Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

However, investigators warned that those who refused to take the test could be designated as "suspects" and face a search of their homes in order to obtain a DNA sample.

That's such bs. So it never was a voluntary test, because if you refuse they'll search your house and take your DNA anyway.

 insaniak wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Because they are not truly being asked to volunteer. They are being told, volunteer or you get treated like a suspect, which strongly implies some action will be taken against them.

Well, yes... Again, it would mean that police would quickly find that there is no actual evidence implicating them, at which point they would move on.

Voluntarily taking the test just means you can skip that part.

You've said this twice now. You do realize that's not even remotely true some times right? That police can and will focus in on a target despite all reason or lack of evidence? It's like you've never heard of a false conviction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Update on the case...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/14/dna-samples-french-school-male-pupils-rape-teenage-girl

The tests have started and a result is expected on Monday. No-one is thought to have refused to be tested.

Why bother refusing if they're just going to raid your house anyway. It's disgraceful.

Do you think that matching DNA will amount to a lack of evidence, leading to the police focussing on a target and getting a false conviction?

 insaniak wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Because they are not truly being asked to volunteer. They are being told, volunteer or you get treated like a suspect, which strongly implies some action will be taken against them.

Well, yes... Again, it would mean that police would quickly find that there is no actual evidence implicating them, at which point they would move on.

Voluntarily taking the test just means you can skip that part.

You do realize there is no actual evidence implicating them even if they do not submit to the coercion, right? If the cops had evidence implicating anyone they would not be going on this fishing expedition.

 -Shrike- wrote:

However, investigators warned that those who refused to take the test could be designated as "suspects" and face a search of their homes in order to obtain a DNA sample.

That's such bs. So it never was a voluntary test, because if you refuse they'll search your house and take your DNA anyway.

Note the use of the word 'could'...

 insaniak wrote:

 -Shrike- wrote:

However, investigators warned that those who refused to take the test could be designated as "suspects" and face a search of their homes in order to obtain a DNA sample.

That's such bs. So it never was a voluntary test, because if you refuse they'll search your house and take your DNA anyway.

Note the use of the word 'could'...

Yep, a threat. A coercive act. Just like when the mob would tell you if you don't pay for their protection, your business 'could' catch on fire. And in this case, a threat made to several hundred minors.

That's certainly one (rather paranoid) way to take it.

Given my dealings with law enforcement in the past, though, I can't help but think that it's an interpretation that is spawned from Hollywood more than actual reality, though.

Does anyone care that the DNA testing was authorised by a judge?

The judge obviously didn't love freedom, probably came from a country that has never had nothing to do with the concept and, after this body blow to freedom, never will.

Because asking that the police exercise their powers lawfully and investigate a crime without violating the rights of 500 people who were in the same building as a crime is a clear acceptance that abuse will occur....

I'm not talking about that I'm talking more generally. Create a police force and you're going to get crap like Stop and Frisk. That kind of thing will happen. So instead of whining about how creating a police force will result in abuse, we've resolved ourselves to having to go through the public debate of such things, the law suits, the messy press conferences where cops try to cover their asses for a terrible idea, politicians spin it to their advantage in a crazy game of twister, all while some people are completley focused on ending it forever and some other people are debating if maybe we should keep it around (good thing we didn't. Another fine example of a terrible idea).

Except they didn't say that. What they said was give us your DNA or you are a suspect.

That's called getting butt hurt over nothing. I explained what a suspect is to the police (at least in the US, so when they translate a French source I figure it basically means the same thing ). An apartment gets broken into, everyone in the building had opportunity. Only way to investigate is to go asking door to door for alibis and if anyone saw anything.

