On the other hand, I do understand the need & purposes for a national bank with this data. It just does not need to be collected by the government with childrens personal information – How does that help? DNA, male/female, and year of birth should be all thats handed over.

I was asked the other day to give my thumb print in order to cash a $20 check at Bank of America because I didn’t have an account there. What the hell is that about? I had already presented my driver’s license. What’s next? A blood sample there, too? Ok, this is a privately owned bank. Not the government.

How about taking a job working for the census? I applied and got the job only to find out that no matter your position, a full set of finger prints is required. That wasn’t required in previous years. Why now? Oh wait, let me guess. It’s required in order to keep us safe from thieves, or terrorists, or other boogie men (or women). Grow up people!

Can’t you see that every time this sort of thing happens a little more of our rights to privacy has been chipped away? The reason is always “for our safety”, in one way or another. Have we become a nation of scaredy cats? That we can’t protect ourselves from anything without the help of our government?

Giving up our right to privacy has nothing to do with having something to hide. It has a whole lot to do with giving up your freedom and right to privacy. It has a whole lot to do with people behaving like sheep and going along with the program so they don’t have to think for themselves -and If you don’t think for yourself, someone else will think for you. I see this happening at an alarming rate.

What about the next generation? Your kids? Your grandkids? They won’t have the same freedoms we knew. They won’t even know what they have lost. This is America for pete’s sake! If you don’t want to live free then go somewhere else! Your mucking it up for those of us who still believe in freedom. A Brave New World? Or a world full of chickens? Who is America now?

I have to agree though, that it’s outrageous expensive. Jen made a good point about the long term viability of the samples as well.

Another thing I hadn’t thought about was brought up by “Logical Guy”… are they maintaining the critical health information with person information attached or with basic information, such as hospital where the sample was collected so that if the time comes “they” need or want to perform tests, it will be general census type data or are there still identifying numbers/names/etc… still attached?

However, it’s not really all that rapid or cheap to extract and entire human genome from DBS (or any source). And, naturally, the ability to extract DNA lessens over time.

So, all these DBS cards are filed away in drawers and just about always forgotten about.