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Comment by stephengillie | Hacker News Reader

This article is so FUD that it hurts.

Honestly, yes, I want law enforcement to use DNA among other evidence they collect. I do not live in fear that law enforcement is secretly hunting me. If you do, speak to someone about your paranoia. My name and address have been on my public resume and my website WHOIS for over 5 years, and I haven't experienced any negative repercussions whatsoever.

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

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DNA is vastly different from your name and address, which many would consider public information. DNA is much more identifying and private.

Yes, and? Do you expect police to come to your house because you're a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis?

Please state your argument in full. Statements like this are just further FUD.

How would you feel about having a taser in a collar at the base of yours (and everyone's) neck? It only gets turned on by the authorities if they see a crime in progress. It's perfectly harmless otherwise, right? If you're not doing anything wrong, what's to fear?

In the case of markers like this, it's pretty easy to correlate by race or other heritable factors criminal behavior. If there's no harm in it, when a crime goes down in an area it seems reasonable to go and just round up all the people with rough genetic markers matching, right?

It might even make sense to keep them in groups organized by genetic markers and race, since that should speed up policework dramatically.

And later, if you want to procreate with somebody, maybe you should make sure their genotype won't mark your kids for poor treatment by the authorities--after all, accidents _do_ happen, and the labwork is never 100%, so better safe than sorry.

Can you see why this makes people antsy?

YMMV, but I consider my residence address (or, generalizing - my live geolocation) way more sensitive than my photo, fingerprints or DNA.

Personally, I have to trust someone much less to send them a photo, than an address of residence.

I'm not exactly sure what can be more undesirable - being recognized or being physically interacted with. However, my first impression when I started to reply to your comment was that it's the latter.

Police states exist. It's a genuine possibility that your "nothing to fear" argument ignores.

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