Details said:
They already do this - you get your fingerprints taken when arrested, and they're in the system even if you don't get convicted. I don't see this as any different. Sure, they can maybe find out if you will get diabetes in the future, someday, but that doesn't seem like much of a privacy invasion, and it seems easy enough to mandate that the info is only searchable by police.
The funny thing about slippery slopes is that they aren't really slippery. Every time, we go as far down them as we want - and no further. Sometimes they seem slippery because once we move that direction, the decision is made that this is the right direction (for example, racists thought letting 'them' integrate into schools was part of a slippery slope where their daughter might date a black guy - and they were right - but not because the slope was slippery, but because the majority grew to believe that we were doing the right thing). When people don't like where the slope goes, we stop - another slippery slope argument I heard growing up was that the 55 mile speed limit was part of a slippery slope to slow us down to 45, 35, 25, and finally take our cars away, all in the name of fuel economy and saving lives. Never happened. We tried it, didn't like it, it was revoked.
Ah, but so many times it DOES happen. Just off the top of my head- I could come up with lots more, if I thought about it longer...
Social Security numbers- when they were first issued, people were afraid of the privacy violation. They were assured that only the government would have access for social security purposes only. Where are we today? It's such a common identifier that everyone and there brother has access to it. Lots of privacy issues there. Even the IRS wants to be able to sell your financial information!
Seat belts- this applies to my state (Michigan) only, because I don't much follow the seat belt laws in other states.
First, it was let's make a law saying you have to wear your seat belt. But you can't get pulled over for wearing it, it has to be a secondary offense. We were assured that it wouldn't go further than that. Now, of course, it has. You can get pulled over and ticketed for not having it on.
Let's look at Texas- Drinking and driving is bad, right? Agreed.
Now they are going into bars and arresting people for being drunk- in case they make a bad decision!
Having an individual's DNA is just to tempting, in my opinion. So we mandate that only law officers have access. Why? For a good reason. To combat crime. Yet, think of how much crime they could fight if they had the right to enter anyone's home at any time and look through their personal property. Thankfully, the Constitution doesn't allow that.
So what happens when the insurance lobby convinces law makers that they have a good reason, too? To determine how to best insure everyone, they should have access to that information.
What about employers? They shouldn't have to hire someone who has the probability of turning out to have a major disease, should they?
I think there is a reason that old sayings are still around, and that's because there is a nugget of truth in so many of them. The one that comes to mind right now is "Give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile."