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Does anyone else feel like there's a growing assumption of benevolent governments and states? It might just be my own anecdotal experience, but I'm constantly s
by jyrkesh 8y ago
Does anyone else feel like there's a growing assumption of benevolent governments and states? It might just be my own anecdotal experience, but I'm constantly surprised at how often people overlook the entire point of the 4th and 5th Amendment because Western states have been "mostly better" (these are both relative qualifiers, I am NOT saying they're perfect) in the last 10-30 years.
This entire post read as if there's not dirty cops all over the US doing asset forfeiture, planting evidence, shooting innocents, raiding the wrong houses...why does anyone believe that giving those agents ANOTHER tool, and one that's seen in the general public as even more legitimate? (It's not the accuracy of the DNA match that's the problem, it's how easy it is to create false circumstances using someone's DNA, which is pretty easy to get.)
And all of this in a time when most of those same people (myself included) are decrying how horrible the federal government has recently become under Trump. Again, you want to give Trump and the people in his administration another tool for muddying the waters around his opponents?
Going even further, any of these genealogy companies could pull a full-on Cambridge Analytics like Facebook and just leak all our DNA to some private company operating on behalf of a foreign government.
- kenjackson 8y agoThe problem with your position is that dirty governments win not by access to information, but by controlling the processes of our government. Police don't really need to plant evidence when they are believed over defendants to begin with. Go listen to the latest season of the Series podcast. Or the Reply All episodes about the police in NYC. If a corrupt cop wants to take you down, they don't need any of this.
- incompatible 8y agoReading the comments on this thread, I was getting exactly the opposite impression. So many people don't trust the government at all, and don't want them to be able to enforce laws. I suppose they'd prefer that the police force and justice system be disbanded.
- hnuser123456 8y ago"So many people" likely trust business even less than the government, and this is about handing your DNA over to businesses and government at the same time, for funsies. And that last part is quite an assumption.