Really
We’ve had a titter over the old Michael Shrimpton video making the birther rounds, about how the CIA collected Barack Obama’s DNA back in 2007 and compared it to his relatives, and found they weren’t related. Why would the CIA do such a thing?
Well, according to a 2012 article in The Atlantic, “Hacking the President’s DNA,” snagging DNA is exactly what the CIA does to world leaders (and we thought we were just listening to their phone calls). Why? Here’s the rationale according to authors Hessel, Goodman and Kotler:
The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well—the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace.
Michael Shrimpton described in his video how very easy it would be to harvest Obama’s DNA from a drinking glass, and that might have been true in 2007, but perhaps not today:
According to Ronald Kessler, the author of the 2009 book In the President’s Secret Service, Navy stewards gather bedsheets, drinking glasses, and other objects the president has touched—they are later sanitized or destroyed—in an effort to keep would‑be malefactors from obtaining his genetic material.
WHY?
Do you really think that they can develop a weapon that selects on an INDIVIDUAL’S dna?
Why not?
Because you can not stop your body from shredding dna , can you?
so ,when your are in the admiral’s gig, you are sheeding hairs, and skin in the air.
But, perhaps, he is like the man in the balloon suit, trying to prevent DNA from getting out to the public.
kind of like a DNA Phobiaist, don’t want his dna to be recovered,
Heck , he has to use the heads , also, so the compartment cleaners must eliminate all traces of his DNA
more or less like Howard Hughes and his phobia about germs, if the rumor is true.
So, I think this is BS from the start!
But , maybe he learned a lesson from Bill Clinton
That article in The Atlantic really strikes me as a giant load of crap.
It starts from a leaked diplomatic cable directing the collection of a wide range of information on African governments — among a great many other things, fingerprints and DNA of officials. From this it spins a line of pure speculation about what people might be able to do with that someday. I guess we are supposed to conclude that this speculation is the reason behind the order.
Let me suggest a less fanciful motivation for this order. Right now, we know how to use DNA for very similar purposes as fingerprints — when we have a thing and we want to know who touched it recently. And in the diplomatic order, DNA appears right next to fingerprints. Doesn’t it seem a little less crazy to suppose this is why it was ordered?
I agree that the governments would be collecting as much personal information about a person that would be possible, and that they could use it to pressure the people, should it be necessary.
i just say, in my opinion, that to collect the DNA to develop a personal attack , through the DNA, is blue sky thinking.
You could use to attack the claimed ancestry of someone, but that is about all, unless , that is, you committed murder sometime in the past!
We’re using a person’s DNA to tailor treatments to make them well. I don’t see why the same technology couldn’t be used to make them sick.
ianag*, but while a generic weapon that attacks dna is already a reality (viruses), a weapon that depends on a previously obtained uncontaminated sample surreptitiously acquired from and designed to be used against a specific individual — especially someone like a world leader with limited access and active defenses against such an attack — seems a little more far-fetched.
anyone who could do that already could save their efforts by just infecting the intended victim with ebola.
and anyone who could do that could save their efforts further by just slipping the intended victim some botulin or cyanide …
(*i am not a geneticist)
Of course a properly customized DNA weapon could just be ‘flooded’ into the D.C. area. No direct access to the target is required. The DNA weapon will attack that one targeted individual, period.
DNA treatment targets single genes (some hundred amino-acids)- all people with that gene should respond
when you want to protect Obama’s DNA, you also have to protect all the relatives …
surprising to me that noone yet threatened to disclose DNA from famous people
A single person, in hospital, with complete dna available, might be discovered to have genetic problems, the symptoms of which could be controlled with medication, is a reasonable assumption.
it is an unreasonable assumption, in my opinion, that you could get my dna, perfect a weapon, that could be used to cause death or injury, and then get the weapon into my body.
If you could do that, there is no need for it, as that ability would be sufficient to work the effect that you desire with direct action on the body under threat.
Every human cell has complete DNA.
With the exception of red blood cells, which are undeniably human yet have no nucleus and no DNA.
This reads like the plot for the next AUSTIN POWERS film. IMHO.
The bringing in and removal of all domestic supplies is a standard part of maintaining a security bubble. The Secret Service shouldn’t want anything in the President’s environment that wasn’t supplied by a known source. Nor should they leave any traces of their procedures. If their efforts cleans up DNA, great, but I don’t think DNA is the primary concern.
Poor “helen” is behind the genetic engineering times, and suffering from a lack of imagination. Very curious for a conspiratorial mind to be short on imagination …
To my knowledge, designing a biological agent that would literally only kill one person is not yet possible. But I don’t see any reason to believe it won’t be possible someday.
Being less literal, biometric sensors could be used as triggers for more conventional weapons. But that’s getting pretty James Bond, and such devices should be detected by security sweeps.
And, some posters suffer from a lack of knowledge, but it does not deter them from making statements.
I said I don’t believe the story, and then I am accused of lack of imagination.
I can imagine that a government can actually exist that would want to collect all of the stray DNA from a sitting President, and I can imagine a reason for that, but my imagination does not extend to believing what other people imagine.
But, I can state that there is no security system that can not be breached with the application of enough force.