Washington State Wants DNA From All Arrestees

An anonymous reader writes in to say that "Suspects arrested in cases as minor as shoplifting would have to give a DNA sample before they are even charged with a crime if a controversial proposal is approved by the Legislature. "It is good technology. It solves crimes," claims Don Pierce, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. Under the bill, authorities would supposedly destroy samples and DNA profiles from people who weren't charged, were found not guilty or whose convictions were overturned. Others believe that this is just another step in the process to build a national DNA database with everyone in it."

Comments

There's no way they'll abuse this

[muellerr1]

Under the bill, authorities would supposedly destroy samples and DNA profiles from people who weren't charged, were found not guilty or whose convictions were overturned.

Allow me to be the first to say, "Yeah, right."

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[spacerog]

Yup, just like they did in Massachusetts

State hits crime lab on DNA cache, Some files improperly kept, IG says
The State Police crime laboratory is storing the DNA profiles of hundreds of people whose crimes do not warrant it, according to an investigation of the historically troubled lab, raising the specter of what one civil libertarian called a "shadow DNA database."

- SR

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[Mr. Slippery]

They fingerprint kids in elementary school.

Citation, please. I've heard of schools setting up programs where kids can be fingerprinted if the parents wish, but none where it is mandatory.

There really isn't anything wrong with the practice

There is everything wrong with a government that thinks it is entitled to take flesh - no matter how small the amount - from its citizens.

The sovereignty of the state ends at my surface of skin. That's a boundary I am willing to protect with force if necessary.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[von_rick]

The dilemma involved in balancing "security vs. freedoms". Its a very non-linear problem, and at this point it looks like freedoms are on the downward slope.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[Hork_Monkey]

It's alot harder to plant fingerprints at a crime scene than it is to drop some random hair that you find (Long haired people shed worse than dogs).

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[Jason Levine]

Here's how I see it playing out:

Step 1: They pass this law. Perhaps they "forget" to destroy the DNA samples. Perhaps they do destroy it.
Step 2: They complain about the "destruction" requirement impeding law enforcement. A high profile case is brought up where keeping the DNA evidence would have helped solve the case quicker. (Bonus points if they can claim a life would have been saved.)
Step 3: The law will be amended to allow police to keep the samples for as long as they deem it needed.

It seems to be a popular method of getting 1984-style laws passed. Pass an innocuous sounding law backed by a rallying cry ("Think of the Children!" "Protect against Terrorism!"). Now, expand that law as quietly as possible until it matches your original intent.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[easyTree]

It makes a change. We (in the UK) exporting our stupid ideas to you...

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[Dishevel]

We forget that minors and students are still people with the same constitutional rights as adults. Just because we force them to go to school, doesn't mean their other rights are negated at the door.

Umm. No. While maybe you think that children should have the same rights under the constitution as adults they actually do not have the same rights as an adult.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[Walkingshark]

The powerful want the police state. They use the left and right to control the two largest blocks of the population. They write off everyone else (libertarians, singularitians, whatever) as being too small and unimportant to bother with.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[An ominous Cow art]

An organization to which I belong sponsors something called "CHIP" (Child Identification Program). Parents bring their children to be fingerprinted, have a DNA (saliva) sample taken, and a short video interview (all for no cost to them). All materials are sealed in a box and given to the parents, to be kept in case the child goes missing - then they can be given to the police. Apparently, it's made a difference a few times.

(don't take this as any kind of opinion on how frequent children go missing, or whether the article's DNA sampling is desirable)

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[CodeBuster]

I distinctly remember being fingerprinted in primary school when I was nine years old. If I had known then what I know now then I would have refused, of course, but how can a nine year old be expected to fully appreciate the possible consequences? The answer is they cannot and the state takes advantage of that to trick them while they are still young and impressionable with all sorts of propaganda, indoctrination, and anti-drug scare mongering (and now extreme environmental, but that hadn't caught on yet when I was going through the system). I have a real problem with lying to children in order to "scare them for their own good". Eventually children figure out that their parents, the police, or the authorities have lied to them consistently and never blindly trust authority again (which is itself a valuable lesson, but one which can be learned without the pain of betrayal).

