States expand sampling of DNA

[flashl]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON — States are dramatically expanding controversial DNA sampling beyond convicted felons to include tens of thousands of suspects arrested for felony offenses before they are tried.

Twelve states have laws that permit sampling for some or all felony arrests, up from five in 2006, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) says. Another 21 are considering such proposals, according to DNAResource.com, which tracks DNA-related laws.

Provisions in most of the new laws call for destroying samples if suspects are acquitted or charges are dropped. After a sample is destroyed, the DNA cannot be matched to other crimes in the database.

The fast-growing legislation, once applied narrowly to sex offenders and convicted felons, worries civil liberties advocates who believe the testing amounts to a clumsy forensic dragnet.

USA Today

Read more: States expand sampling of DNA

[whistle]

1. Can samples of sample DNA be planted as in false evidence?

[flashl]

3. Probably the same answer as 'Have guns been planted on a shooting victim?'

[flashl]

11. And there is surreptitious sampling

Defense lawyers fight DNA sampling on the sly

The two Sacramento, California, sheriff detectives tailed their suspect, Rolando Gallego, at a distance. They did not have a court order to compel him to give a DNA sample, but their assignment was to get one anyway - without his knowledge.

Recently, the sheriff's cold case unit had extracted a DNA profile from blood on a towel found 15 years earlier at the scene of the slaying of Gallego's aunt. If his DNA matched, they believed they would finally be able to close the case.

On that spring day in 2006, the detectives watched as Gallego lit a cigarette, smoked it and threw away the butt. That was all they needed.

The practice, known among law enforcement officials as surreptitious sampling, is growing in popularity even as defense lawyers and civil liberties advocates argue that it violates a constitutional right to privacy. Gallego's trial on murder charges, scheduled for May, is the latest of several in which the defense argues that the police circumvented the protection against unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

[wuushew]

2. I think comprehensive DNA databases could solve many many rape cases

People should ask themselves why privacy is valued as abstract concept.

Your biochemical makeup is a self replicating pattern that you are never deprived of in the way you are with personal or tangible property.


People view information as power by which they control the amount of social awkwardness they project or the level of medical expenses/insurances inflicted upon them.


If we had decent health care in this country I would voluntarily provide a sample in a nanosecond. The gains from cops not wasting their time on false leads would be astronomical.

[OKthatsIT]

8. You need to rethink this one

think long and hard.

[Phred42]

4. Fascism on the March

They will do much more with your DNA and it won't be to YOUR benefit

[jberryhill]

7. Don't lick the stamp on your income tax return...

What will they do with it?

[OKthatsIT]

9. silly emailer...stamps don't need to licked

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. lol! nt

[Phred42]

12. Let your Insurance company have a sample for one thing

your employer for another

[Quantess]

5. I like the idea of convicted felons' DNA entered into a database!

[Quantess]

6. Self delete. Duplicate