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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 07 2020, @12:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the could-just-ask-23-and-me dept.

DNA Databases in the U.S. and China Are Tools of Racial Oppression

Two major world powers, the United States and China, have both collected an enormous number of DNA samples from their citizens, the premise being that these samples will help solve crimes that might have otherwise gone unsolved. While DNA evidence can often be crucial when it comes to determining who committed a crime, researchers argue these DNA databases also pose a major threat to human rights.

In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a DNA database called the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) that currently contains over 14 million DNA profiles. This database has a disproportionately high number of profiles of black men, because black Americans are arrested five times as much as white Americans. You don't even have to be convicted of a crime for law enforcement to take and store your DNA; you simply have to have been arrested as a suspect.

[...] As for China, a report that was published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in mid-June claims that China is operating the "world's largest police-run DNA database" as part of its powerful surveillance state. Chinese authorities have collected DNA samples from possibly as many as 70 million men since 2017, and the total database is believed to contain as many as 140 million profiles. The country hopes to collect DNA from all of its male citizens, as it argues men are most likely to commit crimes.

DNA is reportedly often collected during what are represented as free physicals, and it's also being collected from children at schools. There are reports of Chinese citizens being threatened with punishment by government officials if they refuse to give a DNA sample. Much of the DNA that's been collected has been from Uighur Muslims that have been oppressed by the Chinese government and infamously forced into concentration camps in the Xinjiang province.

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:54PM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:54PM (#1017669)

    Logic of the Right: End all government worker unions. That way if you get police that are doing a bad job they can be fired. If you get teachers that doesn't give a shit, get rid of them. Address multiple problems that affect inner city communities with one policy change.

    VS.

    Logic of the Left: Defund the police. Some of the first civil rights issues after the Civil War was a lack of policing in black communities. Those black communities took up arms to defend themselves. Gun control started to become popular after that. We are full circle with democrat logic. For the decades democrats have controlled the inner city communities they have made zero progress in actually solving any of the problems.

    Tough sell.

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  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 07 2020, @09:25PM (6 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday July 07 2020, @09:25PM (#1017884)

    Logic of the Right:

    Use race as a distraction so that poor whites have an enemy to focus on so they can justify in their own minds voting for a party that acts against their interest. See: Southern Strategy [wikipedia.org] ,War on drugs. [wikipedia.org]

    Logic of the Left:

    The US has no left, so the right needs to pretend the other right wing party is a bunch of "Radical Marxists" or whatever.

    The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

    — John Ehrlichman, to Dan Baum[45][46][47] for Harper's Magazine[48] in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971.[49]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @10:08PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @10:08PM (#1017900)

      The US has no left

      Sane people keep the far-left and far-right as far from mainstream politics as possible.

      Uncanny parallels between Weather Underground / Black Panthers & Antifa / Black Lives Matter. The emerging threat in the late '60s was targeted for a reason [fbi.gov] and it's a stain on history that Huey P. Newton is remembered as anything other than a sociopathic murderer, rapist and junkie.

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 07 2020, @11:20PM (4 children)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday July 07 2020, @11:20PM (#1017915)

        Weather Underground / Black Panthers & Antifa / Black Lives Matter.

        Antifa does not really exist except as another imaginary enemy for the right to use to scare the hard-of-thinking with.

        It seems to be working too.

        The Black Panthers were heroes, and ought to be celebrated as such by the second amendment people, because that is one of the rights they fought for for.

        It worked until Ronald Reagan decided guns were only for white people.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @12:00AM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @12:00AM (#1017926)

          Antifa does not really exist

          LOL [discoverthenetworks.org] The development of modern Antifa is described in chapter 2 of "Antifa" - Mark Bray's anti-fascist handbook. [archive.org]

          The Black Panthers were heroes, and ought to be celebrated as such by the second amendment people, because that is one of the rights they fought for for.

          What the fuck does the second amendment have to do with murder? [salon.com] Why are so many leftist "heroes" murderers?

          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @02:43AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @02:43AM (#1018018)

            What the fuck does the second amendment have to do with murder? [salon.com] Why are so many leftist "heroes" murderers?

            Dylann Roof is an American hero!

            #MAGA

          • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 08 2020, @03:51AM (1 child)

            by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday July 08 2020, @03:51AM (#1018047)

            I love your links.

            You try to prove your point by linking to some weirdo far right propaganda and think it helps your case? Hilarious.

            David Horowitz? Jesus.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @01:23PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @01:23PM (#1018182)

              weirdo far right propaganda

              I'm not sure Mark Bray would appreciate that characterization of his work.

              David Horowitz? Jesus.

              Horowitz is a former editor of radical Marxist rag Ramparts - the magazine of the 60s new left. He began distancing himself from the left after his friend was murdered. [wikipedia.org] I'm not sure Jesus had much to say on the evils of Marxism although there may be parallels to the millions of innocent people murdered after struggle sessions with the sociopathic scumbags rallying behind the "Marxist cause".

              If you want to give a link some love, how about this by Ken Kelley? [archive.org] Former White Panther, editor of Ann Arbor Argus, [wikipedia.org] The Berkeley Barb [wikipedia.org] and Sundance magazine? Not so well known as Jesus but a verifiable contemporary and confidant of the murderous, crack-addled sociopath Huey P. Newton.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @10:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @10:09PM (#1017901)

    Only to the alt-right infestation is that a tough sell, everyone else with a brain capable of empathy has no problem.