The DHS has been harvesting DNA from Americans for years | Hacker News Reader

The DHS has been harvesting DNA from Americans for years

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128 pointsrighthand28 comments

California is ahead of the curve:

DNA of every baby born in California is stored. Who has access to it? - CBS News https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-biobank-dna-babies-w...

That is terrible and dystopian. Even if they claim to honor deletion how would you know? It may be resold already or in backups or wherever.

Frightening and has convinced me why people are moving away.

Tough call between the big state with NIMBYs and surveillance, or the big state where they want me to use the men's bathroom and the cops will give you hell for fleeing the state to get an abortion

I would suspect that if you polled people moving between states, DNA collection wouldn't even make the top 20 reasons

yeah, that's why people are fleeing the state that bursts into literal flames every year or two

I remember a friend of a friend describing being arrested for putting a peace protest flyer on a public bulletin board in Australia (protesting the second gulf war) and having a DNA sample taken at that time.

I'm old enough to remember this: https://www.nydailynews.com/1998/12/17/test-tot-dna-sez-rudy...

(1998, NYC, "America's Mayor" before he became such)

"Mayor Giuliani said yesterday that he favors DNA testing for all children at birth as a tool to fight crime, track deadbeat dads and resolve paternity suits. Though not formally proposing such a plan, the mayor told reporters, “I would have no problem with that or fingerprinting all children. “I think DNA should be available the way fingerprints are available,” he added. The mayor’s comments added fuel to the heated debate over Police Commissioner Howard Safir’s plan to collect DNA from prison inmates, parolees and crime suspects."

Seems to be one of those issues like NSA mass surveillance, which transcends party lines and remains supported by most politicians. Kudos to my senator Ron Wyden though, he's been a true champion of opposing both of those things.

I liked the world better when the tinfoil hat people were wrong.

So back before we came out of the trees?

The irony is that they didn't force people to give their DNA (except if you were arrested) but instead people willingly gave it and even paid for it.

If you think Bill Gates is going to implant a chip in your brain via a COVID vaccine you are mistaken. Once such tech exists (if ever) people will be lining up in queues and pay a lot of money to get it implanted.

The irony is that they didn't force people to give their DNA (except if you were arrested) but instead people willingly gave it and even paid for it.

You and I must have read different articles. The one being discussed here is about American citizens, who are not under arrest, being compelled to give cheek swabs as a condition of re-entering their own country.

This isn't a conspiracy, this just a law enforcement practice that people might not like and sounds scary enough to make for an inflammatory headline.

Treating everyone as a potential criminal and collecting their DNA and fingerprints is not normal practice. Fingerprints are collected only from criminals or suspects.

Except it clearly states that you’re not allowed to submit DNA for civil statute enforcement or no reason at all by law, so it’s not just a law enforcement practice. It’s an illegal law enforcement practice.

The X-Files was right all along

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45353800

https://archive.ph/ov4RV

Have they ever encouraged people to submit DNA samples in order to identify criminal relatives? I could see this going over well with the law-and-order part of the population.

This is a great call, these folks aren't devious or clever enough to understand that they can just ask...

Even more devious would be "submit DNA samples and we'll give you immunity from paternity lawsuits", since concerns over that might inhibit some.

Nobody who needs protection from a paternity lawsuit would fall for it.

Oh, my sweet summer child. Have you met any teenage boys? Or most philandering men?

A murderer was caught because he was semi-closely (2nd-cousin) related to my cousin. Her DNA was a loose match to evidence. They found out she is The Geneologist for our family, and asked her to help... Boom, found him.

You just follow them around until they throw their lunch in the park waste bin, then collect their DNA off the garbage. No need to compel anyone.

That's the end game, but first you have to figure who to follow around. To do that, you triangulate with public DNA data of somewhat distant relatives. Forensic genealogy.

HN Search: GEDmatch - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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