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Twist on DNA Privacy
ConfusedVorlon writes "The BBC is reporting the conviction of a man for the murder of a prostitute 15 years ago. The interesting twist is that his DNA was not on record - 'But it partly match[ed] that of a youth's who was known to the police - but who had not been born at the time of the murder. The teenager, it turned out, was a close relative of [the murderor].' There has been concern in the past at the idea of keeping DNA of those interviewed but not charged with crimes. I haven't previously heard of the privacy implications of being related to a criminal/suspect. If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear?"
Now, I'm well aware of the fact that DNA testing is probably the most vital forensic tool since the finger print, but how exactly does it work? I remember seeing once that all Humans share about 99.9% of the same DNA (Please do correct me if I'm wrong), so what do they look for to say either "Yes, this person did this" or "No, this person didn't do this"?
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
Unless the judge/jury have some serious scientific backgrounds, I think the prosecution has its work cut out convincing a SECOND court this is valid.
It might well be reasonable evidence, or even close to undeniable, but there's gotta be some doubt in the minds of those who decide the fate of the accused guy. I mean, they're going to convict this guy of a 15 year old killing on the basis of some extrapolated data out of a lab? Remember these are people who don't browse the same magazines as us...
Tough call finding people to do it once, much tougher getting a second group to confirm it...
DNA Profiling
This reminds us of a problem with DNA testing: it can't distinguish identical twins or clones. Also, inbreeding might increase the odds for a false positive match, and there may be many other real-world factors we don't know about that increase the probability of a false positive beyond what common estimates would lead you to guess.
These problems are compounded by the widespread misapplication of statistical prodecures in the biomedical sciences (most of the FDA drug testing is based on outdated and basically faulty statistical procedures, and it's probably the same in the forensic sciences).
A recent case here in Canada had me a bit uncomfortable.
A young girl was murdered and police asked Men in the neighbourhood to volunteer DNA samples. About 20 men refused. 19 were innocent and refused for personal reasons. One of these men was eventually implicated in the crime when Police followed these 20 men and picked up "pop cans, et al" used by these men to obtain DNA samples.
This implies - You have no right to refuse to give a DNA sample because one will be taken secretly against your will anyhow.
What happens to these samples? Could I be implicated in a completely separate crime because my second cousin lived NEAR a murder victim who's and had his DNA "stolen" by police?
This can only get scarier without laws to protect us.
I am more worried about the fact that small amounts of DNA-strands can be left everywhere by yourself and brought to the crime-scene by accident or purpose.
I mean you might hug a chick that goes away and commits suicide and then all the sudden some of your hair is found on her coat.. alright that might not be that bad but imagine a devious mind bringing your dna and being careful not to spread his on the crime-scene. All the sudden you might be in the spotlights and police say they are 100% sure its your DNA.
Use of DNA and other technology is ok by me to tie a suspect to a scene but not find the suspect. neither is broad searches through a DNA-database (same as trying to find the suspect imho)
If a country ever gets to that stage a DNA database would be useless anyway. They'd simply pick people up off the streets on suspicion of being 'bad people' and ignore the evidence (or lack of it). Take the mutawwa'in as a prime example., they beat people and lock them up with little or no evidence and for little or no reason. If the regular police service (remember that word, it's important) could get away with that I don't think they'd bother with a DNA database, do you?
Back to the word 'service', the US calls their police a force, the UK calls it a service. This is only a fairly recent change in terminology (and paradigm) that's not yet fully grasped by many (police documents still refer to the force quite regularly) but we're getting there. The police are there to serve the public (Protect and Serve?) and we are gradually moving back towards that thinking steadily. If a service designed to serve me can be improved by having access to a DNA database I have no problem with it. If it means more scrotes are taken off the streets and less innocents are locked away then I'm all for it!
As far as I can tell, in the U.S., if you throw something away, the police don't need a search warrant to obtain it. They can go through your trash all they want.
It goes likewise for eavesdropping on conversations. There's something called "reasonable expectation of privacy". If I'm talking to someone on a crowded street, then the cops can record my conversation and use it as evidence because I wasn't taking steps that someone would reasonably take if they were trying to keep something secret (as in, secret from everybody and not just from the police).
This DNA thing strikes me as something similar. Just like if you throw a murder weapon with your fingerprints on it into your trash, I think you're "discarding" your DNA if you were to, say, have children. The parallel to "reasonable expectation of privacy" is that, if you were someone who really didn't want their DNA (or half of it) out there running around loose, then you would elect to not have kids.
So, if you have kids, then I think that the cops should, clearly, have a right to use the DNA of those kids (provided they're over the age of consent and provided that they volunteer their DNA) to catch you. What's a little more murky is whether the cops should be allowed to catch you based on DNA from any familial relative... including ones you have no control over the production of (like, your parents, cousins, etc.). Again, I think it would hinge upon whether you had kids. Going back to "reasonable expectation of privacy". If you have kids, then you aren't exercising what little control you have over the dissemination of your DNA... so it must not matter to you that much... so everything's fair game at that point.
