This is a bizarre and terrifying story for you to read: House Intelligence Committee member Jason Crow (D-CO) told his audience members in the Aspen Security Forum Friday that tests that are genetic like those provided by 23andMe may pose security threats. In other words, someone could take their DNA tests from 23andMe and create a customized bio-weapon that could be used against you.
Weapons could also be created against entire ethnic groups or even food items. Great. Here I was curiously looking for the origins of my ancestors.
Crow is an ex- Army Ranger who was deployed for three tours of service within Iraq and believes that Americans are too eager to give their DNA data to these companies, without knowing the risks”
Young people actually have low expectations of privacy. That's what polls and information available.
People can very quickly pour their spit into a cup, transmitting it to 23andMe. They will receive fascinating information regarding their past. What's more, you know what? Their DNA is controlled by a private corporation. It is possible to sell it off with little privacy or intellectual property protection, and we do not have any legal or regulatory frameworks to address this.
Are you not yet scared? Crow isn't done yet:
There are currently weapons in development which are specifically designed to target certain groups of individuals.
It's where you can actually extract the DNA of a person, or the medical profile of their family and then choose a biological weapon that can kill the person, or get them off the battlefield, or render them unusable.
So far as I can tell, I don't have a number of mortal adversaries, though I'll believe I'm right since I submitted my 23andMe test a few years ago. My wife was adamant and said I was stupid to give someone else my entire genetic blueprint I called she a conspiracy theorist. Who's laughing right now?
She's now pointing out that in the last two years we've watched conspiracy theories after conspiracy theories prove to be… actually true. In fact, Anthony Fauci is now admitting that it could be that the Wuhan virus originated in an experiment in a lab. If you had said this one year ago, you'd have been promptly removed from social media. DNA-created weaponry was at the center of the latest James Bond flick, No Time to Die for the love of god. This is now a reality.
Republican Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa was also present at the Forum and decided to terrorize us with a variety of DNA bio-weapons might be used specifically to target food sources:
Food insecurity is the cause of a number of other anxieties across the globe. There are many ways to look at bio-based weapons, and also the necessity of making sure that we're not just safeguarding our own species, but as well the food we eat to keep us alive.
The positive side, if you are able to be so bold, is the fact that 23andMe has repeatedly stated that it will not sell its customers' information. Additionally, the industry's top players Ancestry, Habit, Helix, 123andMe and MyHeritage all have signed a document known as Privacy Best Practices for Consumer Genetic Testing Services which provides “when personally identifiable and anonymous genetic information can be shared with law enforcement (without a warrant) and other third parties,” according to Gizmodo. There's no oversight from the law or legal system which means we're simply going with the flow.
The technology industry can prove to be a terrifying thing. These observations of Representative Crow and Senator Ernst as well as Representative Crow sure provide a lot of insight. Let's pray that the good guys stay one step ahead of the evil ones.
