US dismantles forensic science commission | Hacker News Reader

US dismantles forensic science commission

washingtonpost.com

159 pointsfinid72 comments

It just continues a long line of anti-science measures by the administration.

Proposing to cut funding to the EPA, the Energy Department, NASA, National Institute of Health, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

And then there's the nomination of climate change denier Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA.

Not to mention the dozens of science and technology positions in the administrations that are yet to be filled.

I can understand many of these moves even though I don't agree with them -- these agencies are wasteful from the perspective of very very conservative people. They are government overreach from a Libertarian perspective. They are advocacy organizations that have political beliefs that are not in line with the administration (racial justice, environmental protection, sexual health, etc)

But this one is just pure cartoonish moustache-twirling evil. Even the most staunch Libertarians out there think government supported law enforcement is a worthwhile use of taxpayer money, and in particular making sure that it's done correctly. The conflict of interesting inherent in having scientific standards for conviction and evidence be determined by prosecutors, not scientists, is easy to see. Here we have Sessions saying: "We don't need to make sure that we are convicting people accurately, or that the science we use to lock people in cages for the rest of their lives to be repeatedly raped is based on fact". We have recently learned that nearly all forensic science is FAR less accurate than the people using it suggested and that FBI forensic scientists have been testifying under oath and wildly exaggerating the accuracy of their methods in order to get convictions -- this is public knowledge, and yet Sessions still wants to quash any investigation.

Of all the cabinet picks and even more so than the president, I think Sessions is the most terrifying. What do you do when the Attorney General, a person with near unlimited power to imprison anyone in the country is explicitly and blatantly malicious and corrupt? He earned his way up the ranks, after all, abusing his position as a prosecutor to go after his political opponents, some of whom are still in jail for daring to run for office with a D next to their name in Sessions' turf in Alabama: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/jeff-session...

But this one is just pure cartoonish moustache-twirling evil.

I think it's in line with mainstream conservative messaging. Their first resort is to argue against policy goals, but some "liberal" policy goals, such as keeping poisonous chemical out of rivers and streams, have broad popular appeal. To deal with that, conservatives rely on a broad anti-government message that they have been repeating and reinforcing for decades. No matter what the mission is, no matter how straightforward it seems, the government will find a way to cause more harm than good. That's how people can grow up next to a waterway, eat fish from it every week growing up, see it poisoned by dumping, reluctantly stop eating the fish, see animals die after drinking the water on a bad day, forbid their children from playing near it, and still thank God for their Republican congressmen gutting environmental regulations. The stream should have been kept clean, the dumping should have been prevented, but environmental protections would have made things worse, because it's just common sense that government makes everything worse. Everybody knows that.

Another message conservatives have been drilling for decades is that liberals are only interested in helping degenerate, parasitic subsets of society. Conservative voters on the lower end of the economic spectrum don't trust law enforcement much more than liberals do. They can easily imagine themselves being railroaded by corrupt or incompetent law enforcement using bogus forensic data. However, they don't imagine that liberals, or a program set up by liberals, would help someone like them. Conservative messaging has drilled it into their heads that liberals are only interested in helping lazy, dishonest, dissolute, parasitic people, and that's not how they see themselves. So they see government programs as indifferent to people like them, which adds an extra layer of distrust on top of the perception that the government gets everything wrong anyway.

Trump is not a conservative, but he understands the voters that conservatives have created.

However, they don't imagine that liberals, or a program set up by liberals, would help someone like them.

No wonder, when it's even OK for fox news to say that the left wants to "destroy everything" and "wish death on everybody".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MEmqqvH2Aw&ab_channel=yazak...

it's utterly terrifying that this seems to be totally OK to say on one of the most watched news networks of the U.S.

But liberals cannot be brainwashed at all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH5JinMJnHM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LFwU5dI7I4

It's the other side of blind worship of law enforcement and "tough on crime". If you assume that police, prosecutors etc are always acting in the best interests of "honest citizens" beset by criminals, then second-guessing them on anything becomes unthinkable - it doesn't matter if the science is wrong or not, they know what they're doing, and if they lock someone up, that person deserves it. From there it's one step to concluding that anyone who so much as asks questions about whether the science is legitimate, is only doing that solely to undermine crime fighting, and is a "bad guy".

The mission of NIH, EPA, NOAA and many others is science. Science seeks facts, not beliefs. These agencies only practice advocacy to the extent that it is 1) based on scientific fact finding, and 2) to the overall benefit of human health and safety.

It is "the perspective of very very conservative people" that has forced these agencies to be politicized by failing - or refusing - to accept the findings of scientific research.

In order to make an effective argument you need to sympathize with and understand the positions of your opponents. You should be able to produce an honest, excellent argument in support of the opposing position before you should expect your opposition to believe you are discussing in good faith. That's what I'm attempting to do. Saying "You are wrong you hate science science is correct" and ending your argument is satisfying but it is a horribly ineffective rhetorical strategy, and worse doesn't respect the intelligence of the person you're discussing with. If you don't respect them and try to understand their perspective, why should they respect or listen to you? Remember, their vote counts as much as yours. Probably more, since likely they live in a smaller state than you.

You claim these 3 organizations are paragons of objective fact and science and they have no political agenda and motives at all other than where the science happens to lead. And yet we all know this is not true: they are organizations of (almost entirely liberal) human beings who I believe try to do their best to be objective in their work. Plenty of people don't think they are objective or that they don't even try and that's not an objection you can dismiss out of hand without argument. A quick google search turned up this example (http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/261307-why-c...) of someone who thinks the CDC (not one of your examples but close) was for some time taking part in explicitly political anti-gun advocacy (taking the political position first, then finding the science to back it up later). He thinks that is the case because there is a quote from the relevant section head of the CDC saying literally exactly that.

A lot of these positions are also moral/value judgments intertwined with science. Environmental impact analysis is scientific. Suggesting there is some imperative to do something about the results is a value judgment, which is (arguably) not in the purview of the EPA. Voters and their representatives (i.e. Republicans) are the ones who get to decide whether these environmental protections are something we as a country want to put into place or if they are worth the loss in industrial efficiency. Voters and their representatives get to decide if it's morally acceptable for the government to assist and advocate for birth control, abortion, sexual health, etc. It doesn't matter what the science says -- science can only tell you how effective the measures are. If the representatives know they will never be implemented no matter how effective because they are morally opposed by politicians (as proxy for the voters), doing studies on them is arguably not an effective use of time, money, and expertise for a policy agency, since the object of the study will never affect policy.

The EPA and NASA are wasteful? Did you drink water or breathed clean air or used the internet today? (rhetorical question)

It's a question of sheer amount of corruption. We're at a point where the revolving door has become an expressway, and the connection has become so hardened, that the only option becomes to shut them down.

Most agencies are now captured by the large interests. https://i.imgur.com/UiH0Dmb.png https://i.imgur.com/ZQsJN6T.png

Anyone who mentions anything about this must face an army of shills and dependents, while actual whistleblowing goes unreported and ignored. https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/JessRowlandMari...

Sure, in a perfect world you'd rather have functioning agencies operating in the public interest, but people need to remember that every agency created represents yet another attack surface for corruption.

> We're at a point where the revolving door has become an expressway,

Yes

> and the connection has become so hardened,

maybe (but probably not)

> that the only option becomes to shut them down

Not even close.

The answer is to prosecute the corruption, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

So your answer is to rely on the DoJ, that itself is so corrupt it couldn't prosecute its way out of a paper bag?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the entire system is corrupt to the core.

> What do you do when the Attorney General, a person with near unlimited power to imprison anyone in the country is explicitly and blatantly malicious and corrupt?

We consider ourselves lucky that 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.

No seriously: a wingnut DoJ can do terrible damage, but one thing Sessions doesn't have is a "near unlimited power to imprison". Courts are still courts. They've been doing their job so far.

If you have a good lawyer. What they've been building and want more of is classism in justice, justice as a product. You get more and better justice if you can afford more and better lawyers. If you can't, well that's merely unfair but good luck getting justice out of unfairness.

The response was to an apparent fear that Sessions will start using the administrative power of the DoJ to imprison political enemies. He can't do that, because separation of powers.

Obviously injustice exists. And it did under Lynch and Holder too.

The Supreme Court allowed the Executive to imprison all Japanese-Americans for a time. The separation of powers dissolves under the right circumstances.

I'm tempted to agree with you ignoring some concerns mentioned downthread: in wartime (which looks like it is approaching fast), the judicial branch tends to let the executive do what it wishes. Imprison every American citizen with a certain proportion of Japanese blood, for example. And we could quote President Jackson, the president Trump compares himself to most, when he said, "John Marshall [supreme court chief justice] has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" after the court ruled against one of his orders (specifically the order that caused the Trail of Tears IIRC)

But the larger concern is that if you investigate or follow someone around long enough, you'll find a reason to lock them up. And if not, evidence can be easily fabricated (this very ruling facilitates fabricating evidence more effectively!). The courts can do nothing if a prosecutor provides legally (or "legally") obtained evidence of one of the thousands of federal felonies. Would they even if they could? The courts have been obedient servants of the law enforcement/national security apparatus for quite some time now. Plus there are many, many avenues available to Law Enforcement (especially federal) that no longer require any input from the judicial branch, like administrative subpoenas, national security letters. Asset forfeiture requires some but minimal judicial oversight.

