5,656 research outputs found
Performing the Union: the Prüm Decision and the European dream
No full textIn 2005, seven European countries signed the so-called Prüm Treaty to increase transnational collaboration in combating international crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. Three years later, the Treaty was adopted into EU law. EU member countries are obliged to have systems in place to allow authorities of other member states access to nationally held data on DNA, fingerprints, and vehicles by August 2011. In this paper, we discuss the conditions of possibility for the Prüm network to emerge, and argue that rather than a linear story of technological and political convergence and harmonisation, the (hi)story of Prüm is heterogeneous and patchy. This is reflected also in the early stages of implementing the Prüm Decision which proves to be more difficult than it was hoped by the drivers of the Prüm process. In this sense, the Prüm network sits uncomfortably with success stories of forensic science (many of which served the goal of justifying the expansion of technological and surveillance systems). Instead of telling a story of heroic science, the story of Prüm articulates the European dream: One in which goods, services, and people live and travel freely and securely
Bracketing off population does not advance ethical reflection on EVCs: A reply to Kayser and Schneider
No full textIn a recent contribution to this journal, Kayser and Schneider reviewed the relevance of external visible characteristics (EVCs) for criminal investigation [1]. Their aim was to broaden the debate about the scientific, legal, and ethical dimensions of the use of EVCs for criminal investigation, which will help to achieve a firm legal basis for the application of EVCs eventually. While we applaud Kayser's and Schneider's overall very thoughtful and nuanced discussion of this topic, we were surprised to read that they suggest that a discussion of ‘the challenges of using problematic definitions of populations […] has to be kept separate from using EVCs’ (p. 158). In contrast to these authors, we contend that questions about defining populations – both at the level of scientific research, and the application of EVCs in criminal investigation – lie at the core of most social, ethical, and legal issues raised by the translation of EVCs into forensic and police practice
Measuring and analyzing German and Spanish customer satisfaction of using the iPhone 4S Mobile Cloud service
No full textThis paper presents the customer satisfaction analysis for measuring popularity in the Mobile Cloud, which is an emerging area in the Cloud and Big Data Computing. Organizational Sustainability Modeling (OSM) is the proposed method used in this research. The twelve-month of German and Spanish consumer data are used for the analysis to investigate the return and risk status associated with the ratings of customer satisfaction in the iPhone 4S Mobile Cloud services. Results show that there is a decline in the satisfaction ratings in Germany and Spain due to economic downturn and competitions in the market, which support our hypothesis. Key outputs have been explained and they confirm that all analysis and interpretations fulfill the criteria for OSM. The use of statistical and visualization method proposed by OSM can expose unexploited data and allows the stakeholders to understand the status of return and risk of their Cloud strategies easier than the use of other data analysis
Inquisitorial forensic DNA profiling in the Netherlands and the expansion of the forensic genetic body
No full textForensic DNA databases in England and the Netherlands: governance, structure and performance compared
No full textHow do liberal democracies govern forensic DNA databasing? That is the question being asked in this contribution by focussing on the rules for inclusion of DNA databases in England & Wales and the Netherlands. The two different modes of governance shall be evaluated by taking into account models and ideas in each society regarding the two imperatives of 'crime control' and 'due process'. Another question tentatively examined in this contribution is how these modes of governance impact the performance of national DNA databases. The analysis provided in this article argues that, when compared with the English and Welsh mode of governance, the Dutch mode of governance is more beneficial for the protection of individual rights and the effective use of resources
Trumping communitarianism: crime control and forensic DNA typing and databasing in Singapore
No full textLiberalism and communitarianism have figured prominently in discussions of how to govern forensic DNA practices (forensic DNA typing and databasing). Despite the prominence of these two political philosophies and their underlying values, no studies have looked at the governance of forensic DNA practices in a nondemocratic country governed by a communitarian logic. To fill this lacuna in the literature, this article considers Singapore as an authoritarian state governed by a communitarian philosophy. The article highlights basic innovations and technologies of forensic DNA practices and articulates a liberal democratic version of “biolegality” as described by Michael Lynch and Ruth McNally. It goes on to consider briefly various (political) philosophies (liberalism and communitarianism) and law enforcement models (due process and crime control models). The main part of the article records the trajectory, and hence biolegal progress, of forensic DNA practices in Singapore and compares it with trajectories in England and the United States. The article concludes that Singapore's forensic DNA practices are organized according to the crime control model and therefore safety and the war against crime and terrorism trump individual rights and legal principles such as privacy, bodily integrity, proportionality, presumption of innocence. and onus of proof
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A Norwegian grey zone: Knut Rød, Victor Lind and 'The crucial year, 1942'
No full textThis article uses Primo Levi’s concept of “the grey zone” to explore Knut Rød’s involvement in the transfer of 532 Norwegian Jews from Oslo to Auschwitz in 1942. Rød, the police chief in charge of the operation, was subsequently exonerated of any crime on the grounds that he had simultaneously used his position to help members of Milorg – the Norwegian Resistance. The legal and moral basis of this verdict has been questioned by the artist Victor Lind in a series of artworks, including his “countermonument” The Perpetrator (2005)
Hidden in full sight: kinship, science and the law in the aftermath of the Srebrenica genocide
No full textTerms such as “relationship testing,” “familial searching” and “kinship analysis” figure prominently in professional practices of disaster victim identification (DVI). However, despite the dependence of those identification technologies on DNA samples from people who might be related to the dead and despite also the prominence of the notion of “relatedness” as a device for identifying the dead, the concepts of “relatedness” and “kinship” remain elusive both in practice and in analyses of the social and ethical aspects of DVI by DNA; they are hidden in full sight. In this article, we wish to bring kinship more to the fore. We achieve this through a case study of a setting where bio-legal framings dominate, that is, in the trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of Radovan Karadžić for the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. DNA samples from the families of those massacred in Srebrenica were vital for the identification of individual victims but are now also utilized as “evidence” by both the prosecution and the defense. By viewing practices of science (“evidence” and “identification”) and legal practices (“justice,” “prosecution” and “defence”) through the lens of kinship studies, we will present some alternative and complementary framings for the social accomplishment of ‘relatedness’
Victor LaValle
No full textVictor LaValle is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, four novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, The Devil in Silver, and The Changeling and two novellas, Lucretia and the Kroons and The Ballad of Black Tom. He is also the creator and writer of a comic book Victor LaValle’s DESTROYER. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Whiting Writers’ Award, a United States Artists Ford Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Shirley Jackson Award, an American Book Award, and the key to Southeast Queens. He was raised in Queens, New York. He now lives in Washington Heights with his wife and kids. He teaches at Columbia University. The free, public program begins at 6:00 p.m. at Burns Belfry.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/grisham_vis/1002/thumbnail.jp
The Prüm Regime: Situated Dis/Empowerment in Transnational DNA Profile Exchange
No full textThis paper takes critique of surveillance studies scholars of the shortcomings of the panoptic model for analysing contemporary systems of surveillance as a starting point. We argue that core conceptual tools, in conjunction with an under-conceptualization of agency, privilege a focus on the oppressive elements of surveillance. This often yields unsatisfying insights to why surveillance works, for whom, and at whose costs. We discuss the so-called Prüm regime, pertaining to transnational data exchange for forensic and police use in the EU, to illustrate how—by articulating instances of what we call ‘situated dis/empowerment’—agency can be better conceptualized, sharpening our gaze for the large extent to which the empowering and disempowering effects of surveillance depend on each other
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