More on: "Police want to add DNA from more people to database"

[4sarge]

More on: "Police want to add DNA from more people to database"

Updating this long ILB entry from Feb. 17th, I just checked the four DNA-related bills listed, and none of them is still viable.


Sunday the NY Times had a lengthy, front-page story headlined "F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases." Reported by Solomon Moore, the story is accompanied by this graphic, which compares the states "in regard to who is required to submit DNA": all felons; some misdemenor offenders; some arrestees; and/or some juveniles.

Some quotes from the story:

Law enforcement officials say that expanding the DNA databanks to include legally innocent people will help solve more violent crimes. They point out that DNA has helped convict thousands of criminals and has exonerated more than 200 wrongfully convicted people.

But criminal justice experts cite Fourth Amendment privacy concerns and worry that the nation is becoming a genetic surveillance society.
“DNA databases were built initially to deal with violent sexual crimes and homicides — a very limited number of crimes,” said Harry Levine, a professor of sociology at City University of New York who studies policing trends. “Over time more and more crimes of decreasing severity have been added to the database. Cops and prosecutors like it because it gives everybody more information and creates a new suspect pool.”

Courts have generally upheld laws authorizing compulsory collection of DNA from convicts and ex-convicts under supervised release, on the grounds that criminal acts diminish privacy rights.
DNA extraction upon arrest potentially erodes that argument, a recent Congressional study found. “Courts have not fully considered legal implications of recent extensions of DNA-collection to people whom the government has arrested but not tried or convicted,” the report said. * * *

Law enforcement officials say that DNA extraction upon arrest is no different than fingerprinting at routine bookings and that states purge profiles after people are cleared of suspicion. In practice, defense lawyers say this is a laborious process that often involves a court order. (The F.B.I. says it has never received a request to purge a profile from its database.)

When DNA is taken in error, expunging a profile can be just as difficult. In Pennsylvania, Ellyn Sapper, a Philadelphia public defender, has spent weeks trying to expunge the profile taken erroneously of a 14-year-old boy guilty of assault and bicycle theft. “I’m going to have to get a judge’s order to make sure that all references to his DNA are gone,” she said.

The police say that the potential hazards of genetic surveillance are worth it because it solves crimes and because DNA is more accurate than other physical evidence. “I’ve watched women go from mug-book to mug-book looking for the man who raped her,” said Mitch Morrissey, the Denver district attorney and an advocate for more expansive DNA sampling. “It saves women’s lives.” * * *

Britain may provide a window into America’s genetic surveillance future: As of March 2008, 857,000 people in the British database, or about one-fifth, have no current criminal record. In December, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain violated international law by collecting DNA profiles from innocent people, including children as young as 10.

Critics are also disturbed by the demographics of DNA databases. Again Britain is instructive. According to a House of Commons report, 27 percent of black people and 42 percent of black males are genetically registered, compared with 6 percent of white people. * * *

Enforcement officials contend that DNA is blind to race. Federal profiles include little more information than the DNA sequence and the referring police agency. Subjects’ names are usually kept by investigators.

Rock Harmon, a former prosecutor for Alameda County, Calif., and an adviser to crime laboratories, said DNA demographics reflected the criminal population. Even if an innocent man’s DNA was included in a genetic database, he said, it would come to nothing without a crime scene sample to match it. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear,” he said.

The Congressional Report cited in the story is "Compulsory DNA Collection: A Fourth Amendment Analysis," dated Jan. 23, 2009. The 18-page CRS report is available here.

[kludge]

I heard about this a couple weeks ago. This abuses constitutional freedoms in so many ways.

If they have reasonable cause and get a warrant for DNE for a particular crime then collecting DNA is OK in my book.

Collecting DNA from everybody they arrest and are later proven innocent (or acquitted) so they can randomly try to match you up with crimes is something we would expect from communists and fascists.

“If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.”

^ ^ ^ This is not what America is about.