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[somenickname]

Speaking of crime labs, I'm sometimes forced to watch CSI: New York. I sometimes wonder if I'd rather throw myself out the window every time a cut scene of "science" is accompanied by some techno music but, I do recall an episode where there was a murder in a night club. In that episode they detained all the people in the night club and took DNA samples from them. I remember thinking, "If they tried to do that to me, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves and fight the obstruction of justice charge in court".

Shows like this desensitize the public to things like "DNA sample" to the point where they think it's normal and that their information will be treated with care by beautiful and smart people who know a lot about "science". The truth couldn't be further from that.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[coolsnowmen]

If my parents get this information incase of kidnapping or identifying a body that is one thing. They can keep this private.

If the police collect this information on me to put in their database for no reason, that is quite another.

I don't trust people I don't know. The police collecting information about people who they don't need to is a waste of time and resources. If the police have data about me, it is data that someone can abuse. If they don't have it, then they can't.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[QRDeNameland]

I bet many people in that situation would be willing to offer a small sample of saliva instead...

Or give them a stool sample. Chimpanzee-style.

Re:There's no way they'll abuse this

[Mr. Slippery]

You get finger/foot printed at birth. The FBI recommends it. Not sure if it is mandated by law, but it could be on a state/local level - if not on a fed level. Great if your kid gets kidnapped.

This reference is over 20 years old, but at that time only New York state required footprinting for newborns. Hospitals often take footprints so they can identify babies if they get mixed up, but the efficacy is questionable. If you have a new source showing that finger- or foot-printing of newborns is required in any other state, please, present it.

Certainly if a permanent record of an infant's fingerprints is made and given to the police or FBI, that would be a significant incentive toward home birth.

As long as the police are not giving this to my insurance company so they can deny me insurance then I am down for it. I don't break the law.

You never break the speed limit? Never had a beer before the age of 21? Never made love in an unsanctioned way (better check your local laws on that!)? Never made a copy of a CD for a friend? Never "forgot" to mention that $20 gift on your income tax forms?

We all break the law.

And the law can change tomorrow. If a law were passed that required all Americans of Iraqi ancestry to report to concentration camps tomorrow - as it did for Japanese Americans in the 1940s - I hope that you would resist it in every way that you could.

Never, never, never, never confuse following that law with doing what's right.

Yeah, yeah, heard it all before

[hattig]

"Under the bill, authorities would supposedly destroy samples and DNA profiles from people who weren't charged, were found not guilty or whose convictions were overturned."

This is not what happens in the UK.

So far it takes a lot of pressure to get entries deleted once you are on there, and you don't even need to be arrested to be on there.

The European Courts have said that this is not right and that they should remove entries that don't pertain to criminals, but I don't think there is any rush.

Too much "think of the children" and "think of the raped woman" going on for privacy and human rights to get a look in.

Even if they did, we all know these databases are hives of incorrect data anyway.

Re:Yeah, yeah, heard it all before

[auric_dude]

What happens in the UK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_National_DNA_Database

Re:Yeah, yeah, heard it all before

[Duradin]

I would have considered women and children as uberhuman since they always get a special listing and treatment.

If you have a headline of "200 killed in the attack" you know that no one important enough mention specifically was killed, that only adult males were killed. If you have "200 killed in the attack, including one woman and two children" you know there were three people important enough to actually mention as people, the woman and two children while once again the 197 adult males don't even get to qualify as human.

Then you have the rights of the subhumans (adult males) being continually trampled in favor of the uberhumans (women and children).

To paraphrase Stalin, killing a woman or child is a tragedy, killing men is a statistic.

Re:Yeah, yeah, heard it all before

[shutdown -p now]

The reason why we value women' and children' lives above those of adult human males are instinctive and should be obvious to any reasonable human being. Women are valuable because they are less replaceable - a man can easily substitute for another man for purposes of reproduction (though genetic diversity is still lost), but you need women to carry the babies. Children are important because they didn't have a chance to reproduce yet, and so a death of a child represents a unique, and possibly beneficious, mix of genes forever lost for the species. Adult males are likely to have reproduced already, which is why it is less of a concern there.

