Gattaca IRL

Eugene Volokh has a post on a recent 9th circut en banc ruling that allows the collection of DNA from people who are on probation for crimes and how this could be the first step on a slipperly slope toward universal DNA collection. I generally have only limited respect for right to privacy concerns like this one. I understand that such any system that gives the government more knowledge of it's citizens gives the government greater power and that this power has the potential to be abused. My lack of respect for the arguement in general comes from two factors. First, such things are inevitable. Not in specific perhaps, we could prevent the government from collecting and storing DNA as a routine matter, but the larger issue, that of governments, corporations, and even individuals being able to find out an astonishing array of information in on people is only going to grow and there is really no stopping it. As technology improves and continues to make the world a smaller place, the world will come more and more to resemble a small town where everyone knows everyone elses business and anonymity doesn't exist. This will be the result of a lot of increasingly interrelated systems that have numerous positive benefits, but the cost will be a certain loss of privacy. The second objection I have to the privacy arguement is based on the first. Since the capability to identify, track, and pretty much nose into anyones life will exist, I would rather have the capabilities for such things by the government be official, rather than secret. If we are all aware that the government can monitor us we can keep an eye on how they use that information. If it is a secret then we cannot.