Searching DNA For Relatives Raises Concerns

An anonymous reader calls our attention to California's familial searching policy, which looks for genetic ties between culprits and kin. The technique has come to the fore in the last few years, after a Colorado prosecutor pushed the FBI to relax its rules on cross-state searches. "Los Angeles Police Department investigators want to search the state's DNA database again — not for exact matches but for any profiles similar enough to belong to a parent or sibling. The hope is that one of those family members might lead detectives to the killer. This strategy, pioneered in Britain, is poised to become an important crime-fighting tool in the United States. The Los Angeles case will mark the first major use of California's newly approved familial searching policy, the most far-reaching in the nation."

Comments

DNA evidence 'planting'?

[JSBiff]

I suppose this might be slightly off-topic, but one concern I have with the use of DNA evidence is that, now that everybody knows about DNA evidence, what's to stop someone from planting DNA evidence at a crime scene? Splash some body fluids here, drop some hair there, and smear some skin cells at a strategic location, and voila "we have DNA evidence that places the defendant at the scene of the crime."

Re:DNA evidence 'planting'?

[hairyfeet]

Well, as someone who used to live a truck stop I can tell you that many hookers are junkies and will be happy to sell you ANYTHING for cash. So I doubt it would be real hard to wave a twenty in front of a hooker and get anything you wanted, especially something she wouldn't be able to normally sell like a used condom.

Of course this gets even worse if you think about it. How many times have YOU left DNA that could be recovered by anyone in a public place? A coke can, those of us like me who smoke leaving our butts in a public ashtray, etc. And as DNA gets used more and more it will be in a criminals best interest to pick up something like that, if for no other reason that it adds to the chance that you could throw them off the trail. And with WAY too many jurors watching CSI all the will have to say is "DNA evidence" and you ass is toast.

Privacy concerns, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

But dress it all up as "social networking" and you'll have zillions of willing participants.

There goes the 5th again

[mapsjanhere]

One of the core protections in the US legal system is that you cannot be made to testify against a close relative. That niche just got filled nicely by DNA cross matching.

as seen on law and order svu

[circletimessquare]

While performing the autopsy on Newlands' body, Warner finds a plastic tube of blood in his upper arm. He was the father of Morris' baby, but he wasn't the Honey Rapist. He put the tube with someone else's blood in his arm to beat the paternity test. Unfortunately for him, that someone else was a previously unidentified child rapist.

http://www.tv.com/law-and-order-special-victims-unit/serendipity/episode/278851/recap.html?tag=overview;recap

apparently, like much of law and order, based on a real life case of a canadian doctor in 1992 implanting a blood tube in his arm to beat a dna test (and also the basis for a movie):

http://books.google.com/books?id=62uFtPQOegwC&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=law+and+order+implanted+blood&source=web&ots=tAMxawCqEz&sig=3jV_E2vL-Xe4UFhG7hH5wCkJQk8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Schneeberger

Rape case
On the night of 31 October 1992, Schneeberger sedated his 23-year-old patient, Candice, and raped her. While Versed -- the anesthetic he used -- has strong amnesiac effect, Candice was still able to remember the rape. She reported the crime to the police.

Schneeberger's blood sample was, however, found not to match the samples of the alleged rapist's semen, thus clearing him of suspicion. In 1993, at the victim's request, the test was repeated, but the result was negative, as well. In 1994, the case was closed.

Candice, still convinced that her reminiscences were true, hired Larry O'Brien, a private detective, to investigate the case. He broke into Schneeberger's car and obtained another DNA sample, which, this time, matched the semen on victim's panties and pants. As a result, a third official test was organized. The obtained blood sample was, however, found to be too small and of too poor quality to be useful for analysis.

In 1997, Lisa Schneeberger found out that her husband had repeatedly drugged and raped her 15-year-old daughter from her first marriage. She reported him to the police, which ordered a fourth DNA test. This time, multiple samples were taken: blood, mouth swab, and hair follicle. All three matched the rapist's semen.

[edit] Conviction
During his 1999 trial, Schneeberger revealed the method he used to foil the DNA tests. He implanted a 15 cm Penrose drain filled with another man's blood and anticoagulants in his arm. During tests, he tricked the laboratory technician to obtain blood sample from the place the tube was planted.

