Skip to content

Pa. town latest to force drivers over and ask for cheek swabs (dna) for federal 'study'

Political Discussion
26 11 1.1k
  • I would give a stool sample if I could smear it all over their uniforms...

    Just moved out of Southeasten Pa not too long ago. Glad to be gone. They were stopping "foreign" looking people on the road for no reason to see if they were illegals, then taking the vehicles if they were and letting the illegals walk away (literally). Pretty much just a car grab. Couple of coworkers got stopped repeatedly and one (of Puerto Rican descent) got into a little trouble for voicing his concerns. He was lucky that his dad is a police chief in Jersey, or he may have had some serious problems.

    Have to say though, with all of the apple orchards and what-not in the area, they were likely to find quite a few illegal pickers, and they did. Wonder if they swabbed them too?

  • Voluntary....

  • Voluntary....

    @mld-woody said:

    Voluntary....

    This. No one is forcing anyone to take the test. I would tell them to fuck off and be on my way.

  • Although 'voluntary', they were forced to pull over and questioned rather forcefully to get them to 'volunteer'.

  • Although 'voluntary', they were forced to pull over and questioned rather forcefully to get them to 'volunteer'.

    @diehardbrownsfan said:

    Although 'voluntary', they were forced to pull over and questioned rather forcefully to get them to 'volunteer'.

    It will just take a few people asking if they are being detained for them to quit doing that horse shit.

  • This story is insane. Where I work all research must get past an internal review board that makes sure the study meets ethical and legal standards. It was my understanding that all institutional research performed in America had to go through this. How on Earth something like this was allowed to go forward is beyond me. I could see putting a sign on the highway that says "pull over here to earn $50" and then asking people to volunteer for the study, but forcing people to pull over by abusing police authority is disgusting. I hope someone files a class action.

  • New felony soon:

    "Resisting volunteering"

    A federal study to determine what?

    How easily the American people will be intimidated

    and put up with abusing authority in violation of our Constitution?

    Sick.

  • Voluntary....

    @mld-woody said:

    Voluntary....

    Woody. Just the fact they are using resources to do this shit vs. protecting the public is fucked up. When are you going to grow up?

  • They weren't voluntarily pulled over. They were forcibly made to stop their journey indiscriminately. It's an abuse of power. There's nothing stopping them from going window to window in a traffic jam to do this, they don't need to disrupt people's day.

  • You 'voluntarily' let a federal contractor swab your cheek, do you really think they aren't going to do a DNA test? And do you really think they aren't going to hold it in a database somewhere? I would never voluntarily give a DNA test to anyone under any pretense.

  • You 'voluntarily' let a federal contractor swab your cheek, do you really think they aren't going to do a DNA test? And do you really think they aren't going to hold it in a database somewhere? I would never voluntarily give a DNA test to anyone under any pretense.

    @diehardbrownsfan said:

    You 'voluntarily' let a federal contractor swab your cheek, do you really think they aren't going to do a DNA test? And do you really think they aren't going to hold it in a database somewhere? I would never voluntarily give a DNA test to anyone under any pretense.

    Why? What do you suppose they're going to do with your DNA?

  • @mld-woody said:

    Voluntary....

    This. No one is forcing anyone to take the test. I would tell them to fuck off and be on my way.

    @logicisforsquares said:

    This. No one is forcing anyone to take the test. I would tell them to fuck off and be on my way.

    personally I'm not freaked out by the story. I assume if I have a problem with it I tell them No thank you sir may I please be on my way? If they say thank you sir have a good day then no harm no foul. But, as opposed to many of you guys, I think there should be DNA on file for every United States citizen. I think it's a much more scientific and intelligent way of identification then A 9 digit number that anyone can swipe. Plus I can't see what anybody would use my DNA for that would be so terribly egregious

    WSS

  • I'd rather they didn't have my DNA. Fortunately, I retired from the Military before they started taking DNA from everyone. Call me paranoid.

  • I'd rather they didn't have my DNA. Fortunately, I retired from the Military before they started taking DNA from everyone. Call me paranoid.

    @diehardbrownsfan said:

    I'd rather they didn't have my DNA. Fortunately, I retired from the Military before they started taking DNA from everyone. Call me paranoid.

    Extremely! Unless you think they're going to clone you, or you plan to commit some serious crimes and leave DNA evidence, not too much to be worried about.

