• Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

    Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

    Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

DNA Database

Lupine Volt

Lupine Volt

My name is...
Should everyone in the nation be entered into the DNA database on a manditory basis?

I personally think yes, as it will obviously help with bringing down criminals.
 
Eh.

I don't see why not. Until people find some terrible way of using our DNA for nefarious uses, I see no reason why not.

Although the people of TCoD always have a way of changing my mind.
 
I'm sure there a lot of flaws in this logic, but I'm okay with it since I don't plan on doing anything wrong.

As for the fact that some people think it's an invasion of privacy - so long as there are restrictions of some sort as to what the government can use it for, I don't see much of a problem.

Although I am expecting someone to come into this thread and point out why I'm wrong. I probably am for all I know.
 
I'm sure there a lot of flaws in this logic, but I'm okay with it since I don't plan on doing anything wrong.
Click to expand...

"You're only in danger if you've got something to hide!"

No. Privacy is privacy; the argument that anything a person wants to keep private must be incriminating is absurd.

I have no problem with a DNA database, so long as it operates on a strictly voluntary basis.
 
I think it should be voluntary until you commit a crime, since most criminals aren't experienced enough to avoid leaving evidence for their first crime but, in theory at least, should get progressively better at it. I'm aware this doesn't happen in practice. A lot of criminals never get better.
 
opaltiger said:
"You're only in danger if you've got something to hide!"

No. Privacy is privacy; the argument that anything a person wants to keep private must be incriminating is absurd.

I have no problem with a DNA database, so long as it operates on a strictly voluntary basis.
Click to expand...

I didn't say that those who do have a problem with it are going to do something incriminating. I know that that isn't true. I said that I personally wouldn't mind having my DNA on a database for the opposite reason.
What I meant wasn't "You're only in danger if you've got something to hide" it would be more of "If you don't have anything to hide, you're not in danger." I'm sure I could still word that better though :/

I can fully understand why people who don't have anything incriminating against them would still want to keep things private, I was merely saying why I didn't have a problem with it myself.
 
What do they think we are, cattle? I own the right to my body, and that includes my genetic information. No one can force me to give my DNA away to some super secret database.
 
I don't trust them to look after it. Keep a database of criminals' DNA and that's all.

"If you don't have anything to hide, you're not in danger." When you say this, you are a misunderstanding something. Many people believe that privacy has its own value, so that to lose privacy is a downside in itself, regardless of what the private thing is. To them what you said is nonsensical, because they feel that not being able to hide their DNA is itself the "danger". They are not saying the right to privacy should be invincible, but they want it to be put on the scales with the other pros and cons.
 
Last edited:
Well, if the government goes rounding up criminals to get their DNA so that they can be entered in a database so we will know what crimes they committed, why not just put them in prison and forget the database?
 
Animorph said:
Should everyone in the nation be entered into the DNA database on a manditory basis?

I personally think yes, as it will obviously help with bringing down criminals.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mind, But i think it's kind of cool knowing that the only thing to prove I exist is my name :o

spicy~
 
_Ditto_ said:
Well, if the government goes rounding up criminals to get their DNA so that they can be entered in a database so we will know what crimes they committed, why not just put them in prison and forget the database?
Click to expand...
There are sentences with lengths other than "life".

There're also people who get away with various crimes who get DNA samples taken anyway because they're suspects and possibly get caught eventually maybe.
 
They wouldn't retroactively hunt down criminals, they'd take the DNA of any criminals who committed crimes or were in custody at the time of the bill's passing.
 
I'm against the idea of a DNA Database. Theoretically it sounds great, but in practise you can't be sure the people with such a database can be trusted. You can place restrictions on just what the authorities can do with it, but these restrictions would need to be enforced, and corruption can occur anywhere along the scale. If not now, then probably at some point in the unforeseeable future. Murphy's law.
 
Honestly, I'm not really liking this idea unless criminals or suspects only are forced to enter. I don't know if I'd enter my DNA into it if it were voluntary.

And with the whole corruption thing, what kind of corruption could there be? I'm sure there can be some kind I'm not thinking of, but you can't really do anything with someone's DNA information. You can't recreate their DNA in some cells and plant it somewhere (I don't think). The database ideally wouldn't store an actual DNA sample of everyone, just computer-encoded info of what genes everybody has. You could manually go in and change your own record before committing a big crime, I guess, but shouldn't there be blocks on that? Other than that, the only thing you can really do is leak the information, and with any big place that keeps secrets, there are codes of conduct and whatnot. And, if information was leaked, one should be able to file lawsuits, like with when confidentiality is broken in other fields.

Ruby said:
I don't trust them to look after it. Keep a database of criminals' DNA and that's all.

"If you don't have anything to hide, you're not in danger." When you say this, you are a misunderstanding something. Many people believe that privacy has its own value, so that to lose privacy is a downside in itself, regardless of what the private thing is. To them what you said is nonsensical, because they feel that not being able to hide their DNA is itself the "danger". They are not saying the right to privacy should be invincible, but they want it to be put on the scales with the other pros and cons.
Click to expand...
After a while of the database's implementation, how could this be any different than, say, someone's social security (which the government, I surely hope, has on record)?
 
And with the whole corruption thing, what kind of corruption could there be? I'm sure there can be some kind I'm not thinking of, but you can't really do anything with someone's DNA information. You can't recreate their DNA in some cells and plant it somewhere (I don't think).
Click to expand...

Sure you can, but you can't accomplish anything particularly interesting with it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom