statism watch

Of course he does. In order to avoid unceasing surprise at anything Obama does, ask yourself one question – “What would George W. Bush do?”. Obama’s backed by the same institutions. This would have been perfectly clear from the beginning, if it hadn’t for the media fawning all over the guy, pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. As Alexander Cockburn wrote in the Toronto Star on November 3, 2008, change should be more than a slogan.

Flashback: UK: Commons committee rejects six-year DNA records plan | DNA matches solve only a fraction of crimes, police admit | UK Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims | UK: Terror ’suspects’ could remain on DNA database for life, innocents get 6 years | UK: Home Office climbs down over keeping DNA records on innocent | UK: Police ‘must purge innocent DNA’ | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | UK: DNA details of 1.1m children on database | Controversial US measure would require DNA sampling at arrest | Police to demand blood, urine at roadside stops | Newborn Blood-Storage Law Stirs Fears of DNA Warehouse | Man spends 18 hours in police cell and has his DNA taken for ‘dropping an apple core’ | Widen DNA dragnet: Police Chief Blair

David Kravets, Wired.com
March 10, 2010

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

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It’s interesting how quickly the plight of children occurs to the state when the outcome is to remove rights and accrue centralized power – and how slow any recognition of children’s suffering is when the necessary outcome must be to detach, decentralize, and withdraw. Witness Canada’s residential schools, the eagerness of Children’s Protective Services in the US to fulfill their quotas by snatching kids from families with a dirty dish in the sink nevermind the continuing rampant abuse in state custody, the Thalidomide apology – only fifty years late, the use of children as a pretext to treat everyone online as some potential paedophile by implementing filters and restricting anonymity, etc., etc. Of course, none of that matters if you’re putting a child through a naked body scanner, which breaks UK law. Children are treated as our pawns, empty vessels onto which we project all the grotesque evil of our adult world. They cannot help but reflect this back to us psychologically – and in some cases physically. It is,literally, heartbreaking.

The Daily Mail
March 4, 2010

Fatima Ahmed, born after the assault in Fallujah, has deformities that include two heads.

A high number of children are being born with birth defects in an Iraqi city where U.S. forces may have used chemical weapons during a fierce battle in 2004.

Children in Fallujah are being born with limb, head, heart and nervous system defects. There is even a claim that a baby was born with three heads.

The number of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than the rate in Europe.

The city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Iraq war in late 2004. U.S. Marines led Operation Phantom Fury to recapture it from insurgents.

British troops were involved in manning checkpoints on the outskirts of the city as the Americans went in. The U.S. has admitted that it used white phosphorus in the attack, but only as an illumination device.

Under international law it is illegal if used as an offensive weapon. America has never given a clear response to claims it also used depleted uranium weapons against the insurgents, such as ‘bunkerbuster’ bombs. Both types of weapons can contaminate crops and water supplies.

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Disappeared. Lost. Sometimes, raped and murdered by the lecherous creatures running the religious schools. There are so many little crosses, so many children fallen prey to the state’s need for ethnic and cultural hegemony. This was Canada’s genocide.

Flashback: For many aboriginals, the truth of residential schools is irreconcilable: commissioner | The future of the residential school commission – An interview with Judge Murray Sinclair | GG relaunches Truth and Reconciliation Commission | New members tapped for residential school commission: report | Chair to have final say as residential schools commission jobs rewritten | Remaining 2 members resign from residential schools commission | Commission to Probe Graves at Native ‘Residential School’ Sites | Government to hold talks over future of residential-schools commission | Chairman quits troubled residential-school commission | Truth commission tied too closely to government: aboriginal groups | Canada hears of native abuse pain | Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established

CBC News
March 2, 2010

Historian John Milloy wants to investigate the number of residential school students who are buried at cemeteries like this one in Fort Resolution, N.W.T. (CBC)

Investigations into cases of students who died or went missing while attending Canada’s residential schools are a priority for the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says the group’s new research director.

