The Atlantic | November 2012

The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well—the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace.

By Andrew Hessel, Marc Goodman, and Steven Kotler

 

“…according to a 2010 release of secret cables by WikiLeaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directed our embassies to surreptitiously collect DNA samples from foreign heads of state and senior United Nations officials.”

“From the invention of genetic engineering in 1972 until very recently, the high cost of equipment, and the high cost of education to use that equipment effectively, kept most people with ill intentions away from these technologies. Those barriers to entry are now almost gone. ‘Unfortunately,’ Secretary Clinton said in a December 7, 2011, speech to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Review Conference, ‘the ability of terrorists and other non-state actors to develop and use these weapons is growing. And therefore, this must be a renewed focus of our efforts … because there are warning signs, and they are too serious to ignore.'”

 

 

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