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 LordofHats wrote:
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).

Why do I expect an organization to act within their legal confines? Quite simple, because they have clear limits on their powers for a reason and to act outside of those powers would be ultra vires.

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

Volunteer or be a suspect in a child rape case. Pretty sure we covered the difference between volunteering and coercion at the start of the discussion. Volunteering a sample means that you do so of your own free will and volition, without pressure or fear of punishment. The "sample, or else" is not a statement requesting volunteers.

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

Suspect; to believe to be guilty, false, counterfeit, undesirable, defective, bad, etc., with little or no proof: to suspect a person of murder.
Given the nature of the crime it is hard to overstate why some would be concerned about being branded a suspect because they don't want to sign away their rights

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

And PRISM shows you exactly how hard the government is prepared to fight for useless data. Now imagine trying to get off the DNA database (I'll give you a clue, look at the UK after it lost a court case - it now only holds DNA on innocent people for 6 years)

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

You're right. And that is much worse, and further evidence that substantiates my claim that the government cannot be trusted in respecting privacy

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

I wish I could believe you, but I don't. We have had personal liberty and freedoms eroded in the name of security. That is a trend that shows no signs of abatement as PRISM has shown.

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

This was probably not a point that was well made by me (multi-tasking fail)

 LordofHats wrote:
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!"
"..."

Nonsense on stilts. There is absolutely no double standard in requiring that the police provide probable cause when investigating a crime. Again, you are confusing asking for volunteers with the approach actually taken which is closer to;
"A crime was committed and we have no idea who did it"
"That's terrible"
"Yes it is. And so we want DNA from everyone in the building at the time"
"Ok... How many is that?"
"500 people, including minors"
"Isn't that excessive?"
"DNA, or you are a suspect in a child rape case"

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

No.
There is a difference between being investigated and being a suspect. Being investigated means that the police are examining your story to rule you out or confirm your involvement. Being a suspect means that there is sufficient evidence for the police to dig deeper.
And to most lay people in a child rape case that screams guilt

 LordofHats wrote:
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).

Then if the police are aware of the huge social stigma attached to the word then it shows that they were never interested in volunteers, they wanted to compel people to give samples because they were too inept to whittle down the pool of 500 people in the building at the same time as the crime occurred.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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

I have already covered this on multiple occasions above

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

You left out the second part of that, which changes the meaning of the request - provide your DNA, or you are a suspect. The discussion over volunteering v compunction has already been had by myself many others in this thread.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You left out the second part of that, which changes the meaning of the request - provide your DNA, or you are a suspect.

Likewise, this has already been covered elsewhere.

Yes, if the police ask you to assist with an investigation and you refuse, you may be treated as a suspect. That's not particularly unreasonable, since the most likely reason from their point of view for someone to refuse is that they have something to hide.

 insaniak wrote:
Yes, if the police ask you to assist with an investigation and you refuse, you may be treated as a suspect. That's not particularly unreasonable, since the most likely reason from their point of view for someone to refuse is that they have something to hide.

If the police have reasonable cause to ask you to assist with an investigation, and you were in the vicinity of the location the attack occured, I might have some sympathy for your argument that the police want to investigate you (not treat you as a suspect). However when you are threatened with being a suspect in a child rape case unless you provide DNA for the sole reason of being one of 500 people unlucky enough to have XY chromosomes and be in the same building as the crime.

Asking for your rights is not a sign of guilt. It is no different to not allowing the police into your property without a warrant, or not speaking without legal counsel present.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 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.

So refuse to take the test!!!

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
It is no different to not allowing the police into your property without a warrant, or not speaking without legal counsel present.

On that, at least, we agree... It's no different. And both of those things will also cause police to automatically assume that you're trying to hide something...

 insaniak wrote:
On that, at least, we agree... It's no different. And both of those things will also cause police to automatically assume that you're trying to hide something...

Even when not under caution anything you say can and will be used against you. Insisting on your lawful rights is not suspicious.

If you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to be 'used'.

 insaniak wrote:
If you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to be 'used'.

Back to that old chestnut from the start of the thread? If I haven't done anything wrong then there is no need to provide by DNA, allow the police access to my abode, or answer their questions.

 insaniak wrote:
If you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to be 'used'.

In-home cameras for all!

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If I haven't done anything wrong then there is no need to provide by DNA, allow the police access to my abode, or answer their questions.

Sure. There's also no 'need' for you to hold the door for someone with their hands full, or help an elderly person who has just fallen over to stand up, or offer first aid to someone who has been in an accident.


