The American Bankers Association and the Quiet War on Students

Devon Douglas-Bowers

College students and graduates around the nation are buried in debt and trying to succeed in an extremely difficult and competitive economic environment. Many people are graduating only to find that they are unable to get the jobs they want either due to the small number of available positions or, more usually, the problem that they lack "experience" – and are thus reduced to working menial jobs while paying back exorbitant loans.

So far very little legislation has been passed to aid students in paying back their loans, and many blame politicians. However, the situation goes deeper than this and lies, in part, with a little-known institution called the American Bankers Association.

The Coming Calamity, The Coming Resistance

Dees Illustration

Devon Douglas-Bowers

Currently, the world is facing a number of problems, politically, socially and economically. While we may be paying attention to important stories such as the Islamic State’s movements in Iraq and the ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip which are extremely important, there are dealings being made behind our backs of which we know virtually nothing about. There are major international trade deals in the works and the government seems to be getting prepared for the fallout.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has its roots in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization. In 1994, APEC stated in its Bogor Declaration that:

Challenging Liberty: The Danger of DNA Databases

Devon Douglas-Bowers

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court passed down a ruling stating that it is legal to take DNA swabs from arrestees without a warrant on the grounds that "a DNA cheek swab [was similar] to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting;"[1] and yesterday, it was reported that the New Jersey state senate passed a bill that "would require the collection of DNA samples from people convicted of some low-level crimes, including shoplifting and drug possession."[2] While many are praising the passing of such legislation, it ignores the inherent dangers of allowing the government to collect DNA.

While DNA databases may seem new, this is only because they are recently coming back into the news. They have been around for quite some time as, since 1988, "every US state has established a database of criminal offenders' DNA profiles" with the goal of "quickly and accurately [matching] known offenders with crime scene evidence."[3] Politicians are arguing that taking DNA samples of criminals will actually lower crime, as the DNA works as a deterrent by increasing the likelihood that a criminal will be convicted if they are caught. However, this may not be the case, as a working paper from the University of Virginia found last year that, "The probability of reoffending and being convicted for any offense is 3.7 percentage points (23.4%) higher for those with a profile in the DNA database than those without ," (emphasis added) and, that DNA profiling mainly affects younger criminals with multiple convictions, as they are "85.6% more likely to be convicted of a crime within three years of release than their unprofiled counterparts."[4] Thus, on a practical level, we should be skeptical as to whether or not DNA databases will actually lower crime in the long term.