
'Snooper's charter' will cost British lives, MPs to be warned - mattkevan
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/snoopers-charter-will-cost-british-lives-mps-warned
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MichaelBurge
Summary: A bill will expand the surveillance capabilities of Britain's
equivalent to. A former NSA director believes it will collect so much
irrelevant data that their analysts will be unable to efficiently find useful
information on terrorist attacks or similar. The lost lives are a reference to
people who may die in attacks that could have been prevented had they
collected data in a different manner.

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DanBC
This argument doesn't seem to have made much difference to the national DNA
database[1]. Innocent people have had to go to court to get the rules changed
and to have their DNA taken off the database.

"They" want everyone's dna on the database. And police have said that there's
no reason to take a person's DNA off the database.

Your DNA is taken and added to the database if you're arrested. You don't have
to accept a caution; nor be tried, nor convicted, of a crime for them to keep
it. Some people can apply to have it taken off, but it stays on their for two
years for everyone.

With the current climate I can easily see "all immigrants need to go on the
database" being populist bit of legislation.

[1] typing that name, about my country, feels weird and wrong.

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Malarkey73
Yes but with a complete DNA database you can match an external sample exactly
to the database with (near) complete accuracy. The DNA database doesn't tell
you anything itself.

With a database of all communications you have to mine it for probabilistic
leads. The signal to noise problem grows as does the database.

Someone else (I cant recall who) said - the last thing you need when looking
for a needle in a haystack is more hay.

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goalieca
How many years till they start analyzing the DNA for behavioural risk factors?

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phkahler
Did anyone think of the new Apple building when they saw that picture? Wonder
if that's a coincidence ;-)

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jamesbrownuhh
Prior art. The Doughnut was built in 2003. :)