He was found guilty of sexual assault, of administering a noxious substance, and of obstruction of justice, and received a six-year prison sentence.

Seriously though, what about adopted kids?

[Fluffeh]

I wonder what happens if son/daughter is adopted and doesn't know, yet this shows DNA link to a criminal parent. That's a nasty shock to the system, I can just see it now:

Officer: Hi, can you tell us where that lowlife father of your is?
Kid: He is at work at the moment.
Officer: Yeah, drop the act kid, he ain't worked a day of his life. Now, where is he ya little lying bastard?
Kid: He will come home from work in three hours...

*three hours later*

Officer: This ain't your dad! Quit fucking with us here!
Kid: Whaaaaaaa! (Or any other such life changing crying sound when you suddenly find out you are adopted and your whole life has been a lie)

Re:Seriously though, what about adopted kids?

[Xiroth]

Good point. Or consider problems that could come up if the kid's biological father was an anonymous sperm donor - could be bad if either the kid or the biological father got into trouble.

Re:Seriously though, what about adopted kids?

[sillybilly]

Or imagine a tool like this in the hands of Hitler. That's what's most wrong with this whole thing, the power it gives to someone over other people. Anonymity and privacy, being shielded and safe from some paternalistic overseeing power entity should be a right. Power should be given to government only as much as necessary. Such databases should be in the private sphere, held by someone like the clergy with the "seal of the confessional", or by attorneys in a fashion similar to attorney-client privilege. We need a system of internetized public notaries/attorneys holding confidential private information, regarding issues of identity, privacy, will/testament etc. Some kind of distributed database with confidentiality barriers. Queries run against it, and people having to give consent before answers are released. Government access to it should be absolutely limited, with very strict rights and needing a warrant. In fact no central databases should exist, but some kind of public key/private key system published by many attorneys, or public notaries, from which matches can be found, such as relatives, or criminals, without revealing identity. To a posted public key search the other local small databases should react, and if they find themselves to be a match to a request, they should ask the owner of that DNA whether he would like to reveal his identity to the query. Of course you would find no criminals this way, because who would confess, yes, I'm the one. But that's exactly what the 5th amendment is about, it's not about making law enforcement easy, to the contrary, protecting individual liberty at the price of "security", or "ease of law enforcement." Compiling databases about everybody in the name of security - well, you know what the founding fathers said: those who sacrifice liberty for security will get neither. A social security number databases tagging everyone for tax collection purposes should suffice. Fingerprint databases feel already too private, but all they reveal is your physical presence at a location, if you didn't wear gloves. And they are harder to plant than dna samples of hair, blood, etc. Fingerprints in the name of law enforcement, I can agree to that, because they don't contain much else about you. DNA, that's a whole other beast than a fingerprint. Occasional DNA tests by police, comparing suspects to locally found evidence could be OK, with the data returned to the owners, or owner's assigned attorney/public notary after the completion of the trial. It should not be allowed to be archived, even if it means a whole lot of wasted work, and having to redo everything over and over. Or who do you trust? You should not feel more secure because of the databases compiled in the name of security, if anything, fear some coup, some power takeover at the top by some mad men. Then imagine what power they will have over you to deride you and ride you to hell and back, simply because they feel like it. And you're at fault, who previously sacrificed your privacy and anonymity in the name of security. What security? If you have many small localized/secret databases exchanging information only as needed, in case of a power coup at the top, well, my neighborhood notary public might be willing to hide my DNA from the new government, just like some people were willing to hide jews during the Nazi regime. People being able to disobey laws is a prerequisite of liberty. Where is the guarantee that we will never have another criminal regime like that in power, coming up with laws that are criminal. The time to defend is now. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Law enforcement is important, but so is the 5th amendment, which is more important than law enforcement itself. So how can you hide your DNA, how can you stay anonymous, retain your privacy in this world? Is that even possible? No. But at least we could have a makebelieve, pretend to respect each others rights to privacy world. Anytime you give blood, or a hair sample, for a simple thing as a drug test, others have your DNA, if that sample is tied to you in

Just a reminder...

[Ghostworks]

Now California police also reserve the right to take DNA from anyone they arrest for any reason. Which means if they can ever make the process an order of magnitude cheaper and faster, they could assemble a very large database very quickly with just the laws already on the books.