Government Plans to Begin DNA Testing on Detained Immigrants

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

The Trump administration is moving to begin collecting DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people booked into federal immigration custody each year for entry into a national criminal database, an immense expansion of the use of technology to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.

Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that the Justice Department was developing a federal regulation that would give immigration officers the authority to collect DNA in detention facilities that are holding more than 40,000 people. The move would constitute a major expansion of the use of a database maintained by the F.B.I., which has been limited mainly to genetic data collected from people who have been arrested, charged or convicted in connection with serious crimes.

Immigrant and privacy advocates said the move raised privacy concerns for an already vulnerable population that could face profiling or discrimination as a result of their personal data being shared among law enforcement authorities. The new rules would allow the government to collect DNA from children, as well as those who seek asylum at legal ports of entry and have not broken the law. They warned that United States citizens, who are sometimes accidentally booked into immigration custody, could also be forced to hand over their private genetic information.

“That kind of mass collection alters the purpose of DNA collection from one of criminal investigation basically to population surveillance, which is basically contrary to our basic notions of a free, trusting, autonomous society,” said Vera Eidelman, a staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/us/dna-testing-immigrants.html

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[dhill926]

1. how fascist of them....

[sakabatou]

2. This won't be exploited one bit!

[johnp3907]

3. This novel about a dystopian future sounds kinda far fetched.

Oh....it’s real. It’s now.

[dweller]

4. will this be followed by

tattooed arm ID's ?

😡

✌🏼

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. On the up side, this might make it easier

to reunite kids with their parents.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Except in this instance, it would go into the FBI's *criminal* database

[DBoon]

7. To test "racial purity" perhaps?

nt

[Evolve Dammit]

8. "Developing a federal regulation.." These Nazis need to be stopped NOW.

Very proud of Schiff and Pelosi today. Wish we had done it 2 years ago, but today was a good day. It's a dark picture nonetheless.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. "Wish we had done it 2 years ago"

Democrats didn't control the House 2 years ago. It's only been 11 months since the 2018 election.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. They are already doing it.

When the shocking news of trump's camps first came out, there were interviews of people who had been in them, and it was mentioned that BP is collecting bio-metrics, including retina scans, and cheek swabs.
My mind flashed back to stories of how Iraq citizens had been treated the same way during Bush's reign.

What is even more disconcerting is that many of the databases are actually run by private companies
that sell the access to them to public agencies.

[Nitram]

11. An incredible waste of money, not to mention, invasion of privacy. Most of those detained turned

themselves in to border officials to request asylum as required by U.S. law. They have not committed any criminal infraction.

[dchill]

12. Don't they realize that they're toast?

Just stop it! MOST of us hate this stuff! Just go away.

[ElementaryPenguin]

13. And the Nazis kept the trains running to the death camps - no matter how badly the war was...

going for them.

This is some sick shit!! Drumpf's legacy.