"Big Les Wade" wrote in message
...
GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie posted
I have been asked by the police to supply on a voluntary basis 'familial
DNA'. Over 20 years ago my father was interviewed along with loads of
other
people at his workplace about a murder. The police appear to have
reopened
the the case and because my father died years ago, I have been asked to
supply the sample to 'eliminate' him. The policeman who spoke to me said
it
would not go on the national database but as far as I am aware there is no
law that I could invoke to force the police to remove it if they added it
anyway, without my consent.

You are right AIUI. Whatever they say, they will almost certainly add it
to the database and never remove it. We know they are quite happy to lie
about it; they did constantly between 1985 and 2001.

Thanks. That's what I suspect. Obviously I am really worried that the
*******s try to fit me up with something. I have had virtually no contact
with the police over my 48 years of existence. I don't hurt or harm or
defraud other people so I naturally expect the police to stay the **** away
from me. And up and until now that is what has happened. That I now have
them breathing down my neck for absolutely no fault of mine makes me feel
that the claim that this is a nascent police state are not so wide of the
mark after all.

"GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie" wrote in message
...
"Big Les Wade" wrote in message
...
GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie posted
I have been asked by the police to supply on a voluntary basis 'familial
DNA'. Over 20 years ago my father was interviewed along with loads of
other
people at his workplace about a murder. The police appear to have
reopened
the the case and because my father died years ago, I have been asked to
supply the sample to 'eliminate' him. The policeman who spoke to me said
it
would not go on the national database but as far as I am aware there is
no
law that I could invoke to force the police to remove it if they added it
anyway, without my consent.

You are right AIUI. Whatever they say, they will almost certainly add it
to the database and never remove it. We know they are quite happy to lie
about it; they did constantly between 1985 and 2001.

Thanks. That's what I suspect. Obviously I am really worried that the
*******s try to fit me up with something. I have had virtually no contact
with the police over my 48 years of existence. I don't hurt or harm or
defraud other people so I naturally expect the police to stay the ****
away
from me. And up and until now that is what has happened. That I now have
them breathing down my neck for absolutely no fault of mine makes me feel
that the claim that this is a nascent police state are not so wide of the
mark after all.

I don't understand why you say that, because from your original post you
seem to implicitly accept or, as I think is more likely, you know for a
fact, that your Father was interviewed along with loads of others in
connection with a murder enquiry many years ago.

With that in mind I don't see why you think you are being "fitted up" - if
that was the intention there would be a whole host of other ways to do it &
which would not require you to give a sample on a voluntary basis.

On the other hand, by giving the sample you could finally clear your Father
of any suspicion, no matter how remote or unfounded that suspicion was.

I do share your concerns, but for me it would be worth the price of having
my DNA on file if I could then go to my dad's grave & say "I did that for
you Dad - they tried to fit you up for it - but I made sure they didn't get
away with it".

On the other hand, if it proved to be a match.... someone might still be
grateful finally to know & I get the feeling you could cope with it

--
Joe Lee

On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:15:05 +0100, GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie put
finger to keyboard and typed:

I am long time campaigner on privacy issues so I am sort of expecting that
people will make unwarranted implications, as you have done. That is one
very powerful reason for resisting. But really, this could all be settled
fairly amicably if the state were to grant unconvicted people rights over
the disposition of their DNA profiles. If it won't do that then it can
hardly be surprised if people take the stance I have taken.

Indeed. It's a little like prosecuting people for jumping a red light
or driving in a bus lane in order to make way for an emergency
vehicle. On the whole, I think it's generally a Good Thing to be
cooperative in assisting the police, ambulance service, etc. But if
such actions risk detrimental consequences for the cooperator as a
result of government policy, then it's hardly surprising if fewer
people are prepared to cooperate.

Mark
--
"There must be a place, under the sun, where hearts of olden
glory grow young"
http://mark.goodge.co.uk - my pointless blog
http://www.good-stuff.co.uk - my less pointless stuff

"Joe Lee" invalid@noaddress wrote in message
...

I don't understand why you say that, because from your original post you
seem to implicitly accept or, as I think is more likely, you know for a
fact, that your Father was interviewed along with loads of others in
connection with a murder enquiry many years ago.

With that in mind I don't see why you think you are being "fitted up" - if
that was the intention there would be a whole host of other ways to do it
& which would not require you to give a sample on a voluntary basis.

You miss my point entirely. I am not claiming that the police are trying to
'fit up' my father or myself in respect of this ancient crime. They are
simply following a methodical process of following through on each person
they investigated at the time. My point was that I am worried that I may
face harrassment for declining to give a DNA sample and that I might be
'fitted up' so as to arrest me on spurious grounds to take my DNA by force.

On the other hand, by giving the sample you could finally clear your
Father of any suspicion, no matter how remote or unfounded that suspicion
was.

And I am happy to do that provided that my DNA profile is not stored on the
NDNAD.

I do share your concerns, but for me it would be worth the price of having
my DNA on file if I could then go to my dad's grave & say "I did that for
you Dad - they tried to fit you up for it - but I made sure they didn't
get away with it".