It's the same principle. If a girl is raped in vacinity of her school, it's completely rational to assume someone at the school did it as a starting point. I imagine her immediate friends and family are already ruled out, or else there's a competence issue that needs to be addressed. The police can either then investigate the entire student body and the faculty, or they can ask for volunteers, eliminate a bunch of them and save time (which is tax payer money) and then they only have the conciencious objectors and maybe the person who actually did it to check out. Why is this not a violation of anyone's rights? Because all those people would be investigated anyway even if no volunteers were requested at all. This just saves the police from having to investigate 500 people because anyone who comes forward to give DNA probably didn't do it.

Suspects aren't accused of anything. Being offended at being called a suspect is being offended a cop looked you in the eye. Its knee jerk whining about something the police have to do (typical investigations might go through dozens of suspects before charges are considered against anyone). At that point you might as well make it a law they can't investigate anything. The sheer act of deciding someone had opportunity and maybe did it is violation of civil rights, which is an absurd standard.

Should they ever have been allowed to intercept data on US citizens with no probable cause? No. What happened? They did just this, and elected representatives refused to rein them in.

Yep. That's what happens when you have a government, give it power, and create an environment where elected representatives are able to get away with not doing their job. No elected official is going to ever have to account for PRISM, even though their supposed to be the ones oversighting the NSA (Then again, free pass to keep secrets, so for all we know the NSA was lying to them too. This clandestine thing really isn't working out (10)). So we're still stuck with the NSA, which probably has something else going on that's worse anyway and I won't be shocked if/when they replace PRISM with a cooler sounding acronym and just carry on with their waste of time and money.

What is being argued against is how many individual rights get curtailed or sacrificed to get there.

Yeah. Which is slightly different from clandestine organizations that have made a habit of spending their budgets and resources on things that in the long run have frequently turned out to be terrible ideas that didn't even achieve the goals the agencies had in the first place. No one's ever questioned that a DNA database would be useful. It's questioned because people aren't comfortable with it, which I chalk up to people having an inflated idea of worth of the information. Saying it'll be abused is a frivilous statement because obviously that's what regulation exists for (like we regulate everything else). Acting like setting limits on the government is enough to get them to tow the line is fantasy. They'll over step no matter what sooner or later and need to be put back in line assuming people aren't too apathetic to care.

No-one is thought to have refused to be tested.

And at that point the DNA tests are just formality (cause maybe the perpetrator really is that stupid). Presumably it wasn't a family member or close friends either which drops the chances of ever finding who did it rather low

 LordofHats wrote:
I imagine her immediate friends and family are already ruled out, or else there's a competence issue that needs to be addressed.

Why ?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I imagine her immediate friends and family are already ruled out, or else there's a competence issue that needs to be addressed.

Why ?

Rape by a complete stranger is so rare we can almost accuse Hollywood of inventing it from wholecloth. If someone is raped 99% of the time its someone they know or regularly cross paths with. That puts friends and family at the top of the list for probability, and any decent rape investigation should immediately rule them out as a possibility before moving on to other people.

I assume the cops have done this. If they haven't, I question their competence.

What if they have neither managed to find evidence ruling them out or proving their culpability ?
[edit]Oh, wait, DNA test. Sorry, I was being stupid.[/edit]

Because sexual assaults especially among children/minors are commonly committed by people close to them so family and friends are the first people the police look at believe it or not but being a target of a random sex assault is not that common but it dose happen, and from what the original post said is that her family and friends were excluded so they went to the blanket testing.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
What if they have neither managed to find evidence ruling them out or proving their culpability ?
[edit]Oh, wait, DNA test. Sorry, I was being stupid.[/edit]

You collect alibi's, use judgement, make the best guess you can about whether any of them did it and proceed from there. All they can do really (unless they DNA tested those people already). Don't know. I prefer the police check all avenues before zeroing in on anyone in particular. I would think that idea would be more popular than it seems to be.

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm not talking about that I'm talking more generally. Create a police force and you're going to get crap like Stop and Frisk. That kind of thing will happen. So instead of whining about how creating a police force will result in abuse, we've resolved ourselves to having to go through the public debate of such things, the law suits, the messy press conferences where cops try to cover their asses for a terrible idea, politicians spin it to their advantage in a crazy game of twister, all while some people are completley focused on ending it forever and some other people are debating if maybe we should keep it around (good thing we didn't. Another fine example of a terrible idea).