[Smitty506th]

The Army already has mine. I have even received e-mails apologizing for my "personal" information (my SSN) being stolen a few years ago. Doesn't bother me that they have my info on file. When you put your name on a dotted line you give up a lot of your freedom to protect the freedoms of others. Now I can be eliminated as a suspect before they even contact me. Just do a search and thats all they would need to prove it wasn't me. Hell, they might even collect and file it at birth to keep your medical records together, in the future. This reminds me of the guys at gun stores that are surprised when I put my social down for a background check on my purchase. The government already has my info. I have nothing to hide. If I can be eliminated as a suspect then they wont have to waste valuable time questioning me or working on a court order to collect my DNA. This will let them focus on the real bad guys.

[techres]

Originally Posted by kludge

If they have reasonable cause and get a warrant for DNE for a particular crime then collecting DNA is OK in my book.

+1. Then, and only then.

[Bill of Rights]

Originally Posted by Smitty506th

The Army already has mine. I have even received e-mails apologizing for my "personal" information (my SSN) being stolen a few years ago. Doesn't bother me that they have my info on file. When you put your name on a dotted line you give up a lot of your freedom to protect the freedoms of others. Now I can be eliminated as a suspect before they even contact me. Just do a search and thats all they would need to prove it wasn't me. Hell, they might even collect and file it at birth to keep your medical records together, in the future. This reminds me of the guys at gun stores that are surprised when I put my social down for a background check on my purchase. The government already has my info. I have nothing to hide. If I can be eliminated as a suspect then they wont have to waste valuable time questioning me or working on a court order to collect my DNA. This will let them focus on the real bad guys.

And when a "false positive" returns to your profile?

Not to mention all someone has to do is get a kleenex you used to frame you for a crime you didn't commit.

I thank you for your service. I think that your apparent blind trust in your (former?) superiors is misplaced.

Blessings,
Bill

[Smitty506th]

Science is never "perfect". They need DNA on record, in case a sponge is all they have to send home with a flag draped over it. I don't have any blind trust. But I would have a defense attorney that would insist the sample be retaken to confirm a match. The tissue comment is very true, not to mention if you smoke. If anyone wants your DNA they could just follow you and wait till you throw away a cup, take out your trash, flick a cigarette...etc. They do not have to knock on your door and swab your cheek. If someone wants you in a database there is little to stop them from it.

[Bill of Rights]

Originally Posted by Smitty506th

Science is never "perfect". They need DNA on record, in case a sponge is all they have to send home with a flag draped over it. I don't have any blind trust. But I would have a defense attorney that would insist the sample be retaken to confirm a match. The tissue comment is very true, not to mention if you smoke. If anyone wants your DNA they could just follow you and wait till you throw away a cup, take out your trash, flick a cigarette...etc. They do not have to knock on your door and swab your cheek. If someone wants you in a database there is little to stop them from it.

That is true. I know the 4A doesn't protect garbage or other things I remove from the house. Of course, I'm not the only one living in my home... and proving that what came out of the garbage is mine would be difficult. You're correct, it is possible. I am not going to make it any easier for the statist bastards, though, nor will I accept being made to prove my innocence in court. This is an express trip to that kind of world... guilty until proven innocent... and it's not the kind of country you and other uniformed, armed service men and women fought for.

Blessings,
Bill

[printcraft]

Bad Idea.
I can foresee a time when universal DNA databases can purposely be misused against people, not just in the eyes of the law either. No tin foil. They already
use genetics against you in the insurance industry.

Let say hypothetically that years in the future the "less than desirable" among
us are singled out for persecution due to "certain DNA traits"
It will sound like a good idea from some bureaucrat.
i.e. alcoholic, drug addiction, mentally deficient, criminal tendencies, cancer/diseases, sexual tendencies.

Persecution being political, medical, social.
Who knows maybe there are certain DNA traits associated with doing the "right" thing.