Friday 01-06-12

Next what will it be traffic offenses? It was only to be felonies and now misdemeanors.

New York governor urges mandatory DNA samples

New York's governor on Wednesday proposed making the state the first in the country to take mandatory DNA samples from anyone convicted of a crime, including relatively lesser offenses.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, in an annual "State of the State" speech to the New York legislature, said currently DNA was collected in less than half of crimes on the books.

"I will propose a bill requiring the collection of a DNA sample from any person convicted of a felony or Penal Law misdemeanor," said Cuomo, a former federal prosecutor and New York state attorney general.

Cuomo said that applying DNA collection to all criminals would both help law-enforcement bodies fight serious crime and protect against wrongful convictions.

Current exclusions include "numerous crimes that are often precursors to violent offenses," he said.

"As a result, we are missing an important opportunity to prevent needless suffering of crime victims. We are also failing to use the most powerful tool we have to exonerate the innocent," he said.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance welcomed the initiative.

"I am pleased Governor Cuomo has made post-conviction DNA collection for all crimes one of his legislative priorities," Vance said.

"Our current law only permits us to collect DNA from half of all convicted offenders. It?s as if doctors were only permitted to use a life-saving medicine in half of their cases. It would not make sense in medicine, and it does not make sense in law enforcement," he added.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.de856ece51704a8013815b7dfb5543db.41&show_article=1

Now they want arrest powers? Maybe it is to arrest their own?

TSA Workers Want to Arrest You

You know what sucks? Not being able to arrest people who piss you off when you're on the job. Who wouldn't want to have the power to slap cuffs on the grumpy people they deal with at work? But no. When I want someone arrested, I have to call the cops and wait around until they show up to do the arresting for me. Lame.

The employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) feel the same way. In an article for In These Times, writer Mike Elk (who was fired from the Huffington Post last year for letting union organizers borrow his press credential in order to disrupt a conference of mortgage bankers) describes the work of the nation's 44,000 TSA screeners as one of "the most dangerous jobs in America," citing the 30 (30!) guns a week they pluck from the nation's baggage.

Worse, sometimes people get shouty or even—very occasionally—cross the line into assault when TSA workers are just doing their jobs. When that happens, "the passengers were allowed to board flights because TSA screeners are unable to arrest passengers who assault them." All because of the finicky detail that "TSA cannot legally arrest or detain power under powers granted to it by the federal government," and must instead "call local police situated in the airport." So inconvenient.

Elk's complaint is situated in the middle of a larger argument about the need for collective bargaining to improve the "often brutal working conditions" of TSA employees—which seem to consist of some male-female pay disparities, low pay overall, and low morale—but it's not clear that arresting unruly passengers who are not otherwise a threat to national security is the sort of thing that would be on the table, should robust collective bargaining rights be granted.

Anyway, it's the media's fault. If "those conditions had received as much media attention as the search procedures they are charged with implementing, it's possible America's newly unionized airport screeners might have had a first contract by now. Instead, negotiations with the federal government continue."

Speaking of which: Check out our January issue about those search procedures the TSA employees are charged with implementing!

http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/03/tsa-workers-want-to-arrest-you?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29