Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
One month ago tomorrow, the United States Supreme Court ruled that it’s perfectly hunky-dory with them if cops take DNA samples from individuals arrested for “serious crimes”. Not convicted of, mind you, or even charged with; merely arrested for is good enough. According to these august legal minds (well, five of ‘em anyhow; Justice Scalia the Unpredictable and the entire distaff side of the court disagreed), no wrong has been committed if the cops respond to a rape by simply arresting every man in the vicinity, forcibly taking their DNA in order to “identify” them (Maryland’s excuse in the case), and then checking every sample against the rape kit. As Scalia wrote, this constitution-shredding rationalization “taxes the credulity of the credulous”:
The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence. That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment. Whenever this Court has allowed a suspicionless search, it has insisted upon a justifying motive apart from the investigation of crime…
So let’s say that, in the example above, the police find the rapist. Hooray for the diligent CSI heroes! And then what happens to the DNA they took from all the other guys they brought in? Why, it goes into a database, to be used however the police see fit, with no oversight or restraining policy whatsoever:
…a growing number of local law enforcement agencies…have [begun]…amassing their own DNA databases of potential suspects, some collected with the donors’ knowledge, and some without it. And that trend…is expected only to accelerate after the Supreme Court’s recent decision…These…databases operate under their own rules, providing the police much more leeway than state and federal regulations. And the police sometimes collect samples from far more than those convicted of or arrested for serious offenses — in some cases, innocent victims of crimes who do not necessarily realize their DNA will be saved for future searches…[some] agencies [even] pool…their…databases….and…rapid DNA testing devices…could provide a greater incentive for local authorities to build and maintain their own database…
And it’s not only suspects and crime victims: some foolish hookers have voluntarily surrendered their DNA to the cops (supposedly so their bodies can be identified more easily if they’re murdered); equally-foolish parents are giving up that of their kids against the fabulously-unlikely possibility of abduction; in the UK cops regularly file children’s DNA; and in the US the government routinely takes and retains genetic material of newborns without parental consent. And as of yesterday, Mississippi mandates the retention of DNA from babies born to mothers below 16: “The DNA will go into a database from which police may draw if they begin to investigate whether the mother was a victim of statutory rape. The DNA will not go into the statewide criminal database. That means the…father’s DNA is not available for matching for any other types of cases.” It’s not available now, but of course that can change with the stroke of a gubernatorial pen.
But if you’re an adult and you’re never arrested for a serious crime or become a victim of such a crime yourself, and never, ever will be, you’re relatively safe, right? Guess again. Swanee Hunt and her ilk are pushing for the government to retain the DNA of any man caught in an “end demand” sting (using the excuse that Melissa Farley claims that clients commit “lots more crimes” than other men). This is not only possible but likely under Maryland v. King because, as Scott Greenfield explains, there’s no “conceptual ledge” to stop the descent down that slippery slope from “serious crimes” to misdemeanors:
…DNA is collected from people convicted of crimes regardless of this decision, so they are by definition removed from the people affected by it. That leaves only the people who are arrested but not ultimately convicted…Given…the fact that defendants are presumed innocent until convicted, there can be no question as a matter of law that…DNA [is] being seized from innocent people. The argument in King is that these are defendants charged with serious offenses. The purpose of this detail is to distinguish the swabees from people given traffic tickets, from whom DNA is not collected under this law…The problem with this rationale is that the defendants from whom DNA is taken, being innocent, are…innocent of everything. They are innocent of traffic infractions and murder, all at the same time. So what if they’re charged with serious offenses? An innocent person charged with murder is still innocent, and indistinguishable from an innocent person charged with any other crime. Or even the innocent person not charged with a crime, for that matter…
In other words, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – which can stop legislators from now allowing or even mandating DNA collection from anyone accused of any infraction, including solicitation. Or “improper lane usage”. Or cutting up in school. What’s that, you say? It wouldn’t bother you even if they made it a condition of getting a driver’s license because, hey, you have nothing to hide? I’ll let Gideon take that one:
…great, can I have your credit card numbers and your social security number too? No? You mistrust me, a solitary individual against whom you have recourse, yet you willingly subjugate yourself to a faceless, untouchable government? All it takes is an accusation…and…you’re condemned to navigate the panopticon…You know who decides what is a crime and what isn’t? The government. You know who decides who has broken the law? The government. You know who decides whether to prosecute an individual? The government. You know who puts on evidence to prove that someone is guilty of a crime (and usually wins)? The government. You know who uses DNA to prove guilt? The government. You know [who] has people (jurors) blindly following its dictates? The government. You know who you signed over your privacy, your personal information, your DNA to? The government. Think they won’t use it against you tomorrow if they suddenly dislike you? If you answer yes…is it because…you don’t think this sort of thing will happen to you?…the Government isn’t seeking data on “non-privileged” people. It’s all of us. You. Me. The guy down the street. You may think you’re different than me or my typical client. The government doesn’t. They’re the ones who you think will protect you, yet they’ve already proven that they see no difference between you and a criminal…
DNA is a lot less volatile than a fingerprint; it can persist in testable form for decades. If I sell my truck and the buyer then abandons it after kidnapping someone or robbing a convenience store, guess whose DNA is all over the seats and steering wheel? Oh, yeah, mine and my husband’s. We leave DNA all over the place, every day, and if you think the cops wouldn’t use that “evidence” to connect you with a “crime”, guess again; it needn’t even be anything any reasonable person would consider a real crime. Modern technology has made the old witchcraft belief a fact: if an evil person gets ahold of some part of you, no matter how small, he then has power over you. And modern police states want to ensure they have that power, to be used at the whim of any prosecutor, over every single living person within reach.
