Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 13:12:33 -0700
From: weavert@primenet.com ("T. Weaver")
Subject: [privacylist] [OT] DNA Testing Down Under
To: Anti-AntiGunLobby@egroups.com, azrkba@asu.edu
Reply-To: privacylist@egroups.com
Gee, our cops are incompetent so we'll test everyone. Of course they can
say "no" when the police are standing right in front of them and, of
course, this won't cast any suspicion upon them. First story explains it,
second story tells of the political backlash over it.
Oh yeah...and Australia begins their criminal (any) DNA database right
around the same time.
How freakin' convenient. Good thing we have out Constitution to protect us
from Government abuses....(that's sarcasm, folks...)
Tim
"I have the right to free speech"
"Do you have a gun?"
"No"
"Then shut up and continue digging that ditch."
- - - -
http://au.dailynews.yahoo.com/headines/20000406/abcnews/954972914-1208696890.html
Thursday 6 April 8:15 AM
Wee Waa's males called for DNA tests, all 600 of them
Police in the northern New South Wales town of Wee Waa will ask all the
town's men to undergo DNA testing this weekend in an attempt to solve a
rape case.
The mass-testing is an Australian first.
On New Year's Day last year, a 93-year-old woman was savagely bashed and
sexually assaulted, prompting a widespread police investigation.
Officers from Sydney and from the Barwon local area command, based in
Moree, will descend on the town this weekend to help take voluntary saliva
tests from 600 adult men.
Officers will also conduct a doorknock as part of their ongoing investigation.
The testing this weekend will be on a voluntary basis.
But the New South Wales Government has signalled it will introduce
legislation to compel suspects and those convicted of serious crimes to
undergo DNA testing.
Those samples would go into a databank along with samples collected from
crime scenes.
- - -
http://au.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/20000406/abcnews/954997258-672112657.html
Thursday 6 April 3:00 PM
Parliament backlash against Wee Waa DNA tests
There has been a backlash in the New South Wales Parliament against a
police plan to DNA test about 600 men in the town of Wee Waa to help
inquiries into the rape of an elderly local woman.
A number of Independent MLCs have joined the Council for Civil Liberties
and the Law Society in condemnng the mass test, which they say is
occurring without parliamentary oversight.
The chair of the Law Society's Human Rights Committee, Michael Antrum,
rejects the view that if the men to be tested have nothing to hide they
have nothing to fear.
"We could go all the way back in history and look at the way that that
phrase and that statement has been used, in Nazi Germany, in totalitarian
regimes," Mr Antrum said.
"That statement, if you have got nothing to hide, if you are not with the
government policy you are not with us," he said.
"If you have to give up samples of urine, saliva this is an invasive test.
I think what we have here is a frightening glimpse of a police state of the
future," Mr Antrum said.
Refusal allowed
Police say men who refuse DNA tests in a north-western New South Wales town
will not become prime suspects in a sexual assault case.
Police Crime Agencies Commander, Clive Small, says no-one is legally
required to take the tests and there will be no pressure to do so.
"Those people who undergo the tests and are cleared, are clearly eliminated
beyond question, the mere fact that a person does not wish to undertake the
test does not mean that they become any more of a suspect," he said.
"What it does mean however is that they have not necessarily been
eliminated. If I was wishing to support the local community I would be
hoping to eliminate as many people as we can," Mr Small said.
Record
The Commander of New South Wales crime agencies, Assistant Commissioner
Clive Small, says the Wee Waa DNA testing exercise is possibly the biggest
of its kind ever undertaken in Australia.
Mr Small says the mass testing will help NSW police prepare for a proposed
law, to establish a major DNA database next year.
"The canvas that will be taken at Wee Waa would be far and away the biggest
that has ever been undertaken in NSW and I believe in Australia," he said.
"Not only will it help us focus our resources better and save a lot of time
and effort in eliminating a lot of innocent peple but it will also be used
as a significant learning experience for us with the advent of DNA
legislation for us early next year."