Except when they don't, as described by the link in the parent comment

My hypothesis, that has held up (in my mind) for awhile now, is that it's an adherence to ideology over reason and rationality, an approach that unfortunately has been legitimized for a large part of the right wing in the U.S. The denial of climate change is perhaps the easiest example, but remember that large proportions of Republicans believe many other things also supported by ideology and contrary to reason: Obama was not American, that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, and many other myths. During the campaign, Trump could say almost anything and a certain segment believed it; and no matter what a Democrat said, it was disbelieved.

They aren't the first to do that, but I can't think of it happening on such a large scale since the Communists and fascists. In a way, it's reminiscent of the struggle that ended the Middle Ages and gave rise to the Enlightenment.

Unfortunately when they realize that their opponents are not constrained by logic and reason, it seems to have the effect of convincing the other side to no longer bother with it either.

The left has their own set of "religious" reasoning. It's important that we make the debate about logic and reality vs magical thinking and emotional reasoning. Not only does "us vs. them" just set people off, it really only shuffles the problem around a bit rather than solving it.

> The left has their own set of "religious" reasoning.

I strongly disagree with the argument that it's all the same, both sides are the same, etc. It's like saying that everyone is a liar, therefore they all are equally dishonest. Or that all software has bugs, therefore it's all equally flawed.

In fact, 'it's all the same' is the refuge of liars (not the parent, to be 100% clear) - 'we all lie, right?' - and a well-known, well-practiced tactic of propagandists - their purpose isn't to persuade, but to make truth indistinguishable from lies.

It's not the same at all. There is a serious problem on the right.

Worse, I now agree that my complacency with this argument has been a large part of worsening things. :(

It sucks right now to finally be speaking up and having folks just assume I somewhat agreed with them in the past. No. I just didn't realize how misguided you were. All people are highly likely to make mistakes. This does not excuse the brazen bullshit we have gotten from the right.

The statement that you quoted does not claim, or imply, that it's all the same. It merely says that the left has its own sacred cows that aren't entirely objective and based on facts - which is correct. But there's a difference in the number of such cows, and just how much rejection of reality is involved in maintaining them.

> The statement that you quoted does not claim, or imply, that it's all the same.

Fair point, and it crossed my mind when I wrote my GP comment. I disagree with your statement but I can't disprove it and any comment's implications are in the eye of the beholder, to a degree. But I still think the implication I took is a reasonable one, and I did write carefully so as address an argument made by many, even if not by the GGP:

> I strongly disagree with the argument that it's all the same [emphasis added]

> It just continues a long line of anti-science measures by the administration.

It's much more widespread and long-term than this administration; it's the Republican Party. A great many other Republican leaders, current and past, advocate and enact the same measures at many levels of government.

Well, this administration clearly doesn't want anyone within the executive branch to have the ability, vis a vis independence, to contradict their agenda, on any level.

The result is that anyone empowered to do research will answer to them directly, and anything don't like will never see the light of day, if it is even brought up in the first place (because, of course, this is also an administration that only wants to confirmation of their policies).

So, essentially, we can expect only more of this. Quasi-indepenent commissions will be replaced by groups we never hear from, unless they have something to say that backs up an administration policy. It'll be a rough four years for policy.

This is what "public funding for research" means. If we didn't want politics to affect research, we shouldn't have sold it to politicians.

Politics always affects research, even private research. This is simply a fact of life - there is no taking it away from politics entirely.

What this does is removes the second portion of research/policy connection - when policy changes based on the results of the science. It can disallow for proper public discussion. For example, I fully expect the justice department to not convict someone over a flawed forensic science, once we find out it is flawed. Only, with the internal review, we might not find out it is flawed at all. The 'official' report might just say this is stellar when it isn't.

That's a good point.

Why does the government directly fund scientific research? A better system might be to spin off private, non-profit entities and inject them with massive amounts of cash—enough to weather stormy political climates.

That would be interesting, though I fear that system would suffer the same problems. It could be corrupted by a desire to receive ongoing funding (either the individual researchers, or the organization).