It appears, from an observer point of view, that the US of A is finding ingenious ways of sinking into some police state where citizens rights are violated left, right and centre for the flimsiest of reasons.
The U.S. is a Democracy – we get the government that we deserve.
Maggie often calls the U.S. a police state – and it is but …
It’s not a “police state” the way Stalin’s was. This police state – was voted into existence by the pussy race of modern day Americans.
Most Americans believe in collecting and storing this DNA. Hey … collecting this DNA can catch rapists and serial killers much faster – and should we do it if it …
SAVES EVEN ONE LIFE?
That’s the asinine rationale we use now to justify giving our rights up to a ruling class of idiots who can’t fucking believe their incredible luck.
‘Participatory fascism’ is my preferred term.
What makes it all worse is the public (and judicial) impression of the infallibility of DNA evidence.
If they run your profile against an unsolved crime stain database and get a hit, you will end up in court facing a forensic expert who will claim that the likelihood of a chance match is less than a billion to one.
What they won’t mention is that your sample was probably compared to hundreds of thousands of crime stains in order to get that ‘billion to one’ hit (its much easier to roll snake-eyes when you’re given lots of throws).
And they definitely won’t mention that around 1.2% of DNA profiles are botched at accredited crime labs (according to accreditation testing)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jan/27/ukcrime.research
Then add the likelihood of contamination (accidental or deliberate) during collection by the police and ‘one billion to one’ becomes a colossal fraud.
But you will probably not be able to afford a forensic expert of your own, the jury has probably been raised on ‘CSI’ and even the judge will probably bow down to the omniscience of science (as long as it passes Frye or Daubert admissibility standards).
We often hear about how forensic DNA has freed the innocent victims of earlier botched or fraudulent forensic science technologies. But I bet my bottom dollar its locking up more innocent people than fingerprinting, fiber testing or forensic phrenology ever did.
They can have my DNA when they get a warrant.
If they don’t have it already – they’ll get it at some point when you’re in the hospital. And they’ll do it without a warrant.
The government will soon start running hospitals.
Bad news dude.
If you’re under 45 the hospital system already has a sample of your blood on a Guthrie card, ready for DNA testing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonatal_heel_prick
All it takes is an official request from law enforcement authorities.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8023846
There are many times I’m glad I wasn’t born later; this is one of them.
I may be out of date here, but in my experience parents can refuse the heel stick. I wonder if, since most moms are released soon after the birth, if they do the stick at the correct 48 hour period for the health concerns (not your issue, I realize).
Which is why I had home births. Parents need to educate themselves, but most don’t.
Here in NSW parents can opt out, but they’re not told they can so its kinda academic.
And how many new parents would after being given a list of the horrible diseases the test can detect and help prevent?
About a decade ago a Perth hospital got wind of an impending police subpoena and destroyed all of its Guthrie cards to protect patient privacy. The police falsely leaked that they were investigating a serial child sex offender (it was actually a 1980s murder cold case) and the hospital authorities were duly vilified in the media.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s867619.htm
A small minority of Australian hospitals now automatically destroy Guthries after two or five years as a result of that incident.
BTW, here’s another Catalyst program I worked on that demonstrates how police and prosecutors use DNA evidence.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s724179.htm
Both victims of those wrongful convictions served their full sentences and have never had their convictions quashed.
The innocent have nothing to fear from giving DNA to authorities?
Like hell they don’t.
I had my DNA taken and kept as a condition of getting my Australian resident visa. Not happy about it but I had no choice.
Correction.
Lissof was never convicted.
I mixed it up with another case.
Reblogged this on Wolf Howls.
You drive a truck? Damn, in my “fantasies” you’re always driving a ’70’s model canary yellow Corvette convertible – with that hair streaming behind you as you speed down the road!