To return to that other chestnut from the start of the thread, though, turn it around. How would you feel if it was your daughter who was raped, and the perpetrator wasn't caught because the person who saw it happen decided to exercise their 'right' to not speak to police?

 insaniak wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If I haven't done anything wrong then there is no need to provide by DNA, allow the police access to my abode, or answer their questions.

Sure. There's also no 'need' for you to hold the door for someone with their hands full, or help an elderly person who has just fallen over to stand up, or offer first aid to someone who has been in an accident.


To return to that other chestnut from the start of the thread, though, turn it around. How would you feel if it was your daughter who was raped, and the perpetrator wasn't caught because the person who saw it happen decided to exercise their 'right' to not speak to police?

If the cops rely on the perp to speak to them to get enough evidence make an arrest, I'm doing my best to get the cops fired for incompetency.

 insaniak wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If I haven't done anything wrong then there is no need to provide by DNA, allow the police access to my abode, or answer their questions.

Sure. There's also no 'need' for you to hold the door for someone with their hands full, or help an elderly person who has just fallen over to stand up, or offer first aid to someone who has been in an accident.


To return to that other chestnut from the start of the thread, though, turn it around. How would you feel if it was your daughter who was raped, and the perpetrator wasn't caught because the person who saw it happen decided to exercise their 'right' to not speak to police?

Let's let the parents of the kids at Sandy Hook write all our gun laws and see how unbiased the produced laws are.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If I haven't done anything wrong then there is no need to provide by DNA, allow the police access to my abode, or answer their questions.

Sure. There's also no 'need' for you to hold the door for someone with their hands full, or help an elderly person who has just fallen over to stand up, or offer first aid to someone who has been in an accident.


To return to that other chestnut from the start of the thread, though, turn it around. How would you feel if it was your daughter who was raped, and the perpetrator wasn't caught because the person who saw it happen decided to exercise their 'right' to not speak to police?

Let's let the parents of the kids at Sandy Hook write all our gun laws and see how unbiased the produced laws are.

Except Insaniak isn't saying the victims' parents shoudl write the law, nice strawman

 CptJake wrote:
If the cops rely on the perp to speak to them to get enough evidence make an arrest, I'm doing my best to get the cops fired for incompetency.

Alternatively, you could read what I actually wrote.

Don't talk to police.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
If I haven't done anything wrong then there is no need to provide by DNA, allow the police access to my abode, or answer their questions.

Sure. There's also no 'need' for you to hold the door for someone with their hands full, or help an elderly person who has just fallen over to stand up, or offer first aid to someone who has been in an accident.


To return to that other chestnut from the start of the thread, though, turn it around. How would you feel if it was your daughter who was raped, and the perpetrator wasn't caught because the person who saw it happen decided to exercise their 'right' to not speak to police?

Let's let the parents of the kids at Sandy Hook write all our gun laws and see how unbiased the produced laws are.

Except Insaniak isn't saying the victims' parents shoudl write the law, nice strawman

No, just that we should put ourselves in the victims parents shoes in regards to who we think should get their rights or not.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
No, just that we should put ourselves in the victims parents shoes in regards to who we think should get their rights or not.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all.

What I'm saying is that hiding behind 'It's my right to not talk to police' when given the opportunity to help with an investigation that has a fairly significant effect on someone's life is a bit of a rotten thing to do.

As is coercing 400+ minors and 500+ total people...

Very rotten thing to do.

Asking people to think "if it had been their daughter raped" is pretty ridiculous. Somebodies rights are theirs regardless of how you feel. Obviously you'd be angry, but your anger can never trump somebodies rights.

Helping people is fine but DNA and other evidence has been mishandled and claimed to have been destroyed before. The thing i'd be worried about the most would be the samples getting mixed up, or some other clerical feth up.

Threatening people into helping isn't the way to go about it.

It's hard to believe the police have no leads. I'm sure there's some criminal/psychological profiling for this kind of attack. Surely somebody that knows the building or knows that students would be around there that late?

Which is why they asked for volunteers. Suspect is an extremely broad thing.
Volunteer or be a suspect in a child rape case.

They're already suspects. She was raped on campus. The campus is closed to the public. Unless someone broke in, there only a set number of people who could have committed the crime which is how they got permission from the magistrate to go ahead with this plan.

That no one matched presents a serious problem for the investigation. Someone got onto the campus from outside, or there's someone on the campus who avoided anyone knowing they were present (everyone the police expected to be present volunteered apparently).

Given the nature of the crime it is hard to overstate why some would be concerned about being branded a suspect because they don't want to sign away their rights

Its hard to overstate how ridiculous people are about that word.

