DNA

teejay

This past Sunday on 60 Minutes, there was a segment about the police investigation of a brutal rape and murder of a student at the University of Oklahoma in 1996. The only evidence the police had was semen. So, to catch the killer, police asked every innocent person that even remotely knew the victim to give them samples of their DNA, imposing what are called DNA dragnets.

Many of the victim?s associates, mainly students, volunteered. The victim was in a ballet troupe that put on performances, so the police got stagehands and everybody else that was involved in the ballet troupe. They tested people from the university, including neighbors at her apartment complex; and people who worked at the golf course where she had a part-time job. In all, more than 200 people gave their DNA.

When people refused to volunteer their DNA, the police got the courts to force them to give DNA.

If police in your area was investigating a crime and asked you to volunteer, would you? Or would you refuse? If you volunteered, would it matter to you what happened to your DNA sample after that particular case was solved?

Mulan

Well, I'm a woman..................so, they wouldn't be asking me in this case, but I don't have a problem with it.

If we are put in some kind of a national database, that seems a good thing to me. I used to worry about my children when they were little, if they were kidnapped, how would we ever identify them? (I know that's morbid, but I was young, and they were my babies)

Funchback

teejay!

Long time, no talk to! Miss you, bro!

This sounds fishy to me. How can the court force someone to submit a DNA sample unless they had just cause? I mean, if someone is a clear-cut suspect, then I can understand. But, why should I be subjected to a DNA test just because I live in the same town as the murder victim?

No, I wouldn't willfully submit to a DNA test.

LittleToe

Big Brother is watching you...

Satanus

Volunteering for that is like volunteering for a police lineup. I sure wouldn't. Very likely, all those samples will be catalogued/retained in a permanent data base. There is a company that the govt employs (forgot the name) that has the goal of sampling everybody in the usa.

Once they get good at this, they will be able to sample anyone. People continuously loose small flakes of dead skin cells. The just float off in the air as we go about our affairs. Special vacuums set up in strategic places could capture this stuff. 'Course, they would still have to match up the samples w the people. Getting into science fiction, at some point, authorities searching for someone could set up sniffers to monitor who is where.

S

Sassy

If the only reason someone gets asked for a sample is because they happen to live in the area, it would irritate and offend many people.. but what are you going to do? You have no choice. Last year my bf got picked up in the Target parking lot and brought down for questioning of a murder investigation. He just happened to look similar to the description of what they thought the man looked like. But in a white neighborhood, pretty much any black man that happened to visit that Target that day could have been picked up.

When they want to check you out, you have no choice.. if you fight it, what does that get you? only looking guilty even though you aren't.

bull01lay

There's been reports about the reliability of DNA evidence - if it's handled incorrectly at anytime during it's sampling / processing cycles, it can easily become contaminated, thereby fingering the wrong person!!!

Wouldn't be happy at the prospect of my dna being stored either....

Bull!

pettygrudger

I would volunteer....I don't see why this would be a huge "privacy" issue.

They can get your DNA through lots of ways! I've been watching shows where they want the person's DNA, so they follow them around, taking any thrown away trash (i.e. drinking cups, cigarette butts, etc.), and in some cases trash from the person's home. They've also through interviewing persons at the police station, kept whatever items they might have used there (i.e. offering the person a drink/smoke, then keeping said item).

teejay

avishai

Hell no!!! I've been harrassed by cops more than once for stuff I did'nt do. Most5 of them are'nt like the folks on CSI, Law and order, etc. Most of them are incompetent buffoons who know very little about the law, due process, etc. I do NOT trust local government, usually to small, to many petty politics, etc. to get honest trials. Hell no. They'll have to force me.

It's like, when they ask to search your car. I say no. One time they destroyed the interior of my car searching it, cut the seats and headliner. Since i agreed to the search, i had no legal recourse. So now, I won't cooperate with them at all, which is too bad, what if they REALLY needed my or someone's help in an investigation? This happens all too often. Oftentimes when they have a legitimate cause, the ones they really need help from have been alienated.

DNA

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