Oh yeah – and the “red umbrella” is tucked up on the dashboard right behind the windshield. 😀
Truck? Seriously? Tres Non-Sexy!! Put a vette on your wish list and maybe some of us male readers can start a pool!
I’ve always felt that bloodtests, urinalysis, DNA tests – even fingerprinting were a violation of the Bill of Rights and our right to be free from self-incrimination. If I have the right to refuse to answer a question concerning my guilt or innocence of a crime – shouldn’t I also have the right to withhold my DNA and urine?
The military has a DNA registry of over 1,000,000,000 currently serving and former service members. The DNA were collected under the auspices that the information would be used only to identify remains. If this were true though – why wouldn’t the military destroy these samples when a servicemember retires or leaves the military instead of spending millions of taxpayer dollars to maintain them indefinitely? I know of at least one civilian criminal case where the military DNA registry provided evidence that was used to convict – so that line about “identifying remains” was complete horseshit.
What’s not mentioned here is the relevance to national health care.
We’re led by the Eugenics crowd now folks and we’re handing them our DNA.
What the fuck do you think they’ll do with it?
Hey man, if you want the government to provide you with free health care they gotta look for efficiencies right? Well that means getting all up in your DNA to see what kind of diseases you may catch. “Hey you – we see here that you have a gene for gallbladder disease – report to the hospital because we’re cutting that puppy out!” “Oh, you don’t want to do that because your gallbladder ain’t givin’ you problems? Well then, you’re on your own hoss!”
ObamaCare already mandates the nationwide collection of health records so they can be electronically stored in a database that can be shared with anyone. Even your employer – because your employer has a stake in your health care.
Americans don’t want to worry about this shit though. They want to be carefree kids and let the government take care of them while they watch The Kardashians on cable TV.
“Hey man, if you want the government to provide you with free health care they gotta look for efficiencies right? ”
Fortunately forensic DNA analysis only looks at non-coding (‘junk’) DNA plus amelogenin (a gender marker). It would cost them way too much to test for disease markers as well and even at the rate costs are falling that’s not gonna change for a long time.
Otherwise they probably wouldn’t only test your genes, they’d onsell them to biotech companies for research and potential patenting like the Icelandic government did.
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/bioethics/9902/iceland.dna/template.html
That shouldn’t make anyone feel any better. As soon as some Eugenicist points out the public savings in this (and he’ll probably use the math wiz’s at the CBO to do it) … you can bet it will be done.
I have a convertible, too, but I don’t plan to sell it. The truck is a work vehicle, and a lot more sensible on country gravel roads…or when it rains. 😉
I have a convertible as my only car; and I live in Ireland where it rains a lot…
Well I guess if anyone can make a truck look hot it would be you – so there’s that. 😉
I find it hard to believe the US military has had over 1 billion service members. Are you sure you got your numbers right?
Eugenics? Are the Rothschilds involved?
It isn’t only DNA. The government has proven, again and again, that it cannot be trusted with ANY information. Just ask anyone with a Japanese-American background. We need to start working on requiring the State to discard all the information it collects, since it clearly won’t ever actually limit itself to the uses it said it would.
Its actually worse than this. Many of the people running DNA databases don’t understand how probability works. There was an article about the misuse of DNA in cold hit cases (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1003.bobelian.html). Basically, police are taking evidence from cases and doing blind searches of these databases. But when you do a blind search of say a million DNA profiles, your chance of producing a bogus “one in a million” match is actually two out of three. But it’s presented to the jury as one in a million. So we’re going to end up with people going to prison because no one understands statistics.
In my experience most forensic scientists don’t understand how statistics work, including Dr Bruce Budowle, the guy who pretty much set up the DNA databasing system in the US.
But even worse are the ones who *do* know how they work – then misrepresent them under oath. (If I say “Paul B. Ferrara”, is anyone gonna get sued?).
Thanks for the link, I missed that story.
I worked briefly with Dan Krane about eight years ago.
I’m very conflicted about this. I get the arguments about infringements of liberty etc, and can see the value of them.
But — a big but — it’s clear that some criminals have only been caught by DNA matches. A man was cleared of rape many years ago; though his DNA matched that of the attacker, it was ruled inadmissible evidence because it had been retained when it should have been destroyed. A change in the double jeopardy law and DNA evidence recently convicted him; sadly too late for the victim.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/28/man-prison-second-trial-rape?INTCMP=SRCH
That is the rub with these cases. The law would look a lot different if the typical “police procedure” case arose where–for example–an innocent homeowner was challenging the illegal search of his home. Unfortunately, the usual case involves some completely guilty scumbag trying to get the evidence of his guilt excluded. They are always hard calls for the court, because reaching a result that respects constitutional rights often means letting the bad guy walk.
