The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2003 (S. 1053) was passed unanimously by the senate supposedly prohibiting discrimination in employment or job promotion on the basis of genetic information and/or family history.  Exempted was the right of employers test for work associated hazards.  In addition it prohibits insurance companies from using genetic information or family history in determining who it will insure or what rates an individual or family will pay for coverage.

The fact that insurance companies were specifically identified as potential abusers of genetic information is clearly a statement that, attempts to abuse the information or to gain access to it was already being done. 

The newborn DNA databases in all 50 states is used in medical and research applications and experiments and can and usually do, include links to medical records of the entire family history of the tested individual. Blood and tissue specimens can be preserved for infinity and re-tested multiple times.  Even though parents or individuals can request destruction of the samples, you have no guarantee that the samples were destroyed, and regardless, the information that was gleaned from the samples remains on record…..meaning you have in essence destroyed nothing. 

Data mining, now done routinely on multiple levels by our state and federal governments, is providing information that has been gathered by ChoicePoint of Georgia, along with other companies who make a business out of gathering and selling your personal information to the FBI, and any other intelligence or government agency.  In the specific case of the FBI, there are still a few restrictions in place that disallow information gathering on US Citizens without probable cause.  With companies such as ChoicePoint, ethical or moral questions never apply to the more than one billion dollars they have been paid by the federal government to data mine your personal information. 

ChoicePoint has made clear its intent to construct a data base on every individual in the US and to include everything from genetic information, medical records, credit history, family history, spending habits, voting records, and every other type of information it can find on you and to compile it into billions of files that are for sale to insurance companies, researchers and experimenters, and to the government.  Companies such as ChoicePoint provide the end-run around the law by compiling and then selling as a commodity, information to agencies like the FBI, or huge insurance companies who might otherwise be prevented from having or gathering the information.

The attempts to track us and use the information about our genetic history don’t stop here.  The US military now has made it mandatory that military personnel be DNA tested.  The reason given is that it will make battlefield identification easier.  And it would.  But that isn’t why they are doing it and it doesn’t explain why DNA data is being stored for 75 years and subjected to massive testing and experimentation. 

As of December 2002, the Repository, now known as the

“Armed Forces Repository of Specimen Samples for the Identification

of Remains,

”6. contained the DNA of approximately3.2 million service members.

7 According to a recent DOD directive, the “provision of specimen samples by military members shall be mandatory.”

8. The direction to a soldier, sailor, airman,or marine to contribute a DNA sample is a lawful order which, if disobeyed, subjects the service member to prosecution

under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

9. If convicted at court-martial for the offense of violating a lawful general order, the service member carries the lifelong stigma of a federal felony conviction, and faces a maximum punishment of a dishonorable discharge, confinement for two years, total forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and reduction to the lowest enlisted grade.”

http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/07-08-2003.pdf

The actual intent of using and storing DNA is to identify genetic tendencies or traits that can be used to deny medical benefits, even when a condition is clearly a result of the actions or duties the individual is engaged in.  Even when a medical malady is clearly the result of activity related to assignment, an identified genetic predisposition can disqualify the veteran from obtaining treatment from the V.A. 

This DNA databank is also used routinely for experimentation for bio-weaponry, germ testing (weapons grade) among other agendas.  Donald Rumsfeld re-wrote the guidelines for germ and biological testing in 2002.  The new guidelines waive any right by the individual to informed consent for testing or experimentation with chemicals or drugs. This is does not mean the military, only  Special provisions were written in that specifically cite women and minorities as being subject to testing without informed consent and the public at large.  With these new rules, a department head in DoD, or HSD can now simply claim “national security” and basically give themselves permission to do whatever maniacal testing they choose……and you have no right whatsoever to know that they did it or, if you find out that you were secretly experimented on, to any redress against these agencies or their agents.   

Military personnel can request that their DNA samples be destroyed once service is completed, but here again, the individual has no way of knowing if it actually was and this request, just as with newborn DNA requests for destroying the samples, does not destroy the information gathered and stored.  It simply destroys the original blood and tissue samples….so they say.

Merging DNA Databases

In addition to the newborn DNA databanks, the FBI databanks and the Military databanks is the Criminal databank.  CODIS is a national DNA databank of convicted felons, including sex offenders.  We can all see the potential for the benefits of positive identification of predators, murderers, rapists etc., but here again something that should have been a very beneficial tool has been taken over by far more evil agendas. 

The Military DNA database is now merged with CODIS……that’s even if you have requested your samples be destroyed after ending your service……(this should highlight my earlier statement that the information is stored whether the samples are destroyed or not.)  CODIS, is then merged with INTERPOL.  This is the transnational criminal DNA databank and now your information has gone global.  Any government or any of its agents participating in INTERPOL is authorized to rummage through your DNA and related compiled personal files for no other reason than because it wanted to.  And, they may also use the genetic information loaded in INTERPOL to construct even more invasive testing and genetic modification programs.

Copyright your DNA

With states now claiming ownership of DNA of newborns, the military now claiming they own that database and the international efforts to catalogue every person possible, we aren’t far from the claiming of ownership of every individual.  To claim that you now own DNA of anyone other than yourself is to imply that the ownership entitles you to use as you see fit, that which you own.  It could be why human beings are now referred to as, “human capital” in such odious things as the Security & Prosperity Partnership”.  Maybe the intent all along has been to devise a means by which we become a commodity to be traded and sold on the global markets. 

Our DNA is the most singular identifier we have.  We are so unique that unless we are identical multiples, no one has the exact same DNA we have.  Even in the case of identical multiples, there are minute differences that can be detected.  Because this identifier is so unique to us, no one other than ourselves should have unfettered access to it, or to claim that they now own it nor should it ever be made into a salable commodity and treated as a tradable good that can be sold for profit.

Surveillance of large sectors of populations anywhere is now facilitated by facial imprinting, iris scans, face recognition, biometrics of all kinds, ID cards, the signal from your cell phone, the GPS on your car and video camera’s that are stashed everywhere.  The push to get us all to use cash debit cards rather than cash itself, is nothing more than an attempt to time/date stamp us to track and identify us, where we were and what we were doing.  Add genetic tracking and you have effectively devised the means by which the government decides who gets to benefit in many areas, and who will be culled out.  

Who is it that these governments are so afraid of that all of this effort is put into watching us, tracking us, spying on us, and now cataloguing us like cattle?  I can only conclude that it is the general population that scares the government the most.  I believe that most of us have dispensed with the “terrorist” threat and most people are aware that when the term “national security” is used, it has less to do with making sure the country is safe and most likely is just another assault on our lives and liberty.

The noose is tightening.

© Marti Oakley

2008