NY Governor Wants To Expand DNA Database

crimeandpunishment writes "If Governor David Paterson has his way, New York would take DNA samples from even the lowest level of criminal, doubling the state's DNA database. He says it would help to both solve crimes and clear people who were wrongly convicted. New York would become the first state in the country to do this. Currently DNA isn't collected in most misdemeanors. The plan is getting lots of support among law enforcement, but the New York Civil Liberties Union says there are questions about privacy."

Comments

NYC Governor?

[Jafafa Hots]

I mean shit, yes, the city of NY would like to pretend they're the whole state, but there's like, a lot more than NYC...

Re:NYC Governor?

[sexconker]

As a New Yorker, I've never quite understood why Albany is the capital and not NYC.

New York city has some great things, but they're merely the occasional nut in the turd that is the main course. Have you ever seen a sitcom on TV? Most of them take place in New York, and most of them feature annoying, self-absorbed douche bags like Ted Mosby.

Re:NYC Governor?

[westlake]

As a New Yorker, I've never quite understood why Albany is the capital and not NYC.

In most states - and in most counties - the biggest city never remains the capital.

It ignites too many old rivalries and suspicions: Rural vs Urban.

City vs City.

Inland vs Coastal. Manufacturing vs Trade.

Albany was the crossroads:

The Mohawk, the route of the Erie Canal, West.

North, Lake Champagne, northern New England and Canada. South, the Hudson and New York City.

And then the crackdown on jaywalkers

[gig]

If this happens, what will follow is a crackdown on jaywalking and other everybody crimes so that the database becomes universal. They'll be taking DNA at traffic stops.

Re:And then the crackdown on jaywalkers

[causality]

If this happens, what will follow is a crackdown on jaywalking and other everybody crimes so that the database becomes universal. They'll be taking DNA at traffic stops.

That's quite predictable but a lot of (naive) people will be very surprised when it happens. Maybe they can get over their surprise long enough to consider what this tells them about the nature and intentions of the people who are pushing for these kinds of laws. This whole scenario reminds me of an entry from my quotations file:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
-- H. L. Mencken

This is a bit like the War on (some) Drugs. Observation: a government has very little power over those who break no laws. Therefore, if you want to expand the police power of government, you need more laws. If there aren't enough criminals, you make crimes of things that are not crimes to produce some more. If there are plenty of criminals, or if that option isn't realistic, then you increasingly treat very minor crimes the same way you handle serious crimes. It seems New York is going with that latter option.

Re:And then the crackdown on jaywalkers

[SpecBear]

Actually, it's even worse than having a universal database. The database will largely exclude the people who create and enforce the law, along with those they favor.

If the DNA database were universal the legislators and their friends and families would also be included. That would dramatically increase the chance that there would be meaningful limitations on how the data was used.

Re:And then the crackdown on jaywalkers

[ImNotAtWork]

They can use anything they want against you and do not have to provide DNA evidence that exonerates you per a SCOTUS ruling. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/us/19scotus.html?_r=1&hp

DNA is a double edged sword

[Nichotin]

While there are some very clear benefits of using DNA as evidence in some cases, it can also be deliberately misused to purposefully frame people. Leaving false DNA evidence is much easier than copying someones fingerprints. A couple of kilos of cocaine planted in someones apartment, with a piece of hair, can in some jurisdictions land people in jail for a long time. It is somewhat the same dillemma with electronic evidence. Some real criminals are caught using historic location data or credit card date. At the same time, if you are well aware that this sort of evidence is taken seriously, you can also use it to create your own alibis which can make investigators rule you out as a suspect in the first place.

This is just a concern regarding the part about "He says it would help to both solve crimes and clear people who were wrongly convicted.", because I think someone might be wrongly convicted BECAUSE of the new use of DNA evidence. I don't really like the idea that you should collect DNA because of small crime in the first place, and even though there might be some benefits, this certainly weighs against (even though some might be found innocent).

Re:DNA is a double edged sword

[Compholio]

While there are some very clear benefits of using DNA as evidence in some cases, it can also be deliberately misused to purposefully frame people.

Yeah, just wait until the crooks catch up and start using DNA synthesis to frame people without even having access to their DNA (or just sufficiently contaminating a crime scene to make DNA evidence useless). You may not be able to recreate someone's entire DNA, but you can recreate enough of it to fool the "fingerprint" in the database.

Re:DNA is a double edged sword

[joe_frisch]

I don't think the important issue is whether the data is collected, but how it can be used. For example if law enforcement can try to match a sample from a crime scene against EVERY person in their database, you need a really low rate of false positives. Nationwide there are probably something like a million crimes committed each year (just guessing from the prison population). If you can match each against 300 million people in a database, that gives you 3x10^14 chances to make a mistake. We can't expect perfect justice, but even with a 1 in a 10 BILLION error rate, that is 30,000 false positives per year. Some of those will have enough other (weak) evidence to get convictions. Yet what jury wouldn't be convinced by a (true) claim that the chance of a false match is "only" one in 10 billion?