How much does this happen though – as a percentage of all violent crimes – that ONLY DNA evidence is available or it’s the major factor used in conviction?
Is it worth stripping everyone of their liberty to catch a few more rapists?
I don’t think it is, when you consider the terrifying flip-side of what the government could do – TO ALL OF US – if they have this information.
It is a rare criminal case that doesn’t involve a legal challenge to the manner in which the evidence against the defendant was gathered. A lot of the challenges aren’t very good. It is the ones on the edge that are problematic. A decision one way and the bad guy gets off, a decision the other way and the government has a little more leeway as to what its agents are permitted to do.
“A decision one way and the bad guy gets off”
Or the innocent guy, as the case may be.
In my experience its usually ‘bulk crimes’ like break and enter in which DNA evidence is most likely to be planted, illegally obtained and/or willfully misrepresented to the max (they’re all misrepresented to some degree).
While most people wouldn’t care that the wrong junkie burglar was sent to prison you’d think more would be worried about all the real perpetrators who get off as a result.
In one case I know of the defendant pleaded guilty on the recommendation of his lawyer and it was only during sentencing they discovered he was in prison when the burglary was committed.
At least in the USA, “immunity” doctrines ensure that the cases where the police, prosecutors, and judges violated the rights of *innocent* persons hardly ever get to court.
The solution to DNA is, paradoxically, more DNA. Any persons DNA can obtained and will soon be able to be duplicated by machine. British political pork, light-fingered Jackie Smith, former UK Home Secretary had her DNA taken from a glass she used in a pub.
Imagine a time in the near future when the underground market can supply an aerosol with literally millions of people’s DNA to be sprayed around a crime (or a non-crime) scene. The DNA will include, as well as tens of thousands of ordinary people, tens of thousands of cops, prosecutors and many thousands of political and bureaucratic figures all from as far-flung a geography as possible. Lets see them sort that out.
In times to come. it is likely that one person’s DNA at a crime scene will shout “state black bag job” to the high heavens.
DNA can already be duplicated by machine, but it’s long slow and expensive. But yeah, it’ll get cheaper.
You kidding?
PCR is one of the cheapest, quickest things you can do in a microbiology lab – once you’ve got the contamination issue under control. Unless you’re talking about whole genome duplication or something.
Burst the cell with a bit of alcohol, snip the bit you want with some restriction enzymes, nab it with a primer, dump it in a thermocycler with some polymerase, switch it on and Bob’s your uncle.
Oops, turns out he’s your dad.
Never mind Bob. I’m wanting to know how much Neanderthal DNA I have. I’ve pretty much given up on having any Denisovan.
I was assuming that, in order to be good for spraying around the room, you needed whole genome duplication. But I admit I don’t know that for sure.
Kinda depends.
If you know what kind of test kit the people you’re trying to fool are using (most US and Australian crime labs use Profiler Plus) you’ve just got to duplicate the alleles actually tested (PP uses nine ‘junk’ alleles plus amelogenin).
If you use the already denatured and cycled products of previous PCR, chances are good you’ll get preferential amplification of your spray – which will tend to obliterate any other DNA they get with their swabs.
But if anyone in the lab is paying attention (probably not – they’re overworked) they’ll see that all the samples from your crime scene are too clean and they might twig and run them against a non-standard test kit. Then the jig is up – especially if they catch you with your spray-can.
But as far as fooling standard forensic DNA test kits go, you can set yourself up with a backyard lab for under $10,000 and start duplicating DNA samples swiped from people you don’t like with no more than a few week’s training (mostly in anti-contamination protocols – you don’t want to go duplicating a bit of your own DNA by accident and spraying it all over crime scenes).
Of course buying the primers and PCR from biochemical labs might make someone suspicious enough to tip off the cops – unless you set up a fake paternity testing company or something like that to order through.
Set up a REAL paternity testing company. Then people are giving you their DNA and paying you to have it. I don’t know how much you can swipe from the general environment (go into places with ashtrays and empty them into a bag, scores of people a week), but if you can, then add that in.
If the cops keep pulling in clients of your paternity testing business someone might spot a pattern.
The most ingenious and disturbing attempt to confound DNA testing I know of was the case of John Schneeberger.
What the Wikipedia entry leaves out is the fact that Kipling is a small town and the victim had a local ‘reputation’ before she was raped. She went through years of vilification for her ‘false’ accusation before being vindicated.
“If the cops keep pulling in clients of your paternity testing business someone might spot a pattern.”
Good point. I guess this is only useful for buying equipment. Or if you can get at least twice as many people’s DNA from other sources.