Legal issues aside, I must say that this is one really cool thing about DNA. Everybody knows the obvious advantages that DNA has over fingerprints: you get usable evidence from smaller samples, from a wider variety of fluids, smudges, etc. What's less obvious is the idea of "proximity". Two people with similar fingerprints are not necessarily closely related, and two people who are closely related don't necessarily have similar prints. With DNA, that's not the case. With DNA, you're able to tell when you've got some DNA from someone closely related to some "target DNA". Even cooler, you can probably tell how many generations away they are.
I have been falsely arrested twice. These two "false arrests" are on my record from my childhood. I'm now 29. Every 3 years I make "total information requests" from everyone from whom I can think of that collects information from me. (credit, mail, email, post office, clubs, memberships, utility, etc)
One interesting thing is my complete "litigation/arrest" history. Essentially my file that the FBI would "examine".
I find it unfair that my peeping tom arrest from 18 (false arrest) & my theft from Walmart at 22 (false arrest) are still even capable of being associated with me. Also, every traffic ticket I have ever gotten, every court case I have been involved in; are all on an easily accessed file. If I were ever accurately arrested for an associated offense, wouldn't I then have a pattern? Even though wiped from my record or not guilty?
For the peeping tom incident I was handcuffed, made to take a lie detector test (failed), and kept in custody for 4 hours from 11pm to 3am. It wasn't until my girlfriend came in and said she was with me and that I wasn't doing it, that I got off. It was all because the next door neighbor girl was jealous of my having a girlfriend.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Of course, there would likely to be other pieces of evidence in these cases.
and you think that would be considered?
All that would be needed is for an "expert" witness to testify that DNA tests have a "billion to one" chance of failing and bang, away goes your freedom.
Suspects are instrumental in convicting themselves using the very information they volunteer to the police. An almost as well time honored tradition as good cop bad cop is lying. Police lie all the time to pressure suspects into convictions: "we have witnesses who saw you do it", "your partner is ratting you out right this second", "you're only making this harder by not cooperating".
Don't just take my word for it--watch NYPD Blue. These aren't the corrupt cops. These are all cops (with admittedly better makeup and prettier precincts). What they do is perfectly legal.
If the police are speaking to you, it means they do not currently have the evidence they need to convict you. Otherwise they wouldn't even waste their time. Under no circumstances should you talk to them without a lawyer by your side.
I figure, if the scriptwriters can think of it, it won't be long before that kind of thing happens for real, if it hasn't already. I have the same feeling about news reporters and "terrorist scares" - sure, terrorists may have thought about poisoning water supplies, blowing up public buildings, etc, but if they haven't you just gave them some hints. Way to go, guys... Besides which, they can sit in their safe-houses and watch the nation scare itself to death without lifting a finger, and also pick a couple of things to try once the public gets over the scare...
That if instead of matching a kid, if it had been the suspect's brother instead, and he'd been old enough, that "partial" match would have been good enough to convict him if he happened to be the first match in the database.
Don't just take my word for it--watch NYPD Blue.
I do. In fact, I'm watching season 1 on DVD right now :). But it's not just NYPD Blue, it's every show on the planet. Even shows like CSI. A CSI turns up, wants a mouth swab for DNA. Does the suspect say "Got a warrant?", no he simply meekly opens his mouth like a good little sheep. Just once, I'd like to see a show where the suspect sticks to his guns, requiring people to get warrants for everything, refuses to speak to anyone without a lawyer... and more importantly, doesn't spontaneously confess at the end of the show when confronted by the flimsiest piece of evidence against him. If we had a show like that on more often, perhaps people wouldn't (seemingly) roll over the moment the moment a cop looks at them funny and actually use their rights.
Supposed a witness had pointed to someone in a line-up and said "it isn't him, but he's real close, almost like his brother" and the police went and investigated the brother. Nobody would have any objection.
There is a danger with retained DNA databases, but I don't see it in this case.
As the number of "usual suspects" grows, eventually we will have someone who has a "1 in a million" match against the perpretators DNA.
I doubt that the prosecution will reveal to the jury that the defendant was one of 2 two million "undesriables" that the police keep the DNA on.
A DNA match against a sample recovered at a crime scene is never perfect. When it matches to a high degree of certainty someone who was already a suspect anyway then it is a marvelous confirmation tool. (Indeed, I believe DNA evidence has cleared more suspects than it has convicted.)
But when DNA evidence is used to search vasts databases, the statistical justifications that this is "evidence" rapidly dwindle, or possibly even evaporate.
And sadly, we cannot count on juries, and perhaps not even judges, to understand the impact of how a sample was selected in determining whether a test is statistically signifigant.
If there are 10 million people in a city, then a test that has "less than 1 in a million chance" of a false positive can be relied upon to falsely finger up to 10 people.
That's reasonable grounds for a search. But I sure hope judges and juries don't buy it as 'proof'.
The quick on this is that there are nano-scale pores on a membrane surface which allow DNA to pass through them, and can sequence the DNA in real time as it passes through. Once this technology is out there, you could have a seqencer in that would fit in your pocket, that can be hooked up to your computer to download the sequence into it.
Steve