Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Law enforcement and fishing expeditions

This is a big overreach by US law enforcement. Collecting an arrestee's DNA to confirm his or her identity makes sense. So does comparing it to a limited set of cold cases if there is evidence linking the arrestee to those crimes. But comparing it to a set of all DNA from all cold cases is a violation of the 4th Amendment if I ever saw one. Isn't that the point? Isn't that why we have a pejorative term called "fishing expedition"? What makes this scary is that you might look similar to a suspect, get picked up for questioning even when you have done nothing, and then your DNA gets taken, submitted to the database, and then linked to a crime from 20 years ago. And you might not even have done THAT crime either, your DNA might have coicidentally been in the room where the crime happened. A bank ATM where a hold up occurred, a hotel room where a rape occurred. And then you get dragged through the mud again - Your name tarnished for nothing. Your reputation possibly ruined forever because people will always wonder. This is just WRONG!!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-maryland-law-says-police-may-take-dna-samples-from-arrestees/2013/06/03/0b619ade-cc5a-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

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