You mean the same policy that was outside their legal powers, and you're using that as a counter point to my wish that they act legally?
When did I say or whine that creating a police force would result in abuse? I haven't. This is another strawman that you have erected to tilt at.

 LordofHats wrote:
That's called getting butt hurt over nothing. I explained what a suspect is to the police (at least in the US, so when they translate a French source I figure it basically means the same thing ). An apartment gets broken into, everyone in the building had opportunity. Only way to investigate is to go asking door to door for alibis and if anyone saw anything.

It's the same principle. If a girl is raped in vacinity of her school, it's completely rational to assume someone at the school did it as a starting point. I imagine her immediate friends and family are already ruled out, or else there's a competence issue that needs to be addressed. The police can either then investigate the entire student body and the faculty, or they can ask for volunteers, eliminate a bunch of them and save time (which is tax payer money) and then they only have the conciencious objectors and maybe the person who actually did it to check out. Why is this not a violation of anyone's rights? Because all those people would be investigated anyway even if no volunteers were requested at all. This just saves the police from having to investigate 500 people because anyone who comes forward to give DNA probably didn't do it.

Suspects aren't accused of anything. Being offended at being called a suspect is being offended a cop looked you in the eye. Its knee jerk whining about something the police have to do (typical investigations might go through dozens of suspects before charges are considered against anyone). At that point you might as well make it a law they can't investigate anything. The sheer act of deciding someone had opportunity and maybe did it is violation of civil rights, which is an absurd standard.

Except it isn't the same. Going door to door and making inquiries is part of investigation, and helps form the basis for establishing due cause for a warrant. Requesting DNA on pain of becoming a suspect is not the same.
And yes, you are perfectly entitled to be offended at being a suspect. To be suspected of something means that the police have a probable cause to investigate you, and the obvious inference is that you have done something wrong and will have to defend your name.

 LordofHats wrote:
Yep. That's what happens when you have a government, give it power, and create an environment where elected representatives are able to get away with not doing their job. No elected official is going to ever have to account for PRISM, even though their supposed to be the ones oversighting the NSA (Then again, free pass to keep secrets, so for all we know the NSA was lying to them too. This clandestine thing really isn't working out (10)). So we're still stuck with the NSA, which probably has something else going on that's worse anyway and I won't be shocked if/when they replace PRISM with a cooler sounding acronym and just carry on with their waste of time and money.

Good. So you should agree then that giving them more power and a wealth of genetic knowledge that is infinitely more useful than meta data with the current political is not a good idea.

 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah. Which is slightly different from clandestine organizations that have made a habit of spending their budgets and resources on things that in the long run have frequently turned out to be terrible ideas that didn't even achieve the goals the agencies had in the first place. No one's ever questioned that a DNA database would be useful. It's questioned because people aren't comfortable with it, which I chalk up to people having an inflated idea of worth of the information. Saying it'll be abused is a frivilous statement because obviously that's what regulation exists for (like we regulate everything else). Acting like setting limits on the government is enough to get them to tow the line is fantasy. They'll over step no matter what sooner or later and need to be put back in line assuming people aren't too apathetic to care.

Regulation like has existed for all that meta data captured and retained by the NSA? Regulation like politicians giving cover for the NSA?
You claim to be pragmatic, give plenty of reasons why we should not trust government agencies, say that the current political climate allows abuse to happen, that corruption needs to be fought, and then still insist that mere regulation is the answer when it has been shown to be ineffective. And you wonder why I say that it is hard to have a meaningful discussion which such an inconsistent position.

