Ars Technica is reporting about a proposed amendment to the Violence Against Women act that would let police collect the DNA of everyone they arrest, just in case they are a sexual predator. What could possibly go wrong with that? Oh, you know, just fostering a future like Gattaca where genetics rather than actual merit is used to determine who advances in life. But then, merit doesn’t really play much of a role these days, does it?.
Of course, if those arrested by the police were to have their DNA confiscated, there are several rather interesting people’s DNA would now be on file… and perhaps even leaked out to the public. Who knows what could be turned up in that…
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Yes, and other pending legislation is moving us ever closer to a natonal identity card, disguised as a driver’s license. Marry the two of them, and you get the GATTACA card with the genome encoded on it. So, if your dna don’t match the card you’re carrying, it’s off to the rendering farm for you. (Which, if we go the Gary way and don’t get a driver’s license, we can not only do our little bit to save the earth by eschewing the evil automobile, but also make it harder for The Man to justify making us carry around a little cyber-encoded card containing everything the State needs to take a fix on us. . .)
In conclusion, let me plug another great article on a subject in the general zip code of Gary’s post:
http://www.salon.com/tech/f…