Genealogy Websites Were Key To Big Break In Golden State Killer Case (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report from The New York Times: The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims all across the state of California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data. But it was technology that got him. The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested by the police on Tuesday. Investigators accuse him of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders. Investigators used DNA from crime scenes and plugged that genetic profile into a commercial online genealogy database. They found distant relatives of Mr. DeAngelo's and traced their DNA to him.

"We found a person that was the right age and lived in this area -- and that was Mr. DeAngelo," said Steve Grippi, the assistant chief in the Sacramento district attorney's office. Investigators then obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called "abandoned" DNA samples from Mr. DeAngelo. "You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain," she said. The test result confirmed the match to more than 10 murders in California. Ms. Schubert's office then obtained a second sample and came back with the same positive result, matching the full DNA profile. Representatives at 23andMe and other gene testing services denied on Thursday that they had been involved in identifying the killer.

Comments

This is one side

[amiga3D]

This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused. It's an awesome power and power is very corrupting. This needs serious regulation...ironclad. But of course that wont happen.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

With great power, comes great responsibility. Government agencies and corporations have no responsibility, so it will never work out.

Re:This is one side

[Excelcia]

From a public safety and for the interests of the state, this is a good outcome. But for any particular individual contemplating sending their DNA in to one of those sites, there is no good side. In this case it's a serial rapist and murderer. Queue the ticker tape parade. But your personal interests can only be harmed. This is becoming more like Gattaca every day. If any piece of random sloughed off skin is public domain, then at some point everywhere I've been, everything I do becomes public domain. Which bodes ill if there is a rare book I happen to touch immediately before or after a serial killer. If, for example, it's known that a suspect touched this book, my DNA on it suddenly puts me in the running for man of the hour. This is just one example, and an unlikely one to be sure, but I honestly can't think of any use of my randomly shed DNA in correlation with these genetic genealogy sites that serves my self interest.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

amiga3D : "This is the good side of DNA databases"
msnash : "Shut up, why u always see the bad side in everything?"

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Queue the ticker tape parade

The correct word is CUE, you hoser.

Actors do things on CUE.

People queue up in lines to see the movies actors make.

There now, you are slightly less ignorant.

Re:This is one side

[Plumpaquatsch]

This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused.

While the end result is positive for society, this is already abuse.

Re:This is one side

[AmiMoJo]

We should wait for this to be tested in court first. In the past similar DNA evidence, where it has been linked through family members, has proven to be unreliable. Particularly where the DNA was preserved for a long time and had to be processed to make a usable sample.

The example of touching something subsequently touched by a bad actor is realistic. There was a case a few years ago where police charged a man with destroying mail, only to discover that his DNA was on it because he wrote the mail in question and was actually the victim. Unfortunately, DNA is the favourite tool of the lazy cop.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

DNA linked through family members is unreliable - so not used for conviction. It is used for the investigation, to find a suspect.

Once a suspect is found, a dna sample directly from him can convict him or rule him out.

DNA links through distant relatives is always unreliable:
* many people share similar dna
* there is the chance that someone cheated, so they may not be related by blood.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we have identified one problem with entire class of clues and physical evidence: they carry no inherent timing information.

Re:This is one side

[goose-incarnated]

This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused. It's an awesome power and power is very corrupting. This needs serious regulation...ironclad. But of course that wont happen.

Yeah, the bad side is that people making judgements using DNA as evidence are bad at at stats. DNA evidence only "works" due to limited number of suspects. When you're comparing DNA to the entire population you're going to get quite a thousand false positives. When you have 10 suspects and one of them as a "match" (and I use that term loosely) then you can be pretty sure he's the one.

When you compare against a database of 300m, you're going to get tens of thousands matching close enough.

Re:This is one side

[j-beda]

This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused. It's an awesome power and power is very corrupting. This needs serious regulation...ironclad. But of course that wont happen.

Yeah, the bad side is that people making judgements using DNA as evidence are bad at at stats. DNA evidence only "works" due to limited number of suspects. When you're comparing DNA to the entire population you're going to get quite a thousand false positives. When you have 10 suspects and one of them as a "match" (and I use that term loosely) then you can be pretty sure he's the one.

When you compare against a database of 300m, you're going to get tens of thousands matching close enough.

Very good point, but perhaps this can be addressed by comparing more DNA markers? If you get pulled in due to this type of data, it certainly seems worth your while getting an independent lab test as part of your defense.