I'm an adult male, and I don't see any problems with the anything of the above. It's really all basic ethology.

And yes, if it comes to a classic "sinking ship" situation, and you'll try to claim your place on the lifeboat at the expense of a woman or a child, I will do my best to prevent you from doing so, using violence if needed.

The slippery slope

[Kuroji]

What happened to only getting DNA evidence from felons? This seems insane, there's no reason at all that someone ACCUSED of a misdemeanor crime should have to submit (and, most likely, pay for!) DNA samples unless it was important to the court case. If this goes through, I can only wonder what they'll be asking for next. Getting DNA from children to put into a database, like they've done with fingerprints in some places?

Re:The slippery slope

[zappepcs]

Yes, and that database amounts to illegal search of the populace for every crime when they use a database to find a match to some DNA found at a crime scene. The same goes for finger prints.

There are arguments both ways, but in the end having a database of identifying information on huge portions of the citizenry is the same as stores checking your bag when you leave: you are guilty until proven innocent by way of not matching the evidence. This goes against the intent of the law.

This is not a slippery slope, it's a roller coaster drop off .... but I'm not sure there is a smooth curved set of rails to stop the impending crash.

Re:The slippery slope

[MozeeToby]

At first I had the same reaction that many slashdotters probably had: This is way overstepping, you are assigning a penalty to even being accused of a crime (the penalty being an invasion of privacy and a chance of being falsely accused of a crime later).

Then I thought about the fact that people are fingerprinted upon arrest, and have been for decades. When you come down to it, there really isn't any significant difference between recording fingerprints and recording DNA. If you disagree with recording DNA there's no reason why recording fingerprints before conviction should be acceptable either.

Finally, I thought about statistics. We always here in cases how the DNA evidence shows a 99.9% chance that the person is the guilty party. The problem is when you have a few million entries in the database, 99.9% isn't all that good. You could easily end up with a half dozen people fitting the DNA evidence in a large city. DNA analysis should be the end of a good investigation, not the starting off point.

Re:The slippery slope

[meist3r]

Welcome to the New World Order ... where security means everyone's a suspect and constant supervision is the only way to achieve true freedom. Way to go.

The Terrorists have already won. Being terrorized means losing to terror, suspecting everyone and subjecting them to criminal prosecution no matter what they did ... that's paranoia and being terrified right there. Terrorists Win. Let Osama bin Laden slip ... we don't need him anymore to errect our own Panopticon of terror.

Pardon ... Highly Secure Freedom Detention Center.

Re:The slippery slope

[brouski]

Going with the "checking the bags when you leave" analogy, it's not the fact that the bags are being checked that annoys me, it's the act of having to queue at this final gatekeeper and wait for their OK before I can walk past.

If the stores could transparently scan these bags as I walk out with RFID tags or some such, inconvenience is gone and so are my complaints.

I don't think the act of merely having the database is the same as rifling through your stuff when you walk out the door

Re:The slippery slope

[Mr. Slippery]

When you come down to it, there really isn't any significant difference between recording fingerprints and recording DNA.

Of course there is - DNA collection involves the government taking a piece of my living flesh. That's a rather bright line for them to try to cross.

Then there's the problem that DNA isn't so reliable after all - but then, neither are fingerprints.

Re:The slippery slope

[gnick]

If you disagree with recording DNA there's no reason why recording fingerprints before conviction should be acceptable either.

I think that's taking it a little far. There are sometimes very good reasons to take prints/DNA. If you're accused of a crime and you claim that you've never been to the scene, prints or DNA could potentially (in)validate your story and effect your conviction/release.

However, if you're caught shoplifting or even if you're accused of something more serious and admit your guilt openly, I see no reason why either should need to be taken.

Re:The slippery slope

[meleespamingzombies]

Then I thought about the fact that people are fingerprinted upon arrest, and have been for decades. When you come down to it, there really isn't any significant difference between recording fingerprints and recording DNA. If you disagree with recording DNA there's no reason why recording fingerprints before conviction should be acceptable either.

