Government censorship and DNA databases quickie
Is government censorship collapsing?
"To succeed with any legal action, we would have to demonstrate clearly to a court that real damage would result from publication. From previous experience and advice ... we know that the damage threshold is very high for successful court action."In other news, a funky little graph from The Economist (ta, Paul):
But, please note, storing DNA can be an utter waste of time (sub. req.): "DNA tests are now so sensitive that they can detect if a person has sneezed or sweated near an object. Jon Swain, a barrister with a background in biochemistry, recently defended a man charged with armed robbery. The defendant's DNA was on the gun that was used, but the defence argued that he might just have been near it after he had been to the gym, and that an errant bead of sweat could account for the presence of his DNA on a weapon he had never handled. He was acquitted."
1 Comments:
There needs to be a full scientific enquiry into forensic techniques - many, such as finger prints are based on old, flakely experiments and guesses.
This is not to say that the techniques are bad - almost certainly fingerprints are as unique as they are claimed to be... It's just that there is alot of new stuff being built on shakey foundations, as it were. Roy Meadows comes to mind
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