Free Talk Live

Exposure to the common hormone oxytocin, which is associated with feelings of trust and pleasure, makes people more likely to trust their government? A scientist says he's proven that authorities could use hormones, rather than promises, to gain public trust.

Early on Thursday, lawmakers in New York approved a bill that will make the state the first to require DNA samples from almost all convicted criminals — and make its DNA database one of the largest in the nation.

They say fingerprint evidence doesn't lie and for the most part that's true. However government officials involved in the collection of evidence do horrible things.
In 1990 Shirley Kinge was convicted in an arson case where four people died. The investigator NY State Police Trooper, Robert M Lishansky was an 11 year veteran, considered one of their brightest and best investigators.
Lishansky was lifting prints from paper copies of fingerprint cards with standard lifting tape. Then claiming he lifted them at crime scenes.

Top 5 wrongful Executions. Stories like these are why I am now against the death penalty.

"After a decade in which DNA evidence has freed over 100 people nationwide, it's become clear that DNA evidence isn't just proving wrongdoing by criminals, it's proving wrongdoing by police and prosecutors. In this show, we look at what DNA has revealed to us: how police get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit and how they get witnesses to pin crimes on innocent people."

pew poll shows 1/3 of young people really trust their government.

I don't know how well you guys can hear the audience from where you're sitting, but if you listen they don't scoff when you talk about the technical specifications of the Drone, or what it will be use for, or won't. They scoff when you talk about accountability. And they scoff when you talk about transparency. And they scoff when you talk about self reporting. So what you have is a problem where the people in this room don't trust their government.

A New Jersey lawmaker wants minor criminals, including shoplifters, to turn over DNA samples, which he says will help clear up unsolved crimes, according to a report.
The bill, which was introduced in Trenton by state Sen. Nick Sacco (D-Hudson County), would require adults and juveniles convicted of disorderly persons offenses to submit a sample under the state’s DNA Database law, according to the Jersey Journal.

Governmental Secrecy: Shield for Tyranny, Incompetence, and Corruption

An essential pillar of democracy is openness. There is no way that people can meaningfully participate in government, even if only by voting for representatives, if they do not have access to accurate information related to government operations. This was well understood by the founders of the US and embedded in the Bill of Rights. Conversely, a salient characteristic of undemocratic systems of all types, such as Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany is a high degree of governmental secrecy.