Trent University history professor John Milloy was appointed last month as director of research for the federal commission, which is charged with creating a historical account of the residential school system, helping people heal and encouraging reconciliation.

The Missing Children Research Project was launched in 2008 with the aim of documenting how many children died, went missing or were buried in unmarked graves at residential schools across the country from the late 1800s through much of the 1900s.

However, work on the project was delayed for a year when infighting at the $60-million truth and reconciliation commission led to the resignation of its three commissioners.

Though the restructured commission has yet to come up with a firm budget for the missing children project, Milloy’s appointment in January raises hopes that the project has regained momentum.

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Just help yourself, government. Don’t bother asking, it’s not as though we (or our children) have rights anymore. You can thank Bush II for this… he signed a bill in 2008 which critics have described as the first step towards a national US DNA database. It explicitly legitimizes the use of genomic data for genetic research without the knowledge or consent of citizens. This is what happens when you don’t pay attention to what your government is doing. Oh, and this is already in place in Canada. This site leaves it to you to work through the spin and think of the future consequences of unrestricted government access to your DNA.

Flashback: The government has your baby’s DNA | UK Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims | UK: Police ‘must purge innocent DNA’ | Newborn’s Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy | Study finds genetic discrimination by insurance firms | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | Australians refused insurance because of poor genes

Mary Ann Roser, Austin American Statesman
February 22, 2010

An Austin lawyer threatened to pursue a new federal lawsuit Monday after learning that some newborn blood samples in Texas went to the U.S. military for potential use in a database for law enforcement purposes.

The Department of State Health Services never mentioned the database to Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, who settled a lawsuit in December with the state over the indefinite storage of newborn blood without parental consent, or to the American-Statesman, which first reported on the little-known blood storage practice last spring. Harrington said he thought another suit was likely unless the health department destroys the information obtained from the blood samples or obtains consent.

“This is the worst case of bad faith I have dealt with as a lawyer,” he said Monday.

Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas attorney general’s office, which represented the health department, fired back. “During this litigation, Harrington was provided accurate answers to the questions he asked,” he said.

“Once Harrington negotiated $26,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs for himself, accepted a settlement agreement and got his desired headlines, he was satisfied and dropped his lawsuit against DSHS. It appears recent media reports caused Harrington to backtrack in an effort to obscure how he chose to handle this case,” he said.

An article Monday by the Texas Tribune, a news Web site, said the state health department sent 800 anonymous samples to the military to help create a national mitochondrial DNA database. The samples were sent in 2003 and 2007, according to the department’s Web site.

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The comments on this story at the source are so shameful. Let’s pick one representative jibe: “the ability of indians who came through the residential schools to read and write came from… the schools, of course”. Oh, well, that makes it all better then. As though the gifts of European civilization and Huron/Mohawk/Iroquois/Cree/Haida/Inuit… etc… civilization couldn’t have been shared without rape, biowarfare, genocide, and murder.

Flashback: The future of the residential school commission – An interview with Judge Murray Sinclair | GG relaunches Truth and Reconciliation Commission | New members tapped for residential school commission: report | Chair to have final say as residential schools commission jobs rewritten | Remaining 2 members resign from residential schools commission | Commission to Probe Graves at Native ‘Residential School’ Sites | Government to hold talks over future of residential-schools commission | Chairman quits troubled residential-school commission | Truth commission tied too closely to government: aboriginal groups | Canada hears of native abuse pain | Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established

Chinta Puxley
February 21, 2010

After hearing from residential-school survivors, judge says forgiveness simply won’t be possible for everyone

After travelling the country and hearing horrific tales of abuse suffered by aboriginal residential-school survivors, the head of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission says he realizes that forgiveness is not an option for many victims.

The commission’s first official national event is still several months away, but Justice Murray Sinclair has been on the road since his appointment last July gathering stories from former students from British Columbia to Nova Scotia.