Except DNA gives evidence about your entire bloodline. So DNA evidence from my brother could be used against me, even though I have never been introduced to the system.

Re:The slippery slope

[oneTheory]

Laws must be evaluated not primarily on the basis of what good they attempt to do but on the possible abuses they would allow. Just off the top of my head for this law: It's a lot easier to frame someone by putting some DNA evidence of them (i.e. a few strands of hair) at a crime scene than lifting their fingerprints and convincingly planting them.

Now I'm no lawyer, but the thing about the cases mentioned in this article is that you can still get DNA from ANYONE you want with a court ordered search warrant. And I'd think that would be pretty easy if someone is arrested under suspicion of rape, burglary, etc.

The problem with the current system is you have to go fill out paperwork, talk to a judge, all that WORK that apparently our police and detectives don't feel like doing. The current system allows for collecting DNA in a responsible fashion.

The proponents of this bill as with every bill of this type will bring in tear soaked mothers talking about their children in order to sway you with emotion. They know that your primitive emotional response will trump your intellect basically guaranteeing you make an unreasoned decision. Not cool.

Re:The slippery slope

[Seraphim_72]

I think it is Unreasonable Search for both. That it is easy to do is half of the problem. If anyone walked up to you and said 'Let me examine your hand with this magnifying glass and these chemicals' you would think them insane. My fingerprints and my DNA are my own thank you. They are part of what makes me ME. You have no right to part of me upon accusation. Conviction maybe, but not upon accusation.

Re:The slippery slope

[zappepcs]

History has shown us that if there is a database to check the fingerprints or DNA against for a match, it will be done. This is the same thing as getting all those people to donate their DNA and fingerprints for every crime that is committed. Another way, all the people in the database are assumed to be guilty until their DNA/fingerprints are shown to not match those found at the crime scene.

How long before a crime is committed where DNA is planted? How will law enforcement teams solve a crime when the only DNA found is that of the governor; who happens to have a solid alibi? Will they keep searching the database looking for someone that is a close match, or simply decide it was planted evidence?

The database is worse than rifling through bags. The bag checker doesn't know who you are. The database does. The bag checker is assuming your guilty and only letting you go when you are proven innocent. The database is the same thing as police coming to your door 14 times a month to collect your DNA for use in solving a crime. Bio-identification is not secure, it is not foolproof, and it necessarily makes you guilty until proven innocent if the police have it in their database.

Re:The slippery slope

[mcgrew]

I don't think the act of merely having the database is the same as rifling through your stuff when you walk out the door

Your DNA is your stuff.

Re:The slippery slope

[Sancho]

If you disagree with recording DNA there's no reason why recording fingerprints before conviction should be acceptable either.

There are a lot of reasons to be concerned.

1) It's easier to plant DNA evidence than it is to plant fingerprints (though it's easier to recreate a fingerprint from a sample than it is to recreate DNA.)

2) DNA gets leaked everywhere. A hair falls out? Some skin cells scrape off? Urine or feces in the toilet? Not only are samples of your DNA everywhere, but this means that thousands of people could be implicated at a crime scene.

3) Because of (2) above, this technology can be used to track anyone in the database. That said, we may not know the path they've taken (unless we're eventually able to date DNA samples in a similar manner to radioactive dating.)

4) (the biggie) DNA is known to change during one's lifetime. For example: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090116/hl_afp/healthaustraliageneticssugar;_ylt=At8juaZrV2AoHEmOvom1Hj4PLBIF Right now, we just don't know enough about it to guarantee a high accuracy.

Finally, I thought about statistics. We always here in cases how the DNA evidence shows a 99.9% chance that the person is the guilty party.

The fact that people think like this is a huge problem. Neither DNA nor fingerprints prove guilt. For non-rape cases, at best, they prove that a person was at the scene at some point in their lives. In rape cases, they can prove that the person was party to intercourse, but not whether or not it was consensual.

Ha!

[Vectronic]

I'll just laugh, and spit in their faces!... wait... damnit.