Physics research is an example of something which is hard to corrupt politically. However, because government is at least somewhat in charge of so many things today, fields like medicine, mental health, anthropology, even geology can become political.

Then there are the obvious things like matters relating to guns, where the government has a clear interest in "proving" that the public shouldn't have guns, which is one of the CDC was barred from doing research related to this. If I recall correctly, one of the researchers employed by the CDC was recorded insinuating that his team would manipulate the observations to reach a foregone conclusion.

The other obvious one is the relationship between government research, lobbying (official and unofficial), and regulatory bodies.

I do get why it is attractive to fund research with government money, however. It can often seem like there just isn't enough money in research, and indeed there isn't much; but if your research dollar is spent on corrupt research then it may be worse than nothing.

By relying on private money, the special interests can be diversified automatically, which seems more healthy to my mind.

>... though I fear that system would suffer the same problems. It could be corrupted by a desire to receive ongoing funding ...

Emphasis on massive amounts of money. For example, let's say USG dumps 80 billion into YC Research with the expectation of being able to sustain research for 16 years. I'm pretty sure YCR would struggle to spend 5B/year, and I'm really sure they wouldn't give a single shit about trying to ingratiate themselves at the expense of their work's integrity for the purposes of receiving ongoing funding. There would be no reason to, because their funding interval would span at least two administrations, possibly four.

That example of course changes if you assume YCR would be picking up responsibility for critical science previously overseen by government agencies. However, the point is that ample, lump-sum funding of private non-profit organizations can completely destroy any perverse political incentives that would normally plague a government agency.

>By relying on private money, the special interests can be diversified automatically, which seems more healthy to my mind.

Sure, but what's the point if the research output is some company's IP or even trade secret? Private money doesn't have the obligation of serving the public interest. Government money does, at least in spirit. Philanthropy is of course nice, but you can't rely on it.

The commission will be replaced with an internal forensics expert(s), so out goes independent scientific oversight of an arm of the govt. that touts so much science.

I for one will be taking this into account should I find myself in the jury box.

The bad thing is, eyewitness testimony is even worse. And police testimony has a bruised record too. Both sides hire experts to say what they want. I guess video footage is the only thing left to provide objective evidence of a crime scene. :\

While I am all for reducing the size of the government this is bad move. This has less to do with science and more to do with overzealous Jeff Sessions.

Good science often helps find the right guy and stop preventing wrongful convictions. Over last few decades advancements in DNA testing etc. have helped several innocent people from being prosecuted wrongly. This is a step in a reverse direction for criminal justice reforms in USA (though totally expected from Jess Sessions).

Rant: I think we as a people are to be blamed here. We are the ones who have often failed to stand up for the rights of the people who are prosecuted. We buy the government's propaganda of partitioning society as "those bad guys" and "we good guys" and then let government treat the former as total shit. Trump has won election using those kind of tactics.

Wasn't there recently discovered some hundreds of potentially innocent people in either death row or prison due to flawed DNA tests?

> Sessions will end a Justice Department partnership with independent scientists to raise forensic science standards

Well, shit. When I saw the headline I grasped for a thread of hope that maybe this meant a blow to the terrible and corrupt forensic science industry. Nope, this is a step back towards the status quo. I should know better than to be optimistic.

here's a Frontline about how nearly all "forensic science" is not actually backed by science

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/real-csi/

This is a shame. Next the FBI will be bringing charges based upon the use of crystal balls, hair samples, spirit photography, and talking goats. All scientifically validated by the NBS and DOD undoubtedly.

Or heavy metal posters... This is just the national version of what happened in Texas with regard to Todd Willingham. The forensic review committee was disband for fear that they would publicly validate what was becoming clearer by the day. Basically, that Texas likely executed an innocent man based on gut instinct forensic evidence, and the well known fact that people into heavy metal were satanists that kill their children.

Of course SOP for a Republican in Texas in this situation is kill the messenger and deny the message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham#Fire

> During the penalty phase of the trial, a prosecutor said that Willingham's tattoo of a skull and serpent fit the profile of a sociopath. Two medical experts confirmed the theory. A psychologist was asked to interpret Willingham's Iron Maiden poster, and said that a picture of a fist punching through a skull signified violence and death. He added that Willingham's Led Zeppelin poster of a fallen angel was "many times" an indicator of "cultive-type" activities

What the fuck. wow.

Wait, where was the phrenologist's testimony? /s

Reading through it, the entire law enforcement power structure seems to have formed an opinion that this was criminally negligent parenting and that they were going to find a way to throw the book at the guy no matter what.

They noticed that he saved his own neck, rather than sacrifice everything, and did not risk his own life for his 3 children (infants/toddler). Thus, they fed him to the lions. It wasn't enough for him to have suffered burns. Their opinion clearly was that if those children were dead, then he can get it too.

After that, the rest was the machine operating as usual.

They didn't convict him of a crime as per what happened. They convicted him of the crime on the books that had the punishment that fit the situation and their collective opinion of it.

They wanted him dead, not because of heavy metal, or any other reason on display at the dog and pony show, theater trial. They wanted him dead because they felt that it was unreasonable that 3 children (who probably weren't old enough to walk and talk too well) could not be rescued in time, by the only person taking care of them at the moment. Part of the expectation there, is that he should have been steps away, and within arms reach of them.

They threw due process in the trash because they just didn't like what happened.

Yes because that was the case before this commission came into existence in 2013 under then President Obama.. /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling

Looked at his Wikipedia page to brush up on our Attorney General.. Also Jeff Sessions:

"On October 5, 2005, Sessions was one of nine Senators who voted against a Senate amendment to a House bill that prohibited cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment of individuals in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government"

"Sessions has been a strong supporter of civil forfeiture, the government practice of seizing property when it has allegedly been involved in a crime. Sessions opposes "any reform" of civil forfeiture legislation."

Incredible.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sessions#Crime_and_securi...

He was also too racist to be confirmed as a judge in the 80s.

There is a nice letter from MLK's widow about him.

Although, why would you need to have a law against cruel/inhumane treatment? Isn't that already part of the bill of rights?

This is interesting so I dug a bit. Here is the amendment: https://www.congress.gov/amendment/109th-congress/senate-ame...

The amendment prohibited "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" for anyone in custody of the US government, including those physically outside of the US. Notably it was introduced by John McCain.

Oh right that makes sense.

Bill of Rights only applies to US Citizens in the US.

Nope, it applies to every person within the US. The Bill of Rights does not even contain the word "citizen." Moreover, the SCOTUS has ruled multiple times [1] that every person in the US--illegally or not--is entitled to due process.

[1] http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/255281-yes...

Sorry, 'in the US' is the key part, more so than 'US Citizens'.

The bill was to protect detainees and 3rd party nationals in foreign areas (read: black prisons overseas).

Is anyone keeping track of what damage will have to be undone when Trump finally leaves office and is replaced by someone more reasonable?

I think even the knock-on effects will be incalculable after 4 years.

“The availability of prompt and accurate forensic science analysis to our law enforcement officers and prosecutors is critical to integrity in law enforcement, reducing violent crime, and increasing public safety,” Sessions said in the statement. “We applaud the professionalism of the National Commission on Forensic Science and look forward to building on the contributions it has made in this crucial field.”

"applaud and destroy."

Trump is toxic but at least he exposes similar people.

Wonderful! It's a twofer: the Trump administration gets to attack both scientists and accused innocents. Sessions is due for a big pat on the back for this one.

They defeated their enemy: logic!

Yes, they did, except this is not a winner takes all thing. We're still living in the same country.

Interesting choice of things to trim, I'd like no more public resources being used on the FCPA, insider trading, and "material misrepresentations", as these all seem to have disproportionate costs than effect. Who should I tweet?

FCPA? Seriously? That's a revenue stream for the government.

yo dawg, I heard you like kickbacks, so give us a kickback because you gave someone else a kickback, so we can kickback and relax

I'd prefer if our government did not engage in this practice

#MAIA

This was only established 4 years ago. It's not a big deal.

Yes, established recently to deal with an enormous crisis of failures in forensic science that were putting innocent people in jail in huge numbers across the country. The FBI crime lab was essentially doing junk science and sending expert technicians to testify and say "The astrological sign of the defendant that I've described in technical scientific terms you don't understand tells us he was at the crime scene with 99.99% accuracy, trust me, I'm a senior scientist at the FBI crime lab."

It's a huge deal if you're accused of a crime or if you care about innocent people going free.

and it's wider than criminal justice, some of these tests are used in family cases too. Here's a blog post from England about hair strand analysis for substance misuse: http://www.pinktape.co.uk/cases/hair-strand-testing-some-int...

I don't think its lifespan indicates its importance. Without it, it seems possible or even very likely that more innocent people will be have their reputations ruined and be imprisoned, with all the follow on effects on their families and communities. Also, as an unavoidable result, the perpetrators of those crimes will go free. How is that not important?

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