Also, once the data exists, is (should?) the government be required to check everyone in prison against DNA evidence if it exists? Personally I think this is very desirable, but it would be very expensive.

Also can the DNA evidence be used to predict tendencies to crime. This isn't practical yet, but we might in the future detect genetic markers that have correlation with types of criminal behaviour. Is it fair to say in court that the accused "has genetic markers that indicate a propensity to violence"?

The final problem is that once DNA evidence is very common use, as the poster above mentions criminals will start to plane evidence. Murder someone - plant a few hairs that you collected from someone else. Framing someone becomes much easier.

Juries need to understand that the existence of DNA evidence at a crime scene only shows that ....the person's DNA was at the crime scene - it doesn't say the person was there, or that they committed the crime.

Many of these arguments apply to various other high tech information gathering.

Re:That's the right idea

[couchslug]

"Seriously he's blind..."

Priceless!

By what perversion of logic?

[Nadaka]

How is this supposed to clear the wrongly convicted?

If you are wrongly convicted, you wont have much issue providing your own DNA to get free.

This has only a few applications:

With current technology a matching genetic pattern can be generated. This would make a great tool for acquiring genetic patterns for the fabrication of evidence and false convictions.
Even without such fabrication, genetic evidence can be abused to implicate someone that just happened to have passed through the location of a crime days, weeks or months before the event.

If this bothers you, look at the US House

[e9th]

The U.S. House wants to collect DNA from people merely arrested. And they'll pay the states to do it.

False Positives

[AK Marc]

The tests they do have a 99.9% success rate (if it's gone up or that was too optimistic, let me know, but that's last I saw). That means, once you collect DNA from everyone, each sample will hit on 30,000 Americans. So then, you have 30,000 people to sift through. It's good at taking a single person and comparing them against another with high reliability. But to search massive databases, you get too many hits. And then, you have to exclude 29,999 people to find the right one. Or, if you happen to be living nearby with no alibi, you may get convicted with nothing other than "your" DNA at the scene.

So it isn't just about the privacy of your DNA, but the miscarriage of justice by people that don't understand statistics and zealous police and DAs who are in the habit of creating evidence to convict someone they "know" did it (or in the case of DAs, they don't know or care who did it, but their conviction rate requires a guilty verdict and is more important than justice).

This is all just a symptom of a larger problem. The "justice" system is unrelated to justice and has become a punishment system where even those never convicted are punished in many ways (confiscation of money without any process at all, in direct violation of the Constitution, as long as they suspect that a drug user looked at it once). The government exists to serve us, and no, I don't mean serve us with warrants.

Re:False Positives

[AusIV]

If you collect DNA directly from two people you can pretty much be certain that the DNA comes from two different people, barring identical twins. I believe there are 13 markers used to identify DNA, and if all 13 markers are intact the odds of a match are astronomical. The problem comes when you collect DNA from a crime scene - which may have 7 of 13 markers in tact - and compare it to a database. In that case, chances are fairly high that you'll get a match.

Prosecutors will go and tell a jury that the odds of a match are 1 in 1,000,000 (for example). In truth, this means the odds of any two people matching are 1 in 1,000,000, but they don't explain that the match was found using a database of 300,000, so the odds of finding a match were quite high. Unless the accused has a bullet proof alibi, they go down for the crime because juries don't understand statistics.

Re:False Positives

[PrecambrianRabbit]

Should I find myself in such a situation, do you think I can insist on my right to trial by a jury of my peers, where "my peers" are those who can understand basic probability and statistics?

Exactly

[Adrian Lopez]

If police can gain an advantage by enforcing laws against minor and/or discretionary offenses, you can be sure they will take full advantage by enforcing such laws more often. It's been known to happen, and it will happen again if this abominable bill is turned into law.

Re:I got no problem with this.

[actionbastard]

Criminals gave up their rights when they committed a crime.

Obviously you are not familiar with the Constitution of the United States or the Bill of Rights.

Re:and...

[nacturation]

This is the reason we have the right to bare arms. My .45 will be empty before they get any samples off me.

Wouldn't you rather wear long sleeves? Having bare arms just makes it easier to take a DNA sample.

Right to remain silent

[somenickname]

If I have the right to remain silent, do I also have the right to refuse giving my DNA away? IANAL but if I have the right to not speak so as to not incriminate myself, why wouldn't I also have the right to not have my blood drawn (or mucus swabbed) so as to not incriminate myself?

I don't live in New York but, I'm often there. If an officer there wanted to take a sample of my DNA for an offense such as speeding, I'd refuse. If he persisted, I'd try to invoke Miranda Rights. If he persisted after that, I'd fight back as he tried to take the sample, recover for a few months in the hospital after he beat me senseless and then sue for police brutality. Essentially, that's what it's going to take to get this law overturned if it gets passed.