Article IV?

[weston]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects...

If my DNA isn't part of my person, I don't know what is. If you find it at a crime scene, that's one thing, but the bar for compelling the collection of a DNA sample should be at least as high (and probably higher) than the bar for a warrant for a home search.

broken window theory of law enforcement

[circletimessquare]

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

simply stated, if law enforcement focuses on small, petty crimes, like turnstile jumping, graffiti, and shoplifting, they implicitly reduce serious crime, like burglarly, arson, murder

the idea works in two ways:

1. the public perception of lawlessness sends a signal that even worse lawless behavior is acceptable, so doping the reverse: focusing on the surface level impression of orderliness, actually increases real orderliness

2. you would be amazed how many rapists and murders also run red lights and shoplift. that is, routine screening of petty crimes (fingerprints in the past) has actually netted a surprising number of big fish (where big fish means any criminal who committed a very serious crime). people who commit trangressive acts against society don't really seem to be able to stop doing that

in which case, viewing the request to keep and track dna, you can simply see the evolution of police work,.where the next natural next step is to track dna, as well as fingerprints, based on the success of the broken window theory in the past

i'm not saying that dna tracking should be supported, i'm just framing the reason why law enforcement is interested in dna. as opposed to the mindless "everyone in government wants to fascistically monitor your entire life just because they are stereotypical hollywood characters" theory of government and law enforcement, that you frequently see as the basis for comments

Re:broken window theory of law enforcement

[Hordeking]

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

simply stated, if law enforcement focuses on small, petty crimes, like turnstile jumping, graffiti, and shoplifting, they implicitly reduce serious crime, like burglarly, arson, murder

the idea works in two ways:

1. the public perception of lawlessness sends a signal that even worse lawless behavior is acceptable, so doping the reverse: focusing on the surface level impression of orderliness, actually increases real orderliness

No, the idea works because there is the perception of a police state.

2. you would be amazed how many rapists and murders also run red lights and shoplift. that is, routine screening of petty crimes (fingerprints in the past) has actually netted a surprising number of big fish (where big fish means any criminal who committed a very serious crime). people who commit trangressive acts against society don't really seem to be able to stop doing that

Remember, in 1984, Julia states "You can get away with breaking the big laws if you keep the small ones.

i'm not saying that dna tracking should be supported, i'm just framing the reason why law enforcement is interested in dna. as opposed to the mindless "everyone in government wants to fascistically monitor your entire life just because they are stereotypical hollywood characters" theory of government and law enforcement, that you frequently see as the basis for comments

Why don't you go ahead and submit your DNA pre-emptively. While you're at it, why don't you go ahead and get an RFID implanted in your hand? After all, if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, right?

Some of us just happen to desire privacy from gov't meddling on principle. When I go somewhere, I tell my folks/girlfriend where I'm going. I don't announce it to the police or gov't. Likewise, I don't care for the thought of every time some cop investigates every pissant who happened to leave some kind of biological evidence at the scene of a crime, someone checks that against me.

Re:When are they going to destroy these samples?

[Hatta]

Hell, I've seen prosecutors let people sit in DETENTION for years without a trial (one famous case in my state involved a teenage girl who was held in detention for 6 years without trial, before the prosecutor admitted he had no case and she was released). Sometimes a person is arrested and never gets an actual trial (whether they're held in detention or released).

We need much, much stronger laws to deal with prosecutors who commit unjust acts. If you are unjustly kidnapped and held in a cell for years, it doesn't matter to you whether your captor is the state or a psychotic madman. Both are equally traumatic, and both aggressors should be punished as harshly.

I heard a story on NPR this morning about a black man who was falsely accused of rape and died in prison. The real rapist sent letters to the prosecutors admitting to the rape. Not one of the prosecutors responded to those letters. By any reasonable code of justice, every one of those prosecutors would be guilty of a crime. IMO, a crime much worse than rape.

I don't know how to do it though. You're never going to get a prosecutor to prosecute another prosecutor for prosecuting.

I saw this movie once....

[rts008]

Gattaca, anyone?