“Many people say they can never forgive anybody. We’ve heard elders say you can’t forgive an institution that doesn’t have a soul or a spirit,” Judge Sinclair said in an interview from the commission’s new headquarters in Winnipeg.

“It’s not a question of forgiveness for them. It’s a question of moving on. Some have said there will never be any reconciliation for them and we just accept that as part of the truth-telling process.”

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Now, what could possibly go wrong with this idea?

Flashback: Genetically modified monkeys pass traits to offspring | Meet – and eat – the modified Atlantic salmon | Genetically engineered meal close to your table | Are we already dining on clones?

Katie Drummond, Wired.com
February 5, 2010

The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch:

Develop strategies to create a synthetic organism “self-destruct” option to be implemented upon nefarious removal of organism.

The project comes as Darpa also plans to throw $20 million into a new synthetic biology program, and $7.5 million into “increasing by several decades the speed with which we sequence, analyze and functionally edit cellular genomes.”

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This is going on in Canada as well. The government and the insurance companies love you. Nothing to see here.

Flashback: UK Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims | UK: Police ‘must purge innocent DNA’ | Newborn’s Blood Samples Raise Questions of Privacy | Study finds genetic discrimination by insurance firms | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | Australians refused insurance because of poor genes

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN.com
February 4, 2010

When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.

While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she doesn’t have the disease — the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel’s genes in the first place. After all, they’d never consented to genetic testing.

It’s simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often done without the parents’ consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center.

In many states, such as Florida, where Isabel was born, babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely, according to the resource center.

Many parents don’t realize their baby’s DNA is being stored in a government lab, but sometimes when they find out, as the Browns did, they take action. Parents in Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents’ concerns are sparking a new debate about whether it’s appropriate for a baby’s genetic blueprint to be in the government’s possession.

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It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this lawsuit. A pharmaceutical company may own the physical remedy it produces for an ailment. To say they ‘own’ a gene they’ve discovered is philosophically and morally (ob)noxious.

Flashback: Judge OKs Challenge to Human-Gene Patents | Sick babies denied treatment in DNA row

Brandon Keim, Wired.com
February 4, 2010

Federal court hearings continued Tuesday on a lawsuit that could transform biotechnology in the United States by eliminating gene patents.

The case hinges around the claims of Utah-based Myriad Genetics on BRCA1 and BRCA2, a pair of genes closely linked to breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad “owns” the genes, and says its patents make it possible to profit on diagnostic tests. The company argues that if you remove the patents, the tests — indeed, commercial biotechnology as we know it — will vanish.

A coalition of civil rights, research and women’s health groups is fighting the patents. They argue that Myriad’s claims stifle innovation by discouraging researchers from looking at the genes, which are still not fully understood, and say Myriad’s monopoly limits women’s health choices. More broadly, the claims set a precedent for other gene patents, which now cover about one-fifth of the human genome.

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Hitchens is mistaken only in believing that the North Korean regime is the first to produce a stunted sub-group of homo sapiens sapiens. Royalty has always dined on the high protein flesh of animals, while the slaves, the little people stunted in height and forced to turn all their energies to work – they get what they’re given.

Flashback: North Korea calls for peace treaty with US | State Of War Between Two Koreas After Armistice Ended | Swiss nuclear-smuggling suspect says CIA made him do it | How the USA Gave North Korea The Bomb

Christopher Hitchens, Slate.com
February 2, 2010

Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial “minder” whom I’ll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world’s most hysterical and operatic leader-cult.

One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The people of South Korea, he pointed out, were becoming mongrelized. They wedded foreigners — even black American soldiers, or so he’d heard to his evident disgust — and were losing their purity and distinction. Not for Mr. Chae the charm of the ethnic mosaic, but rather a rigid and unpolluted uniformity.

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Sarah Bosely, The Guardian
January 14, 2010

Government issues long-awaited apology and a new £20m compensation package to 466 thalidomiders