As I said, I have no reason to think that my father is a significant suspect
and my guess is that the police are simply being methodical. As far as I
am aware, his name is not besmirched so I have no need to clear it, and
especially not at the price of being entered onto a criminal database. That
is simply not acceptable and if the state wants me to volunteer then it had
better understand that many millions of people feel as I do and change the
law.

In article ,
GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie wrote:
I have been asked by the police to supply [DNA] on a voluntary basis

Much of the discussion here is focusing on horror scenarios where the
police decide to harass you just because you say no. Now obviously
you're understandably angry, and I would be thinking the same kind of
things in your position.

But really they probably have things they think are more important
than harasssing you over this. I don't know what kind of conversation
you had with them already, but the best approach is probably to avoid
expressing your anger or frustration to the police, and to avoid
getting into any kind of discussion about it.

Just say you would prefer not to. If they say `why', just say you
would rather not. If they press you more you can just say that you're
sorry and that you appreciate the problems this causes for them but
that your mind is made up.

This won't feel very helpful to you, but just resist your natural
inclination to engage with the conversation. Keep going back to your
central point like a politician on the Today programme.

Stay polite. Avoid upsetting them, or making any accusations,
referring to past police misdeeds, or anything like that.

Don't give them an explanation for your refusal. If you do explain
then they will start arguing over the details. This is likely to lead
to them becoming more annoyed at you. At some point they will promise
you something that they think should address your concerns, and you
will then find that your natural riposte is to point out that you
don't trust them (which is sure to annoy them).

You're perfectly entitled to say no and if you do - firmly and
politely - then they'll probably just go away.

Make notes of these conversations. If they seem to threaten you
somehow, make a note of that but don't respond; pretend that you
haven't noticed the threat. Then if they actually do carry out any of
these threats you should complain (but don't do so beforehand as the
complaints processes are useless and antagonising them will be likely
to make things worse).

--
Ian Jackson personal email:
These opinions are my own. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/
PGP2 key 1024R/0x23f5addb, fingerprint 5906F687 BD03ACAD 0D8E602E FCF37657

"Ian Jackson" wrote in message
...
In article ,
GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie wrote:
I have been asked by the police to supply [DNA] on a voluntary basis

Much of the discussion here is focusing on horror scenarios where the
police decide to harass you just because you say no. Now obviously
you're understandably angry, and I would be thinking the same kind of
things in your position.

But really they probably have things they think are more important
than harasssing you over this. I don't know what kind of conversation
you had with them already, but the best approach is probably to avoid
expressing your anger or frustration to the police, and to avoid
getting into any kind of discussion about it.

Just say you would prefer not to. If they say `why', just say you
would rather not. If they press you more you can just say that you're
sorry and that you appreciate the problems this causes for them but
that your mind is made up.

This won't feel very helpful to you, but just resist your natural
inclination to engage with the conversation. Keep going back to your
central point like a politician on the Today programme.

Stay polite. Avoid upsetting them, or making any accusations,
referring to past police misdeeds, or anything like that.

Don't give them an explanation for your refusal. If you do explain
then they will start arguing over the details. This is likely to lead
to them becoming more annoyed at you. At some point they will promise
you something that they think should address your concerns, and you
will then find that your natural riposte is to point out that you
don't trust them (which is sure to annoy them).

You're perfectly entitled to say no and if you do - firmly and
politely - then they'll probably just go away.

Make notes of these conversations. If they seem to threaten you
somehow, make a note of that but don't respond; pretend that you
haven't noticed the threat. Then if they actually do carry out any of
these threats you should complain (but don't do so beforehand as the
complaints processes are useless and antagonising them will be likely
to make things worse).

Thanks for that Ian. That is very useful advice. I should add that the
policeman who contacted me was unfailingly polite and if I do decide to say
'no' I shall be likewise polite. However my imagination has been working
overtime on this and it has left me in a stressed state. I would like to
say 'yes' but I really feel I can not as the current set up is. If the
police asked me for testimony I would have any problem with helping them but
I absoluetly draw the line on going on a criminal database.

GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie wrote:

And please no lectures along the lines of 'if you have done nothing wrong,
you have nothing to hide'. I have done nothing wrong. I don't want my data
on the DNA database. End of. Deal with it.

I think you're taking the correct view of this. The police have not been
honest in the past in the statements they make to "volunteers" about the
use of their DNA profile. AFAIK it is policy that *all* profiles from
volunteers will be loaded onto the database and once there it will be
extremely difficult to get the sample removed.

After "quite a bit" of research into the uses of the NDNAD, I've formed
the opinion that false matches are entirely possible and that if they
occur there's a lazy assumption that a DNA match indicates guilt, full
stop, end of story, attempt to send suspect direct to jail without
passing "Go".

Things should not be this way, but there seems to be an unquestioning
faith in the police than DNA=guilty.

The Todal wrote:

And I am curious to know whether you would want to protect your father and
your family from the possibility of a disgraceful revelation, or whether
you see it only as a DNA personal data issue.

I didn't see the OP's questions as having any implication that the aim
was to avert a scandal or to deny justice. I understand the concerns
about the acquisition of "volunteer" DNA profiles and those concerns may
come from several roots.