And PRISM shows you exactly how hard the government is prepared to fight for useless data.

The NSA doesn't define the whole of the government because most of the government doesn't have a free pass to keep anything secret.

I wish I could believe you, but I don't. We have had personal liberty and freedoms eroded in the name of security. That is a trend that shows no signs of abatement as PRISM has shown.

The defining debate of American politics in the 21st century is going to be liberty vs security (not that it hasn't always been there, but we've been big on equality the last century). We could be cheeky and point out that PRISM shows progress on that front. Everyone's rights were equally violated

Nonsense on stilts. There is absolutely no double standard in requiring that the police provide probable cause when investigating a crime.

In France they don't seem to have probable cause (well they have something like it, but the standard for exercising police power seems lower, but the standard of evidence to go to trial is much higher than here.

As for the US, the police are free to use your refusal against you. They can be biased as they want (makes for a bad cop but they can do it). We have warrants for that and a police bias isn't enough to get one. The law gives you the right to say no, it doesn't protect you from being asked questions or from other people being asked questions about you. You have every right to refuse and the police are completely within their powers to follow up on that. Acting like the police shouldn't do that is absurd, and acting like that'll immediately lead to your door being busted in or being arrested is more absurd.

All the suspicion in the world means jack without evidence. Hence why being suspect doesn't mean what you think it means.

Again, you are confusing asking for volunteers with the approach actually taken which is closer to;

The approach is that the police have to investigate the school. Even if the perpetrator isn't there they still have to rule everyone because at trial they can't have the accused saying they didn't do it, so and so did it, and the police not knowing what so and so was doing or where they were. If the police are going to investigate you anyway (and they will) its not coercive to tell you that they are going to investigate you and 499 other people but if you want you can skip the whole thing by volunteering DNA. That's 100% legal here. It happens two or three times a year.

Being a suspect means that there is sufficient evidence for the police to dig deeper

No it doesn't. The police practically need no evidence to suspect someone. You're protected from potential bias by warrants and probable cause. The police can suspect you all day long. They can tell everyone you're suspected (though that's libel to be grounds for a civil suit these days, so they'd be foolish to say it) and it's legal.

Aside: France seems much much broader legal definition from what I can tell, basically so broad that if you were on the same block you can be called a suspect (the term also seems to lack the heavy negative connotation we attach to it).

And to most lay people in a child rape case that screams guilt

Police aren't accountable for the idiocy of the masses.

Then if the police are aware of the huge social stigma attached to the word then it shows that they were never interested in volunteers, they wanted to compel people to give samples because they were too inept to whittle down the pool of 500 people in the building at the same time as the crime occurred.

France apparently isn't as heavy on it. And as I said before US jurisdictions don't even like the word anymore for this exact reason. But because people are idiots (so says the great Gregory House), I doubt changing what we call it will really help.

 Medium of Death wrote:
...but your anger can never trump somebodies rights.

Nobody is saying it should. What they are saying is that people are holding up their 'rights' as a reason to not do the human thing in this case. Which, while certainly a 'legal' thing to do, isn't necessarily the 'right' thing to do.

The thing i'd be worried about the most would be the samples getting mixed up, or some other clerical feth up.

Which would be solved by a simple retest.

 insaniak wrote:

The thing i'd be worried about the most would be the samples getting mixed up, or some other clerical feth up.

Which would be solved by a simple retest.

Meanwhile you're in prison for months.

 daedalus wrote:


Meanwhile you're in prison for months.

It's standard procedure across the US when that a DNA test involves a retest if the first comes up positive. The retest is part of the DNA reported submitted into evidence. No retest and the first test is not usable. I.E. No one goes to jail because one test came up positive and has to wait for a second.

Sometimes the police get tired of dealing with everyone questioning their competence and plan ahead (sometimes). Double checking your work is just good science.

Your name also goes to gak. All the papers that called you a child rapist publicise an apology 12 pages in on a small paragraph in the corner.

I'm all for helping people, but this is one of those situations where helping could really feth your life up. As small that chance may be, the past cases of administrative error and the police lying leading to miscarriages of justice are too common for me to want to willingly participate. Call me paranoid, but yeah...

I wouldn't mind giving my DNA, If you are Innocent you have nothing to hide, and considering if you are a suspect, everyone is until the real culprit is found!

(i hope, i don't have to pay lots of child maintenance suddenly after giving my DNA )

 Kilkrazy wrote:
So take the Goddam test!

