Brave New World updates

Whose kids are they?

PRESS RELEASE: ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE APPROVES BILL THAT WOULD CRIMINALIZE SPANKING AND THREATEN PARENTAL AUTHORITY (4/15/08): source

SACRAMENTO – Assembly Bill 2943 (Lieber) was approved today by the Assembly Committee on Public Safety. If approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, the bill would make the ordinary practice of spanking a child by a parent a criminal act. This legislation, veiled as a prohibition of corporal punishment and child abuse, makes no distinction between an acceptable form of parental discipline – a spanking – and the violent act of “brandishing a deadly weapon upon a child.”

While careful not to include the word “spanking,” AB 2943 would make no distinction between a commonly used, appropriate form of discipline – a spank – and other more violent, inappropriate acts toward children. If a person is convicted of violating this law, the children could be removed from the home and the parent could spend time in jail.

Compare with the ongoing battle toward: criminalizing homeschooling
----------------------------------
Whose DNA is it?

U.S. seeks to widely expand DNA database
Samples would be taken from anyone arrested or detained by feds:source

"Critics: ‘We’re crossing a line’ They also worry that people could be detained erroneously and swept into the database without cause, and that DNA samples from those who are never convicted of a crime, because of acquittal or a withdrawal of charges, might nonetheless be permanently retained by the FBI."

"Innocent people don't belong in a so-called criminal database," said Tania Simoncelli, science adviser for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're crossing a line."

compare with "Government stakes claim to every newborn's DNA": whose-baby-is-it
---------------------------------------------------
fyi...be aware, not unaware....1984-ish bills are being passed, new bio-identity measures are coming in under the radar...and the freedoms that the people of the homeland...uh.....the USA, I mean, are just sort of vanishing...one by one.