Thoughts regarding genetic profiling

Given the trends in law enforcement, it seems that the buildup of DNA databases is inevitable.

While DNA dragnets may reduce the social intrusiveness of law enforcement, the databases themselves pose a new risk to privacy. While it might be a boon to medical care, it also means that insurance companies could price discriminate against people who they deem to be high risk. One's genetic profile could become a new type of credit rating. Already we are finding genes associated with various mental illnesses. Will market forces push for the creation of a socioeconomic underclass by discriminating against the vulnerable, and thus push them into more stressful economic situations, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? There will be conflict over who gets access to such genomic information.

Despite being touted as the next big thing, it's worth remembering that genetic profiling isn't infallible. Lab errors happen.

I've also noticed a certain collective cognitive dissonance in the debate over DNA profiling by law enforcement. Authorities tend to deny that there's racial profiling happening. Yet at least one of the genetic profiling companies involved in phenotyping effectively claims on their website that they can identify and trace the heritable component of what people call race; thus, it can function as a scientific form of racial profiling. There's going to be conflict between those who reject anything which resembles racial profiling in structure and those who push for genetic profiling in all its aspects. I expect technological expediency will win out regardless of sensibilities, since genetic profiling can be touted as something more objective.

Given the overall trend, I can't rule out the possibility of a future out of Gattaca.

DNA shotguns and family trees

The BBC reports that ambitious new techniques are being used to identify a sex offender. The initial geographical narrowing was accomplished via a comparison at Florida's DNAPrint genomics. Samples from up to 200 police officers of a related geographic origin will be further used to narrow down the offender, or at least his family.

Assuming these techniques meet success, the next logical step would be to attempt to correlate DNA samples with known family relations, such as the database provided by Mormon genealogy database. Already AncestryByDNA, apparently a DNAPrint spinoff, offers a service to identify the ancestral origins of clients, broken down by "major historical population groups", which they identify as the heritable component of "race".

As more individuals are sampled and added to the combined databases, in principle it will require yet fewer additional collected samples to narrow a person down. Cuckoldry and unreported adoptions will be among the sources of error that such an effort would have to cope with.

Apparently depending on technique, thirteen regions or ten markers are used for comparison. Depending on the extent of variation in these regions of the genome, it may be eventually feasible to deploy rapid assay technologies enabling law enforcement to perform a check in the field within minutes thanks to nanotech advances.

Friend or foe? Yes and no...

This early article on fourth generation warfare had a then provocative statement:

In broad terms, fourth generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between "civilian" and "military" may disappear.

It seems clear now that employment and integration into society is one of those battle fronts. Consider the two data points below.

In Afghanistan, Karzai is calling for the rank-and-file Taliban to return to the fold.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai returned Sunday to a Taliban stronghold where he was nearly assassinated 19 months ago, and said he would welcome rank-and-file members of the militia back into society...
"Our problem is mainly with the top Taliban -- who may number no more than 150 people -- who had links with Al Qaeda," Karzai said. "Those people are the enemies of Afghanistan, and we are against them.
"But those Taliban who are doing jobs and tilling the fields and working as shopkeepers, we want to welcome those Taliban."

That took guts. A bomb attack against Karzai was foiled just the day before.

A few days ago in Iraq, Bremer announced that former card-carrying Baathists could regain their jobs, provided they didn't act criminally.

The top U.S. administrator in Iraq announced Friday an easing of the ban on public sector jobs for members of Saddam Hussein's disbanded party. The move will allow thousands of former Baathists to return to positions in the military and Iraqi schools and universities...
The U.S. decision to disband Hussein's military and the Baath Party after Hussein's fall was at first popular. But it led to widespread unemployment, especially among the Sunni minority that formed the core of Hussein's regime. Some of the unemployed went on to join the ranks of the anti-U.S. insurgency, Iraqis and U.S. commanders say...

The West has a saying, that idle hands are the devil's tools. Those who are occupied at making a living have less time on their hands to make revolution. While it may be discouraging that 10 percent of the hired Iraqi security forces worked against US interests, the odds of an unemployed Baathist working against US interests was likely higher.

Clausewitz stated that the key to victory was defeating the enemy's will to fight. It must be remembered that this is a goal quite distinct from sheer destruction of the enemy. If insurgents and sympathizers can be convinced to buy into local democratic governments, then US interests are still being advanced.

While rhetoric stating that terrorists have no soul and lack a conscience might apparently be fine for a pep talk on the home front, the reality in the field is more complex.

No Communion for Kerry?

Voice of America was one of several outlets which carried the story about Cardinal Arinze's pointed comments with regard to the US election.

