step for Big Brother. (Or ... if you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't mind giving your DNA. And you don't need a lawyer; you shouldn't object to having your home searched; etc., etc.) - --jim http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news U.S. Set to Begin a Vast Expansion of DNA Sampling 05 Feb 2007 The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, officials said, a vast expansion of DNA gathering. The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/washington/05dna.html?_r=1&oref=slogin U.S. Set to Begin a Vast Expansion of DNA Sampling By JULIA PRESTON Published: February 5, 2007 The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected. The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little- noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents. Over the last year, the Justice Department has been conducting an internal review and consulting with other agencies to prepare regulations to carry out the law. The goal, justice officials said, is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents, including illegal immigrants. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons. The law has strong support from crime victims' organizations and some women's groups, who say it will help law enforcement identify sexual predators and also detect dangerous criminals among illegal immigrants. "Obviously, the bigger the DNA database, the better," said Lynn Parrish, the spokeswoman for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, based in Washington. "If this had been implemented years ago, it could have prevented many crimes. Rapists are generalists. They don't just rape, they also murder." Peter Neufeld, a lawyer who is a co-director of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated dozens of prison inmates using DNA evidence, said the government was overreaching by seeking to apply DNA sampling as universally as fingerprinting. "Whereas fingerprints merely identify the person who left them," Mr. Neufeld said, "DNA profiles have the potential to reveal our physical diseases and mental disorders. It becomes intrusive when the government begins to mine our most intimate matters." ...<SNIP>... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Desktop 9.5.3 (Build 5003) Charset: US-ASCII wsBVAwUBRceor2nfFhwmXlFCAQiZBwf6A0ij0S8Vk02xzqT13h2iU8QoYOdNIvhY x8p7zVHRTXnXt5NIUPElen2iLsOW6Ipf3n1z/hTgCVX2lpm8AZSKZ5ksK4Ky0hsG IxLJJgsJVrdpbwBlftod1OOd7cQsMorOe6dscpqipOl+dDO9Qj4GEhMJX/CMaBNC fcASlkPb9ZUh2gLfhVI5JnYtJvV0Wg85W0myALrrIBIk4KX44RTaaLTi94WdbwpS xYAW5JeC7YYO4fBYxNzZAvSGbRuFglcIkCA3mUAsVPouXyczDUHqR4dfEbWCsoG+ 0bSAIlQhmeBOmTImEtQHZVy9eQIKPAKW3GKZ8ZsB2C14z/5UcfdS0g== =MZrQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://archives.listbox.com/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]