  • Once I was told that a friend of mine was against the idea of having DNA on file because it might to lead to people falsifying evidence. It occurred to me you can always fake evidence. This shouldn't make that any easier especially considering the fact that we still use eye witness evidence in court cases today.

    In theory it should let more innocent people off the hook. And if its nails down a conviction for a real violent criminal? Great.

    WSS

  • You guys put too much trust in the good old Federal Government. That's all I have to say.

  • @diehardbrownsfan said:

    You 'voluntarily' let a federal contractor swab your cheek, do you really think they aren't going to do a DNA test? And do you really think they aren't going to hold it in a database somewhere? I would never voluntarily give a DNA test to anyone under any pretense.

    Why? What do you suppose they're going to do with your DNA?

    @gftchris said:

    Why? What do you suppose they're going to do with your DNA?

    Chris, you don't really have to worry about it because your country has socialized healthcare. You're sick, you get treated. Here, you need insurance. Big pharma is so closely knit with big government and big insurance that I wouldn't be comfortable giving anyone a sample of my DNA. Once we can get cheap genomics, that's going to open pandora's box, and we could potentially know what you might be susceptible to by looking at your sequence. If the insurance companies were to get a hold of that privileged information, they could deny a slew of people based off of pre-existing conditions. I could talk all day about how I think employment-based access to healthcare is horseshit. The scientist in me really, really wants us to be able to develop that technology, but the cynic in me knows that it's going to be abused.

  • @gftchris said:

    Why? What do you suppose they're going to do with your DNA?

    Chris, you don't really have to worry about it because your country has socialized healthcare. You're sick, you get treated. Here, you need insurance. Big pharma is so closely knit with big government and big insurance that I wouldn't be comfortable giving anyone a sample of my DNA. Once we can get cheap genomics, that's going to open pandora's box, and we could potentially know what you might be susceptible to by looking at your sequence. If the insurance companies were to get a hold of that privileged information, they could deny a slew of people based off of pre-existing conditions. I could talk all day about how I think employment-based access to healthcare is horseshit. The scientist in me really, really wants us to be able to develop that technology, but the cynic in me knows that it's going to be abused.

    @vaportrail said:

    Chris, you don't really have to worry about it because your country has socialized healthcare. You're sick, you get treated. Here, you need insurance. Big pharma is so closely knit with big government and big insurance that I wouldn't be comfortable giving anyone a sample of my DNA. Once we can get cheap genomics, that's going to open pandora's box, and we could potentially know what you might be susceptible to by looking at your sequence. If the insurance companies were to get a hold of that privileged information, they could deny a slew of people based off of pre-existing conditions. I could talk all day about how I think employment-based access to healthcare is horseshit. The scientist in me really, really wants us to be able to develop that technology, but the cynic in me knows that it's going to be abused.

    See, now there's a sensible looking reason not to give your DNA I can get behind. But when people start refusing, insurers are just going to ask for a DNA sample before starting to insure you.

    I'm a scientist and an optimist, so I really can't wait for this kind of mapping to become available. In fact, a friend of mine sent off to have his mapped, for about £200 or something. Kinda pointless, but still kinda neat!

    While I think about it, insurers at the moment generally make more money than they give out. As such, there's no need for them to raise their overall prices - it might just be skewed somewhat so that people with dodgy genes pay more, when others pay less (see, optimist). But when all that is said and done, when you see your genes give you a 50% higher chance of, say, heart disease, that still only means going from 8% to 12%, for example. so there shouldn't be any big spike.

  • Let's say, your dna gets in a database, and you have a gene that says you are in a 10 percent

    chance category of getting some cancer in your 60's.

    Wouldn't that lend itself to abuse of the information? You'd pay more for insurance, to cover the ..

    possible costs one day, from the beginning? In principle, information can be used for bad as well

    as good.

    OTH, if I ever inadvertently were a suspect in some criminal case? You couldn't

    drive me to the lab fast enough for me, to let me hurriedly give them my dna to clear my name.

    It's a double-edged sword. I prefer the privacy of information, unless there is a current requirement

    for information to be brought forth. It can cut both ways. Good and very bad.

  • I'd rather they didn't have my DNA. Fortunately, I retired from the Military before they started taking DNA from everyone. Call me paranoid.

    @diehardbrownsfan said:

    I'd rather they didn't have my DNA. Fortunately, I retired from the Military before they started taking DNA from everyone. Call me paranoid.

    This. I don't trust the shit birds in Washington to make me a hamburger. I certainly wouldn't trust them with a mega database of everyone's DNA.