DNA profiles are retained until the 100th birthday or the death of the
person from whom a profile was obtained. However there has been no
public demonstration that the samples and profiles are destroyed as
claimed and it would take a radical step forward in governmental
efficiency for these undertakings to be credible.

As well as a profile an actual sample of DNA is retained and that sample
is retained by the laboratory processing the sample. i.e. by a
commercial company. That alone would cause me concern and I recall from
some months ago a press story that one company had sold material without
consent. That should be cause for concern.

The DNA profile is not unique to an individual, hence the possibility of
a false match to a crime scene sample always exists.

And if someone has a sample of DNA, the possibility of "seeding" a crime
scene with DNA also exists, however remote the probability that
possibility can be a cause for genuine concern.

GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie wrote in message
...
"Big Les Wade" wrote in message
...
GeorgiePorgiePuddingAndPie posted
I have been asked by the police to supply on a voluntary basis 'familial
DNA'. Over 20 years ago my father was interviewed along with loads of
other
people at his workplace about a murder. The police appear to have
reopened
the the case and because my father died years ago, I have been asked to
supply the sample to 'eliminate' him. The policeman who spoke to me
said
it
would not go on the national database but as far as I am aware there is
no
law that I could invoke to force the police to remove it if they added
it
anyway, without my consent.

You are right AIUI. Whatever they say, they will almost certainly add it
to the database and never remove it. We know they are quite happy to lie
about it; they did constantly between 1985 and 2001.

Thanks. That's what I suspect. Obviously I am really worried that the
*******s try to fit me up with something. I have had virtually no contact
with the police over my 48 years of existence. I don't hurt or harm or
defraud other people so I naturally expect the police to stay the ****
away
from me. And up and until now that is what has happened. That I now have
them breathing down my neck for absolutely no fault of mine makes me feel
that the claim that this is a nascent police state are not so wide of the
mark after all.



There are a lot of people like yourself ,
uneasy about having their DNA in a freezer and
DNA profile on a database but perhaps have difficulty
in putting into words exactly why.

So for some concrete reasons - mention the names
Raymond Easton, Peter Hamkin and/or Mark Minick,
all falsely matched to crimes because "their" DNA
matched to crime scenes.
And also a 7 yearold Nottingham schoolboy,
determined by DNA profiling to be the Omagh bomber,
came out in court testimony last year.
You won't find those names mentioned on police or
forensic science sites , only on sites that I've
collated the info.

It is in their mindset (and also most of the public)
that a DNA profile match
equals a DNA match equals a "collar".
Wheras a definition of such a match is

"A set of numbers that may or may not reflect the biology of a miniscule
subset of someone's DNA that has been matched, or
substantially partial matched via a computer database
to the same set of numbers derived from a crime-scene
sample stored, more than likely in less than ideal
circumstances, which may or may not reflect
a miniscule subset of the DNA of someone,
not necessarily the offender, left at
a crime scene maybe decades previously and analysed
degraded , decades later. "

There is an absolute
best error rate for single kit analysis of
reference (ie mouth swabs) of 1 in 140 being wrong
due to something called false homozygosity.
For crime scene DNA profiles the error
rate increases to 7 percent being wrong
(GEDNAP results). For old /degraded/tiny
samples the error rate gets much worse.
You won't find that info on police/FSS sites.

Similar to, as you only need 23 people in a room
for a greater than evens chance of 2 people
having the same birthday. What is the number of
people in a group before one of them will have
an unrelated full (UK 10 marker) DNA profile match
with someone else in the UK ?
It is only about 2,000 before one of them has a greater than
evens match with someone else in the UK.
If you are of the modal group, ie 4 grandparents
born in the UK then you could easily be that person.

That is the eventual result accidently disclosed by
someone in the Arizona justice system and the FBI
very much wishes she hadn't. Basically
in an Arizona database of only 65,000 DNA profiles
there was a 10.5 marker, unrelated match, between a
black guy and a white guy. The USA uses 13 but
the UK uses only 10, and taking the maths over
to the UK situation gives that 1 in 2,000 figure
of a false match in the UK. Ignore the codswallop
presented in courts about billions , it is just
there to prejudice the jury. The FBI has clammed up
because , one has to assume, not only are
false matches far more likely than the theory would say
but a fundamental premise of "Bayesian independence"
used in courts around the world is shown to be without
foundation. There is an argument that the situation
in the UK is worse than Arizona, more co-ancestry,
but the Arizona data is the only hard data released
so far.


--
http://www.nutteing.chat.ru/dnapr.htm
for further info, on a Russian site for sencorship reasons

Steve Firth posted
AFAIK it is policy that *all* profiles from volunteers will be loaded
onto the database and once there it will be extremely difficult to get
the sample removed.

Do you have a good source for this? The police have always said that
they will destroy "volunteered" DNA at the end of the particualr
investigation for which it was collected. I have never believed them
anyway, of course, but I'd be interested to be shown evidence that it
doesn't happen.

--
Les
"Criticising the government is not illegal, but often on investigation turns
out to be linked to other offences."