bali drugs and death penalty, page-30

mack67, I won't be a mouthpiece for CivLib and so my comments are purely the result of my own thinking, which you might well criticise. The first thing one must establish between governments and individuals is the border that separates them. There are a great many conflicts going on over this very thin (and getting thinner) border. Many questions need to be asked about what governments should or should be able to do and what duties they have, compared to those of a citizen; so civil rights is a very complex matter and, to tell you the truth, the less freedom the citizen gives the government to send in the cops, the thought police, the drug police, the alcohol police, the tax police, the censorship boards and christ knows what else, the less likely, an innocent and vulnerable (few language skills, little education, retarded or disabled in any way) will be enmeshed in legal (and very costly to everyone including the taxpayer) and other expenses.
Secondly, there's nothing particularly special about DNA -ask any law student and they'll tell you that so far as evidence is concerned, DNA is just like any other piece of evidence, even weaker, believe it or not, than being seen committing the criminal act! Evidence is only that, evidence. It must first be examined before it becomes proof and DNA is no more valueable to the courts than a cigarette butt of the cigarettes which the suspect smokes. One of the very first death sentences done in the UK (perhaps it was the first) on fingerprint evidence (a new thing at the time) has proven to be wrong. An innocent person was hanged because everyone was so excited about this new scientific achievement!
The case you are talking about was an experiment and as it happened, it worked -but I'm not certain what is the price we're paying for it. Is it the thin edge of the wedge?
What are the cops going to do with that knowledge about our DNA? Keep it and deliver it to the big corporations who will try and sell you cr@p which may suit your DNA (to use one quick example?)