 LordofHats wrote:
And at that point the DNA tests are just formality (cause maybe the perpetrator really is that stupid). Presumably it wasn't a family member or close friends either which drops the chances of ever finding who did it rather low

No. They are not just a formality. Saying that DNA testing 500 people is just a formality because they happened to be in the same building as a crime is not a formality, and it should never be accepted as such. This was a fishing expedition.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I imagine her immediate friends and family are already ruled out, or else there's a competence issue that needs to be addressed.

Why ?

Rape by a complete stranger is so rare we can almost accuse Hollywood of inventing it from wholecloth. If someone is raped 99% of the time its someone they know or regularly cross paths with. That puts friends and family at the top of the list for probability, and any decent rape investigation should immediately rule them out as a possibility before moving on to other people.

I assume the cops have done this. If they haven't, I question their competence.

I'm pretty sure one of the articles in this thread said they ruled out friends & family before going to get the DNA tests from everybody at the school

EDIT: From Kilkrazy's link at the bottom of Pg 7

The Guardian wrote:Pagenelle defended the delay in carrying out the testing, saying detectives had to make sure the DNA found on the victim's clothes did not come from a relative or from someone already on the national genetic database.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You mean the same policy that was outside their legal powers, and you're using that as a counter point to my wish that they act legally?

I'm saying that you wishing that they act legally is counter to your claim you don't believe in utopia. Always expect them to overstep. They will.

Except it isn't the same. Going door to door and making inquiries is part of investigation, and helps form the basis for establishing due cause for a warrant. Requesting DNA on pain of becoming a suspect is not the same.

All those people theat they're going to talk to door to door? Witnesses. They say they saw Bernie down the hall glaring at the apartment door minutes before it was busted down? Bernie is now a suspect. All that really means is that Bernie had opportunity. He can be placed in the vacinity of the crime scene at the time. If a girl is raped near or in her school, pretty much everyone there has opporunity. Everyone is a suspect. They'd all be suspects anyway. At worst, the police phrased what was happening poorly. No one is going to be investigated who wouldn't have been investigated anyway. They'd just save everyone time by offering an immediate out.

To be suspected of something means that the police have a probable cause to investigate you, and the obvious inference is that you have done something wrong and will have to defend your name.

Except that's not how the police define the term (except in Law and Order). This perception is also why many US jurisdictions now use Person of Interest instead of suspect, but then that word is dirty now too so the phrase is changing to Possible Person of Interest.

Good. So you should agree then that giving them more power and a wealth of genetic knowledge that is infinitely more useful than meta data with the current political is not a good idea.

The meta data says more about you than DNA. And no. The basic concept of PRISM is currently against the law. Laws can change. With proper oversight the gathering of information is fine with me assuming laws allow it. At that point my objection is that this kind of information gathering is a trial of triviality. It doesn't achieve any useful purpose for the people (unless the US government wants to start its own advertising campigns, and who wants more ads?)

give plenty of reasons why we should not trust government agencies

Because no one should ever trust government agencies. But we need them. Therefore we must prepare ourselves to keep them in line. Accepting that, being afraid of them doing something we know they will eventually do is frivilous. It's the difference between paranoia and sensible caution.

say that the current political climate allows abuse to happen

Any political climate allows abuse to happen. What kind will vary. The current one (for the NSA) is that we have a organization with a huge budget and a free pass to keep secrets, which seems incompatibile with regulation entirely. Obviously the problem with the NSA is that they aren't being regulated in any meaningful manner and arguably you can't meaningfully regulate a clandestine organization.

and then still insist that mere regulation is the answer when it has been shown to be ineffective.

(11).

No. They are not just a formality.

They are in an investigative sense. You only run the tests at this point to be sure. Someone who raped a girl probably isn't dumb enough to give DNA, so from a police stand point it wasn't someone at the school.

This was a fishing expedition.