Out of interest, how serious does a crime have to be before you're happy giving up your rights and legal protections, and are happy branding anyone who doesn't do so as either a suspect or a crime-enabler?

Mass murder/terrorism? Garden-variety murders? Racial or other discriminatory attacks? Non-penetrative sexual assault? Assault? Theft? Verbal abuse? Minor vandalism?

And in what radius around the scene of a crime would you consider it "fair" to decide that people should have to give up their rights to due process and submit to one of these "voluntary" DNA dragnets?

A street? A neighbourhood? A district? A city? A county? Or should we just give up the pretense and take people's DNA at birth, then give the police unlimited access to the resulting database?

These laws exist to protect the ing innocent from incompetence or malice on the part of the authorities, do you honestly not grasp how making those rights contingent on your willingness to comply with any request the authorities make mean the rights essentially do not exist? And that not having those rights is a bad thing?

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
So take the Goddam test!

Out of interest, how serious does a crime have to be before you're happy giving up your rights and legal protections, and are happy branding anyone who doesn't do so as either a suspect or a crime-enabler?

Communism.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
So take the Goddam test!

Out of interest, how serious does a crime have to be before you're happy giving up your rights and legal protections, and are happy branding anyone who doesn't do so as either a suspect or a crime-enabler?

Mass murder/terrorism? Garden-variety murders? Racial or other discriminatory attacks? Non-penetrative sexual assault? Assault? Theft? Verbal abuse? Minor vandalism?

And in what radius around the scene of a crime would you consider it "fair" to decide that people should have to give up their rights to due process and submit to one of these "voluntary" DNA dragnets?

A street? A neighbourhood? A district? A city? A county? Or should we just give up the pretense and take people's DNA at birth, then give the police unlimited access to the resulting database?

These laws exist to protect the ing innocent from incompetence or malice on the part of the authorities, do you honestly not grasp how making those rights contingent on your willingness to comply with any request the authorities make mean the rights essentially do not exist? And that not having those rights is a bad thing?

It is a mistake to argue from the particular to the general. "Not all red-haired waiters are French."

What I urge you to do in this case in not necessarily what I would advocate in different circumstances.

Please refer to LordofHats's excellent exposition of the situation, which I think will convince you that the DNA testing is being used legitimately in the search for the guilty party, and presents no long term danger to the social fabric of the nation.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
So take the Goddam test!

Out of interest, how serious does a crime have to be before you're happy giving up your rights and legal protections, and are happy branding anyone who doesn't do so as either a suspect or a crime-enabler?

Mass murder/terrorism? Garden-variety murders? Racial or other discriminatory attacks? Non-penetrative sexual assault? Assault? Theft? Verbal abuse? Minor vandalism?

And in what radius around the scene of a crime would you consider it "fair" to decide that people should have to give up their rights to due process and submit to one of these "voluntary" DNA dragnets?

A street? A neighbourhood? A district? A city? A county? Or should we just give up the pretense and take people's DNA at birth, then give the police unlimited access to the resulting database?

These laws exist to protect the ing innocent from incompetence or malice on the part of the authorities, do you honestly not grasp how making those rights contingent on your willingness to comply with any request the authorities make mean the rights essentially do not exist? And that not having those rights is a bad thing?

It is a mistake to argue from the particular to the general. "Not all red-haired waiters are French."

What I urge you to do in this case in not necessarily what I would advocate in different circumstances.

Please refer to LordofHats's excellent exposition of the situation, which I think will convince you that the DNA testing is being used legitimately in the search for the guilty party, and presents no long term danger to the social fabric of the nation.

Yup Check out LoH posts.

It is still my belief that this is the right thing to ask of the pupils and the staff of this school/college at this time and in these circumstances.

In similar circumstances if I was amongst a group that needed to be tested I would be encouraging people to come forwards.

My data IS held in a database and as yet the black helicopter flying, corruption seeking, incompetency valuing dark forces of law enforcement have yet to accidentally on purpose match my details to unsolved or ongoing criminal investigations.

 daedalus wrote:


The "evil gene" would also be a profiling goldmine too.

There's a whole series of genes that approx 96% of convicted criminals have and a really high proportion of rapists in particular. Unfortunatly to suspect everyone with those genes we'd be looking at half the worlds population..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS I don't know if it's come up in this 9 page thread, but in the UK if you remain silent the court may 'infer from silence' that you're guilty of stuff. If arrested they say 'it may harm your defence if you do no say anything which you later rely on in court' now that's just BS but the whole 'I ain't saying nothin' ' doesn't fly too well in the UK.