New at Reason

David Weigel | May 19, 2006

Ronald Bailey warns against the coming of a database nation.

Comments

|5.19.06 @ 3:25PM|#

"If we want to avoid becoming a database nation, the time to stop it is now."

No, the time to have stopped it passed us by quite some time ago.

Larry A|5.19.06 @ 4:14PM|#

Next thing you know we'll be back to the same amount of privacy we had when most folks lived in small towns or neighborhoods and Aunt Gerta Gossipmonger was the database.

|5.19.06 @ 4:44PM|#

improved DNA testing of semen found on Sykes proved that he was not its source. Nevertheless, North Carolina prosecutors ignored this new evidence and he remained in jail.

Sounds like the Duke case...what is it about NC?

Regardless, fingerprint matching is less accurate. This would certainly be an improvement in the ability to avoid wrongfully accusing/convicting people. I don;t think going back to a 'pre-database' era is viable, so this becomes an improvement in protecting liberty, no?

|5.19.06 @ 4:50PM|#

improved DNA testing of semen found on Sykes proved that he was not its source. Nevertheless, North Carolina prosecutors ignored this new evidence and he remained in jail.

Sounds like the Duke case...what is it about NC?

Regardless, fingerprint matching is less accurate. This would certainly be an improvement in the ability to avoid wrongfully accusing/convicting people. I don;t think going back to a 'pre-database' era is viable, so this becomes an improvement in protecting liberty, no?

|5.19.06 @ 5:27PM|#

Hmm. Database nation. Nothing to do with the June 2004 issue of Reason and the customized cover, right?

|5.20.06 @ 1:20AM|#

improved DNA testing of semen found on Sykes proved that he was not its source. Nevertheless, North Carolina prosecutors ignored this new evidence and he remained in jail.

Sounds like a Texas case I heard about (except the NC guy was eventually freed). In the Texas case, once the DNA didn't match the prosecutor changed their theory of the case: never mind that the victim never said there was more than one attacker, and that we prosecuted this defendant as the sole offender, the crime was actually a multiple-offender crime, and the lack of DNA matching is irrelevant because he's really a co-conspirator of the DNA donor. The Texas appeals court agreed; he rots in his cell to this day. The head of the appeals court said, amazingly, that mere failure of the forensic evidence wasn't enough, she requires proof of actual innocence.

|5.20.06 @ 3:54AM|#

"If we want to avoid becoming a database nation, the time to stop it is now."

No, the time to have stopped it passed us by quite some time ago.

I'm afraid you're right. Even if we stopped it in congress, some president like Bush would go do it anyway in the name of national insecurity. I mean security.

This freight train's got no brakes anymore, folks.

|5.20.06 @ 11:05AM|#

I think it's important to not let a legitimate fear of bad laws and abuse of government power turn into a fear of new technology with legitimate uses. As with any new technology, you put reasonable safeguards in place and then deal with problems when they arise. Should we slam the brakes on genetically enhanced humans just because the government could abuse that technology? You can't stop the government from using new technology - if we are to have a government at all (and let's not get into that argument here), it has to be able to keep up with the times. Would a DNA database be less scary in the hands of, say, your health insurance company? Public or private, anyone could find plenty of ways to abuse such a wealth of information, and also plenty of ways to use it to improve people's lives and society.

|5.20.06 @ 11:32PM|#

khan-

Even if we stopped it in congress, some president like Bush would go do it anyway in the name of national insecurity. I mean security.

Like that Roosevelt dude?

There is also one number that completely ties together my entire financial, medical, credit, educational and criminal histories...

Gee... that was also Roosevelt!

But, GWB is the SUXXOR!!!!

|5.20.06 @ 11:43PM|#

But, remember!

It's an outrageous violation of my privacy that the government knows that I made only one (22 minute)call to my mom over the last month and a half...