At a Vatican news conference, Cardinal Francis Arinze said priests should deny the sacrament of communion to any Catholic politician who supports the right of a woman to have an abortion.
But the cardinal fell short of singling out Senator Kerry who [is a Catholic and] has long supported abortion rights.

What the reports generally fail to mention is that Cardinal Arinze is considered to be a viable candidate for the Papacy; as a Nigerian, he stands a chance of being the first African Pope in over 15 centuries. I also find it interesting that politicians were singled out. Less forgiveness and a more exacting standard for those in politics? I suppose that's human.

Addendum circa 3 PM: With regard to the above church influence upon politics, it may be worth considering the words of Belgian Cardinal Gustaaf Joos as reported back on January 22:

He expressed contempt for Belgian politicians who had pushed through some of the world's most avant-garde laws on gay marriages, euthanasia and abortion. "Politics, democracy. Don't make me laugh. The right to vote, what is that all about? I find it strange that a snot-nosed 18-year-old has the same vote as a father of seven. One has no responsibilities whatsoever, the other provides tomorrow's citizens," he said. It is the first time a leading cleric has appeared to endorse calls by right-wing Catholics for an end to the principle of one person, one vote.

While this view with regard to democracy isn't mainstream, it deserves monitoring.

DNA and degrees of separation

New Scientist carries a report that a brother's DNA was used to track down a criminal. What they did was to locate a near match in their database of over 2.5 million entries and then investigated the relatives thereto. Network analysis meets DNA analysis. They're also finding that as they get more false matches, they'll have to use more genetic markers to fine-tune their search. Taking this to its logical conclusion, if they are able to sample a sufficient number of genetic hubs, the odds of being able to indirectly narrow down possible suspects via DNA would be greatly increased. In short, they could essentially be able to effectively search an entire population by sampling a well-connected fraction.

Conservative appeasement: a blast from the past

Back on November 9, 1999, the Cato Daily Dispatch presented an isolationist argument for appeasement of the same form that some antiwar liberals did. Guess who they hoped to appease?

"Osama bin Laden--who seeks to overthrow the Saudi government and is related by marriage to Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a recruiter of Islamic extremists in the Philippines--asserts that 'Muslims burn with anger at America,'" Ivan Eland wrote in the Cato Policy Analysis "Protecting the Homeland: The Best Defense Is to Give No Offense". "The wealthy Saudi's anti-Americanism and financing of terrorism are motivated by his perception that American assistance to Saudi Arabia against Iraq in the Gulf War was an act against Arabs. Such American intervention can spur even normally moderate groups to threaten terrorist acts... Terrorists and religious cults have an obsession with the United States because of its superpower status and behavior...
"If the United States adopted a less interventionist foreign policy, it would be much less of a target for acts of both minor and mass terror. Using similar logic, the nation's Founders, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, fashioned a foreign policy that kept us out of Europe's conflicts so that the European powers would have little cause to intervene in America. That restrained foreign policy served the country well for more than a century and a half, and it should be reinstated...
"With the best of intentions--enhancing stability--the United States has conducted a number of ill-advised interventions in the post-Cold War environment, most notably in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. Instability in such far-flung and international system. In none of those cases did the intervention have any significant relationship to U.S. security. Furthermore, such interventions rarely increase stability or make things better, even in the target country... In response to those types of interventions, a disgruntled faction could sponsor a terrorist attack using WMD or information warfare on U.S. soil. As the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs noted in Proliferation Primer, the United States is now, like Gulliver, a vulnerable giant. Are such questionable interventions really worth the potential catastrophic consequences to the American people? The answer is a resounding no."

Structurally, the latter part is parallel to some antiwar arguments as to why the USA should not have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.

In retrospect, it appears conservatives were wrong to label Clinton's attacks on Osama bin Laden to be a case of "wag the dog". It would appear that Clinton's push into Kosovo ultimately increased American influence in "New Europe" and Central Asia. I was struck by this passage from the March 1999 Phylllis Schlafly Report:

...by putting U.S. troops in Kosovo, Clinton is provoking terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals connected to Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden, who has declared a worldwide war on Americans. Fanatics bent on jihad against the "Great Satan" United States could hardly ask for a more tempting target than Americans deployed close to terrorist bases in northern Albania. Even more dangerous, entering the Kosovo war may provoke terrorist retaliation within the United States. It's not only our U.S. troops who will be put in mortal danger. Bin Laden has stated unequivocally that all Americans, including "those who pay taxes," are targets. At a recent Senate hearing, CIA Director George Tenet warned against the danger of a stepped-up terrorist campaign, saying, "There is not the slightest doubt that Osama bin Laden, his worldwide allies, and his sympathizers are planning further attacks against us."