A fishing expedition is DNA testing an entire city block when a crime occured at a specific location. When that location is generally made up of the same people everyday, all of them in direct proximity of a crime, it's not a fishing expedition. Especially since the test is voluntary, not coerced. You can scream "they called me a suspect" all you want but it says more about what you know about police investigations than it does about the state's considerations for the rights of citizens.

 insaniak wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Because they are not truly being asked to volunteer. They are being told, volunteer or you get treated like a suspect, which strongly implies some action will be taken against them.

Well, yes... Again, it would mean that police would quickly find that there is no actual evidence implicating them, at which point they would move on.

Voluntarily taking the test just means you can skip that part.

So you are given a choice between doing the DNA test, and having the jack boots over turn every shelf, matress, and generally trash your property looking for evidence.



In fact if you have a lack of evidence, it just means they have to actually look harder to find the evidence.

they cannot say there is no evidence against you, until they look, and looking involves going through your home/belongings/ect with a fine toothed boot.

 easysauce wrote:


So you are given a choice between doing the DNA test, and having the jack boots over turn every shelf, matress, and generally trash your property looking for evidence.

There's a mile of difference between refusing a DNA test, and the police getting a warrant. Any judge who uses the former as reason to approve the later will quickly see the decision overturned because that's not even close to the standard of evidence needed for a warrant.

 LordofHats wrote:
unless they DNA tested those people already

Yeah, that, I was stupid enough to forget about it .

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm saying that you wishing that they act legally is counter to your claim you don't believe in utopia. Always expect them to overstep. They will.

Pretty sure that we covered this, so let me just restate a simple fact - asking someone to behave within their legal powers and not exceed them is not utopian

 LordofHats wrote:
All those people theat they're going to talk to door to door? Witnesses. They say they saw Bernie down the hall glaring at the apartment door minutes before it was busted down? Bernie is now a suspect. All that really means is that Bernie had opportunity. He can be placed in the vacinity of the crime scene at the time. If a girl is raped near or in her school, pretty much everyone there has opporunity. Everyone is a suspect. They'd all be suspects anyway. At worst, the police phrased what was happening poorly. No one is going to be investigated who wouldn't have been investigated anyway. They'd just save everyone time by offering an immediate out.

So your example has corroborating witnesses that places a given person within the area the crime took place at the approximate time. That is probable cause for a warrant and further investigation. Merely being one of 500 males in a building with nothing else to tie them to the actual crime scene is not comparable

 LordofHats wrote:
Except that's not how the police define the term (except in Law and Order). This perception is also why many US jurisdictions now use Person of Interest instead of suspect, but then that word is dirty now too so the phrase is changing to Possible Person of Interest.

And yet here you are objecting to a phrase that you have been content to use until this point. Given the perception that the "word is dirty" I'm sure you'll understand why people who were merely in he building at the time and object to their rights being violated may object to being called a suspect

 LordofHats wrote:
The meta data says more about you than DNA. And no. The basic concept of PRISM is currently against the law. Laws can change. With proper oversight the gathering of information is fine with me assuming laws allow it. At that point my objection is that this kind of information gathering is a trial of triviality. It doesn't achieve any useful purpose for the people (unless the US government wants to start its own advertising campigns, and who wants more ads?)

So if it is so worthless why does the government require it? Especially given the obvious expense involved. This point has been made several times with no counterpoint

 LordofHats wrote:
Because no one should ever trust government agencies. But we need them. Therefore we must prepare ourselves to keep them in line. Accepting that, being afraid of them doing something we know they will eventually do is frivilous. It's the difference between paranoia and sensible caution.

So we should never trust a government agency, but we should be totally cool with them having our DNA on file? Again I would point out the inherent contradiction in your statement.
Paranoia; "Paranoia /ˌpærəˈnɔɪə/ (adjective: paranoid /ˈpærənɔɪd/) is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion"
Sensible precaution; "caution employed beforehand; prudent foresight."
Given the evidence that the government have abused data in such an indiscriminate way do you think that people's fears can be prudent, or irrational

 LordofHats wrote:
Any political climate allows abuse to happen. What kind will vary. The current one (for the NSA) is that we have a organization with a huge budget and a free pass to keep secrets, which seems incompatibile with regulation entirely. Obviously the problem with the NSA is that they aren't being regulated in any meaningful manner and arguably you can't meaningfully regulate a clandestine organization.

