Coming soon a national DNA database of every American
Last month, the Supreme Court came to a decision over a case known as Maryland v. King , ruling that police have the right to test the DNA of anybody that they arrest without a warrant. The decision comes after the Supreme Court settled a similar case by ruling that corporations cannot patent human DNA — 20% of which Anthony Gucciardi revealed was patented at the time.
A national DNA database is coming. Barack Obama has already said that he wants one. A major Supreme Court decision last month paved the way for one. The DNA of those that commit “serious crimes” is already being routinely collected all over the nation. Some states (such as New Jersey) are now passing laws that will require DNA collection from those charged with committing “low level crimes”. And a law that was passed under George W. Bush allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the United States. So how long will it be before we are all required to give DNA samples to the authorities? How long will it be before DNA collection is routinely done when we take a trip to the DMV?
This may sound like science fiction to some people, but “security experts” and law enforcement personnel all over the country are now pushing for a national DNA database to be established.
The decision involved Alonzo King, a Maryland man who was convicted of rape in 2009. Police identified King as a rape suspect after testing his DNA when he was arrested on an unrelated charge. King’s DNA matched a sample taken from the rape victim six years earlier.
Critics of the decision claim police will start arresting people just to test their DNA with a swab. Another problem is that people are arrested all the time for minor charges and complaints. Would those arrested for offensives such as drunk driving or disturbing the peace get swabbed?
Worse, could there be blanket arrests? Could the police arrest and swab every African-American man in town if a woman says the man who raped her was black? Police have done stranger things in the past.
The decision is troubling because law enforcement agencies all over the country are setting up their own DNA databases. The New York Times reported that Orange County, California, alone has 90,000 profiles in its DNA database. New York City has amassed a database of 11,000 samples. Even some smaller cities like Palm Bay, Florida, are creating databases.
Law enforcement officials are telling us that this is exactly what they want. The following is from a San Francisco Chronicle article from just this week…
Indiana law enforcement officials could find it easier to fight crime if a national database holding DNA profiles of everyone born in the United States is created as the result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month, experts say.
The prospect has had investigators and privacy advocates abuzz since the high court’s June 3 decision that police could take a DNA swab from anyone arrested for a serious crime without violating Fourth Amendment limits on search and seizure.
The problem here is that these databases may not be well run or properly administered. Police in Aurora, Colorado, (a Denver suburb) recently admitted that they lost 456 DNA samples, including some from active rape cases. The samples were destroyed because the police department’s property and evidence unit failed to follow protocols.
Once they have the DNA of every American, the potential for abuse would be absolutely staggering. It would only be a matter of time before DNA identification replaced Social Security cards and every other form of identification. Eventually, there would be a very real possibility that we would all have to submit to “DNA verification” before we could get on an airplane, get a job, get a driver’s license or get a bank account.
If local police departments cannot follow protocols, how can the DNA that they store and use be trusted? Samples could be mingled or mislabeled, so a rapist’s DNA could end up with the name of an innocent person on it.
http://www.storyleak.com/warrantless-dna-testing-national-dna-database/
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/07/the-coming-national-dna-database.html#more