Airport pat downs, strip searches for minor offenses, stop and frisk, monitored banking, e-mail, text and tweets, domestic surveillance by thermal imaging law enforcement drones, and all of this without even being advised of, charged with, let alone convicted of any crime. Now this.
The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that police have the authority to take DNA samples from arrestees. If this is the American way these days, its hardly worth fighting for. In America, it seems these days everyone is considered a suspect and therefore everyone these days is being treated as a suspect. A suspect of what exactly is unknown, but you're are a suspect of something until DNA testing proves otherwise.
Currently, "government authorities" are telling "We the People", this latest assault against the spirit of the constitutional intrusion will only be imposed upon those who've been arrested for serious crimes. Unfortunately, was this very same Supreme Court that ruled last year, one could be striped searched for violating a leash law. The reality is, the door has been kicked wide open for forced DNA sampling to become routine practice for every police/public encounter.
Eventually, if one is caught crossing against the light or heavens forbid, neglect to pay a traffic ticket, that offense will trigger a warrant, and some poor sap could be hauled to jail, forced to submit to expose him or herself to a bunch of marginally educated cop-bots and law enforcement flunkies. And as if that were not degrading enough, now his or her DNA can be taken to be entered into a national data base. The fact that the most minimal of infractions can lead to some of the most disgusting of human experiences in the name of justice is friggin amazing.
Understandably, one could see our position as an overreaction, but when compiling all the recent and not so recent rollbacks of American rights and rollouts of new and improved police tools, one can envision a very strange and twisted version of America developing.
From the moment you awaken until the moment you fall asleep again, one has to remain aware one is being watched or monitored by someone or something. Until "We the People" can gain enough strength and momentum to return America's rights and way of life back to themselves, they'd all better get use to living life in a fishbowl.
Government authorities will argue, its for homeland security, the public safety and crime fighting or prevention. If that don't work, the U.S. Government run police state will default to the fail safe standby; "if you've got nothing to hide or have done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about."
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