Baffled Police Try DNA Sweep: Truro, Mass. Men Asked to Give Samples in Murder Case

Story dated 11 January 2005

Here's the story: A woman was murdered. She had relations with a man the day of the murder, but I have not seen a single statement that this is in any way connected with the murder. Despite this, the resulting DNA sample is the only clue that the police have to work with. Frustrated from having no other leads, the police have finally started requesting that every man in town give a sample. "Earlier in the week, law enforcement authorities told news organizations that residents refusing to be tested would draw suspicion." The theory is that if you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to fear a search. With all due respect, this is patent nonsense. On it's face, it makes sense that the perpetrator or another criminal would object to participating in such a search. But to assume then that all who object to such a search are people involved in illegal activity commits a logical fallacy (it does not follow that all members of a group have a characteristic simply because some members do). The truth is, with an uncountable (literally -- no one knows the number) amount of federal laws on the books, no one really knows if they have anything to hide. Do you shower naked? I'll bet you didn't know that there was a law on the books in Florida making that activity illegal. Odds are that you shower naked, so you do have something to hide if you live in Florida (actually, I don't know if the law is current...). My point is that there are laws on the books in this country that can send someone to prison for activities that harm no one. Most people thing that if they don't hurt anyone, they aren't doing anything illegal; unfortunately, this is not the case. It gets worse in socialist regimes that make certain personal opinions into crimes. People who are aware of this would not want to give any information at all to government investigators for fear that something might happen to them. GeneWatch UK made the point that "both communist and fascist governments in Europe had used personal records to oppress people." Considering that our government is getting more and more intrusive (after the fashion of communist and fascist governments), I would prefer that they have as little information about me as possible.
---------DNA database Big Brother warning

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Subject Matter: Law Police State Privacy Surveillance Society Tyranny Massachusetts Florida

posted by The Sovereign Editor | 3:06 PM

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