“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.
The philosophical question that drives policy is complex: Do Americans have a fundamental right to protect the privacy of their own identities? Birth and death certificates are public records, and the fact of our individual existence is in that sense public, not private. Yet Americans expect to exercise some control over the selective decision to disclose (or not) their identities to others, if only to prevent identity theft.
Whether or not to contribute our DNA to a government-controlled database is a decision most of us would like to make for ourselves. Apart from its utility as an identifier, our genetic makeup reveals an enormous amount of information about ourselves that isn't the government's business. After the nation's recent experience with a Republican president, only the foolish trust the government not to misuse the data it collects.
The trend needs to stop before the government requires newborn babies to submit DNA samples.
As more police agencies take DNA for a greater variety of lesser and suspected crimes, civil rights advocates say the government’s power is becoming too broadly applied. “What we object to — and what the Constitution prohibits — is the indiscriminate taking of DNA for things like writing an insufficient funds check, shoplifting, drug convictions,” said Michael Risher, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Not to mention taking DNA from innocent people who are falsely accused.