It may be that in the long run, we can't totally avoid this crap, but the more we roll over and lick it up, the faster it will come to us.

Now, what's on American Idol...Ohh...Shiny!!

Re:Here's a novel idea: don't fucking SHOPLIFT !!

[mtrachtenberg]

I bet no one in your land is ever arrested without being guilty of a crime, and no one will ever abuse their access to private information about you. You lucky dog!

All you wussy pussy thieves who fear the law closing in on you !! Don't want your DNA known? Don't shoplift. Goddamn that seems simple enough even for slashdot lusers !!

Ballot

[bugs2squash]

Really; they will put inconsequential crap about gay marriage on a ballot, but nothing like this...

1) Governments are incapable of keeping any record confidential. How many apologies have been issued for massive leakages of social security records (especially in Britain I believe) So you're not just giving up your DNA to the government, you have to assume that the government is simply collecting it for anyone to use.

2) It won't be long before DNA evidence becomes discredited. There will one day be ways of beating the system, planting evidence, altering evidence etc. And the evidentiary value will diminish. So the cost/benefit that looks so good now will erode.

3) I not only have my own interests to defend, but those of my Children. So far as I am aware, if my and my wife's DNA are collected, then my Children's DNA can be inferred.

So in 10 years' time the record will show that I put my childrens' freedom / insurability / job prospects etc. at risk for minimal benefit and at great cost to the tax payer.

Frame the question on a ballot in that way and see if the good people of Washington will approve it.

Re:Here's a novel idea: don't fucking SHOPLIFT !!

[Mateo13]

What about speeding?
What about when the police detain you for no good reason other than they suspect you of doing something wrong? It's happened.

Re:Here's a novel idea: don't fucking SHOPLIFT !!

[Gerzel]

Yes. If you are not guilty then why do you have anything to fear?

Because there is a frighteningly high rate of conviction for INNOCENT people. DNA has helped show that with many cases overturned. Our justice system is a good one but it DOES often make mistakes and OFTEN enough to warrant some caution on the part of the common innocent citizen.

That however is not a valid argument for taking away citizens' rights or jeopardizing those rights with a clerical error.

If they want dna from a suspect they should get a warrant like everyone else. This is done for people who are in custody. There already are means and methods of judging who will be a flight risk or not and DNA testing still is not a field practice so it would only help in a small minority of cases where the person is accused and then fled.

I have no problem with taking DNA of every person who was convicted of a crime(of a certain level, parking tickets for instance probably shouldn't warrant it).

Welcome...

[EddyPearson]

...to the UK.

We've been doing this for years. Funny to think my genetic fingerprint is stored in a DB somewhere.

I've always thought, doesn't this constant databasing of our personal details fall under the Data Protection Act's remit? Surely I should be able to A) Request a copy of everything they have on me B) Have it removed on request.

IANAL but I work on the assumption that nobody's above the law, and that conflicting laws are deemed unenforacable when they get shot down in court. Have I got it wrong?

Re:Here's a novel idea: don't fucking SHOPLIFT !!

[LordKronos]

Why before? So we won't let the WANTED free, only because we don't yet know this person committed some other crime for which DNA was found.

That logic is no better than setting up random DNA check roadblocks everywhere. If we have to make sure an innocent guy that was wrongfully arrest didn't also actually commit a crime, then why not make sure everyone else that wasn't arrested (wrongful or not) isn't guilty of something too?

If you can use the DNA that was compulsorily taken from a non-yet-known-to-be-guilty person to prove they committed a crime, then you might as well just require all DNA for every person to remain on file whether they've been arrested or not. I say this because you'd already have a loophole in the system: you simply need to "arrest" everybody briefly on a daily basis and hold them just long enough to run their DNA against a database before "dropping the charges". Heck, you don't even need to do it daily. Just "arrest" them, take their DNA, hold it for whatever period would be legally allowed, and THEN drop the charges before promptly "rearresting" them on some other charge.

Not just bad on tv....

[jefu]

Coincidentally in the NY Times today there is an article on how bad forensics labs really are . A good read.