Replace Albania with Iraq and Clinton with Bush, and this could be the same argument used by some in the antiwar movement why the USA should not attack Afghanistan or Iraq. History is full of ironies.

A reminder that there's more to the war on terror than Iraq

While this summary is not comprehensive, it's worth keeping track of other notable fronts in the US-led war on terror.

Pakistan

- nuclear tech trade plugged; ongoing war against insurgents

Afghanistan

- shaky, as opium production has skyrocketed, funding insurgents and warlords; trade routes go through Central Asia

Uzbekistan

- fighting insurgents; US backing; human rights issues

Tajikistan

- politically stable, however mafia is likely in opium drug trade

Thailand

- low intensity war against insurgents; terrorist bombing skills fortunately unimpressive

Malaysia

- piracy threat in region; cooperating with Thailand against insurgents

Indonesia

- shares regional piracy threat; apparently successful in containing Jemaah Islamiyah

Saudi Arabia

- engaged in low intensity war with insurgents; high threat level

Jordan

- hunting insurgents; apparently has just prevented a spectacular chemical attack by al Qaida

Sudan

- currently facing a flare-up in local insurgency; negotiations still apparently ongoing

Yemen

- bought off tribes as part of their apparently successful dismantling of al Qaida

Kenya

- still hunting for attackers (US embassy bombing, SAM attack)

Phillipines

- fitful progress against Abu Sayyaf; recent jail break is unsettling

Russia

- fight is still ongoing with Chechnya rebels; may escalate to transnational conflict

Nepal

- ongoing war with anti-royalist Maoists; currently experiencing pro-democracy protests; US backing

When affirmative action is in the interest of national security

Special operations forces are increasingly being key to US military operations. The April 2004 issue of National Defense Magazine features an article calling for increased cultural sensitivity. The motivation is entirely pragmatic.

Schwartz advocates creating “purpose-filled” organizations. Tactical units should possess both human intelligence and signals intelligence capabilities, scientific and analytical skills. Information operations should be emphasized, and, most importantly, SOF units should have “a cultural advisor or facilitator function,” he said.
SOF needs to recruit and select personnel with the right language and ethnic background for the regions around the world where they conduct operations. Knowledge of the cultural, social and behavior patterns of the adversary “would be an incredible power for SOF,” he said...
SOF needs will be met best by “tapping into information that can only be provided by locals. We must improve our ability to exploit that,” Schwartz said. To break through cultural barriers, SOF units must include troops from multiple ethnic backgrounds.

Increased cultural sensitivity would enable winning over hearts and minds at the tactical level, as well as providing a more accurate picture of how to defeat the adversary's will to fight. Sun Tzu's dictum to know the enemy still holds to this day.

Unintended consequences

In the rhetoric running up to the recent wars in Afghanistan, some warned that the result would be a strengthening of fundamentalist Islam. But what happens when you bomb a liberal democracy?

From The Guardian:
The incoming prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, set Spain on a radical course of social change yesterday by promising to legalise gay marriage and amend the constitution to give women the equal right of succession to the throne.

Thanks to the regime change in Spain, accelerated by the train bombings attributed to al Qaida, that liberal democracy is becoming even more liberal.

Americans might not realize that another partner in the War on Terrorism, the UK, is on its way to legalizing civil unions; the bill got some conservative support even.

It would be ironic if the end result of al Qaida's war upon the West and its values ultimately drove the West further into putting the liberal in liberal democracy. Blowback works both ways.

Are we all pre-suspects?

Some people are concerned about racial profiling, given that 690 black men have been DNA tested in the hunt for a suspect in a case of a serial rapist. Police Chief Timothy J. Longo had some interesting words when speaking to the public.

From AP via CNN:
One woman in the audience asked if the police would conduct widespread testing of white men if the rapist were white.
"Absolutely," Longo said, adding that he'd do the same if a criminal suspect were Asian or a woman. "I will do them all."

He sounded pretty gung-ho about getting DNA of possible suspects. I'm wiling to bet those samples will likely stay in state labs for future reference. Deborah Daniels, assistant U.S. attorney general for justice programs, says that DNA is "the future of law enforcement in this country". In the piece below, we learn Virginia has been adding arrestees and juvenile offenders added to the state DNA database system. No convictions apparently required in the case of the arrestees.

From USA Today:
Adding profiles from thousands of adult arrestees and juvenile offenders would greatly expand the [national] DNA system's worth by increasing the number of potential matches...
"Not all juveniles are going to become adult criminals," says Paul Ferrara, director of Virginia's DNA program. "But for the few who are, the sooner we have them in the system the better."

Why wouldn't Virginia law enforcement want to keep DNA data on pre-suspects, even after they've been ruled out as suspects in a case under investigation?