And what do you think will happen with the current political climate if the government held vast stores of DNA?

 LordofHats wrote:
They are in an investigative sense. You only run the tests at this point to be sure. Someone who raped a girl probably isn't dumb enough to give DNA, so from a police stand point it wasn't someone at the school.

Run the tests to be sure of what? They have no suspect. They have nothing to be sure about. If they had anything to be sure of it would have constituted probable cause and they would have obtained a warrant thus avoiding having to take DNA from 500 people.

 LordofHats wrote:
A fishing expedition is DNA testing an entire city block when a crime occured at a specific location. When that location is generally made up of the same people everyday, all of them in direct proximity of a crime, it's not a fishing expedition. Especially since the test is voluntary, not coerced. You can scream "they called me a suspect" all you want but it says more about what you know about police investigations than it does about the state's considerations for the rights of citizens.

Or like a DNA sweep in a building with 500 males who are only being compelled to provide DNA because they happened to be in the building. The test is not voluntary. For something to be voluntary it must be freely given. Being labelled a suspect in he rape of a child carries a huge social stigma, to pretend otherwise is contemptuous.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 easysauce wrote:
So you are given a choice between doing the DNA test, and having the jack boots over turn every shelf, matress, and generally trash your property looking for evidence.

In fact if you have a lack of evidence, it just means they have to actually look harder to find the evidence.

they cannot say there is no evidence against you, until they look, and looking involves going through your home/belongings/ect with a fine toothed boot.

It is worse than that. You now have the social stigma of being a suspect in a case were a child was raped.

So take the Goddam test!

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Pretty sure that we covered this, so let me just restate a simple fact - asking someone to behave within their legal powers and not exceed them is not utopian

Agreed. So why do you expect them too? Either you do and we disagree, or you don't and we do agree (on that point).

 LordofHats wrote:
Merely being one of 500 males in a building with nothing else to tie them to the actual crime scene is not comparable

Which is why they asked for volunteers. Suspect is an extremely broad thing.

 LordofHats wrote:
And yet here you are objecting to a phrase that you have been content to use until this point.

I covered this on my first post of the subject. I have no issue with suspect as word. I have issue with people widly exaggerating what that word entails.

So if it is so worthless why does the government require it? Especially given the obvious expense involved. This point has been made several times with no counterpoint

That's because I agree with you... Numerous times. It's a waste of money. Some idiot at some point in time might have had a solid idea for a useful surveillance system along the lines of PRISM, but PRISM itself is just pointless.

Given the evidence that the government have abused data in such an indiscriminate way do you think that people's fears can be prudent, or irrational

The government hasn't abused data (that we know of). it's abused privacy to collect data. Difference.

And what do you think will happen with the current political climate if the government held vast stores of DNA?

I don't think it can happen at all in the current political climate (another point I've already made with Whembly). The current climate is incompatible.

Run the tests to be sure of what?

Because if you ask for DNA and then don't test the DNA you gather assuming that no one would give it up if they committed a crime, criminals would just give it up because you're not testing it. You have to test it or collecting it in the first place loses its investigative purpose.

If they had anything to be sure of it would have constituted probable cause and they would have obtained a warrant thus avoiding having to take DNA from 500 people.

This is what I mean by double standard.

"We have 500 people with opportunity. We need to cut that number down or this will take forever."
"How about we collect some DNA to rule people out?"
"We'd need a warrant for that."
"Lets ask for volunteers. They do it on TV all the time. We can do that too right?"
"Judge says its okay. Let's do it."
*Internet outrage* "You can't collect DNA without a warrant?!"
"We're asking for volunteers so we have fewer people to investigate."
"So if I don't give DNA you'll investigate me? NAZIS!"
"..."

If you are so butt hurt over the police investigating you, give DNA and they won't have to. That's the point. If you don't want to give DNA they'll go ahead and do what they were going to do anyway. Which is investigate. The standard by which you expect the police to work under is impossible.

The bold part is the important part. The reason this doesn't violate any civil rights is because all 500 of those people would be investigated anyway. All of them. The purpose of asking for people to step forward is to save the police the time of checking up on all 500 of them. All not giving DNA does is lead to the police doing what they were going to do anyway.

People make a bigger deal out of this than there is.

Being labelled a suspect in he rape of a child carries a huge social stigma, to pretend otherwise is contemptuous.

I don't pretend otherwise. That's really my entire point. People get really stupid about that word. That's why the police have started to use other words (again, blame the media for continued use of suspect in reporting).

 LordofHats wrote:
"We have 500 people with opportunity. We need to cut that number down or this will take forever."
"How about we collect some DNA to rule people out?"
"We'd need a warrant for that."
"Lets ask for volunteers. They do it on TV all the time. We can do that too right?"
"Judge says its okay. Let's do it."
*Internet outrage* "You can't collect DNA without a warrant?!"
"We're asking for volunteers so we have fewer people to investigate."
"So if I don't give DNA you'll investigate me? NAZIS!"
"..."

I get it now! Muggers don't actually commit any crimes, they just encourage people to volunteer their money.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

I get it now! Muggers don't actually commit any crimes, they just encourage people to volunteer their money.

The police aren't threatening anyone. They're telling them the gods honest truth that if that they'll be investigated, which would mean something only if the police weren't already going to do that. They could just do it the old fashion way, but I always thought people liked the government spending less money.

If you know someone who was a victim of a crime, you've already been a suspect at least once in your life. How anyone conceives that being a suspect instantly means storm troopers are going to kick down your door and Vader is going to force choke you till you give him the Death Star plans is bizarre.

 LordofHats wrote:
The police aren't threatening anyone. They're telling them the gods honest truth that if that they'll be investigated, which would mean something only if the police weren't already going to do that. They could just do it the old fashion way, but I always thought people liked the government spending less money.

If you know someone who was a victim of a crime, you've already been a suspect at least once in your life. How anyone conceives that being a suspect instantly means storm troopers are going to kick down your door and Vader is going to force choke you till you give him the Death Star plans is bizarre.

Anyone know if refusing to take this voluntary DNA test would result in enough of the French equivalent of probable cause to justify issuing a warrant forcing someone to take a DNA test?

 Seaward wrote:
Anyone know if refusing to take this voluntary DNA test would result in enough of the French equivalent of probable cause to justify issuing a warrant forcing someone to take a DNA test?

That's a pretty low bar for probable cause (doesn't look like France has 'probable cause' as a legal concept).

A quick look on the internet says the in this case the French police method is that the case is handed to a Magistrate (judge) the moment a crime is determined to have happened. The Judge then supervises the investigation and his/her permission is required for any search, seizure, or arrest. EDIT: Wiki to the rescue.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
So take the Goddam test!

So either;
1) Give your DNA to the government who will keep it and be reluctant to dispose of it, with no regard for your rights
2) Be a suspect in a child rape case

See I prefer;
3) The police to exercise the duty they are responsible for, investigate, form a reasonable suspicion, obtain a warrant, and not take disproportionate action against 500 people who just so happened to be in the building at the same time as a crime was committed.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
1) Give your DNA to the government who will keep it and be reluctant to dispose of it, with no regard for your rights

On what are you basing the assumption that they won't destroy it as they have said they will?

3) The police to exercise the duty they are responsible for, investigate, form a reasonable suspicion, obtain a warrant, and not take disproportionate action against 500 people who just so happened to be in the building at the same time as a crime was committed.

They did that. It didn't turn up the perpetrator. So now they are asking those 500 people to help them out.