Of course if the crime scene sample got contaminated during the first tests due to bad evidence handling process ("Was I supposed to clean the test tube before or after testing the suspect's sample?") you are screwed.

Re:This is one side

[Dr. Spork]

You need to think through what you're worried about. Do you have any doubt that these extra forensic techniques are going to make perpetrator identification more accurate? If you admit they will, you've admitted that you're significantly less likely to be falsely charged in this new forensic regime than you would be in the less accurate system we have now. Yes, misleading evidence can crop up in any system of crime solving, but the fewer and sloppier are our tools and techniques, the greater the likelihood of false convictions. (This reply does not address what you say about "public domain skin," where I think you have a good point about privacy.)

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that the police used the genealogy data to identify DeAngelo as a suspect. They then obtained his DNA from his trash and used traditional DNA testing against samples from the crime scene. So nothing about the new techniques are particularly relevant to the court proceedings. The evidence that will be presented in court is not novel.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

But the up side to your book idea is that your phone is tracking literally every move you make, and they give that data freely to the government, so the cops will easily be able to rule you out.

Hooray for the new world order. /s

Re:This is one side

[yodleboy]

Except... with what appears to be at least 10 matches to crime scene DNA from multiple scenes, the odds of this not being the right guy, in THIS case, are pretty low.

Re:This is one side

[Humbubba]

This proves that genealogy companies make their data available to law enforcement. Don't trust their privacy B.S. Forgive me Alex Haley, but this also proves that law enforcement will use a family member's genetic profile to 'root' you out. What's not proven is that this sort of genetic analysis is accurate enough to pass sentence on someone.

In 2017, Insider Edition used triplets' DNA samples to test several personal genomics companies. The results came back with differences over 10%. To put this in perspective, Chimpanzees and Bonobos have about a 99% genetic match with humans. Either these companies do not adhere to universal genetic testing standards, companies aren't testing accurately, or maybe those identical triplets are actually different species from one another.

Something else: only a court certified genetic expert could question this sort of evidence on the stand. But doing so could open up the floodgates of trouble for not just those labs, but law enforcement and the courts alike. I suspect they would rather find an innocent person guilty than question the validity of genetic profile matching.

--

https://www.insideedition.com/...

http://www.sciencemag.org/news...

Re: This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

None of that matters. How they found him is irrelevant, so it doesn't matter if familial dna is reliable or not. Obviously it led them to the guy. What matters is his DNA is a perfect match to the DNA left at the crime scenes.

Re:This is one side

[BlueStrat]

This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused. It's an awesome power and power is very corrupting. This needs serious regulation...ironclad. But of course that wont happen.

It WILL happen once private individuals and corporations start collecting "abandoned DNA samples" from the rich and powerful and start doing some tracking and analysis of their own. After all, what's good for the goose...

Strat

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep.

So in a civil war, the Genealogy data centers should be military targets. Okay, we got it, thanks.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Something something pedantry. Glad to know you still understood what was said.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Queue is also grammatically correct. We are QUEUEING an action to be performed at some point, a point which might even be right now.

Re:This is one side

[Type44Q]

and for the interests of the state

As the state - theoretically - is a system that's supposed to work for us - i.e. a machine - anyone talking about "its interests" is actually referring to the "interests of those that control the machine."

Just saying.

Re:This is one side

[Miser]

100% correct.

I've said this for awhile - I'd really like to use these services. However, once that DNA data is out of my custody, I have no idea what they do with it. It's a privacy nightmare. Regardless of putting a criminal away, I'm not sure I'm comfortable that all procedures were followed to get that data from the genealogy company.

This pretty much seals the deal that I'll never use one of these services. A bit disappointing really, as I wouldn't mind learning about my family.

Re:This is one side

[sjames]

But it doesn't make it more accurate at all. It allows them to create a larger base of synthetic pseudo samples with a lower fidelity. Given good police work, they can then go on to weed out red herrings and get better samples from likely suspects, but given bad police work a lot of people who had nothing to do with any crime at all can be put through hell.

In this case, it looks like good police work (though the trial may tell a different story, stay tuned).

Re:This is one side

[sjames]

Or, if you can't afford the test, you're screwed.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think government regulation will make the corruption and the tyranny go away?

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming a constant "Q" rate of cases and fishing, of how wide they cast the boundaries of person-of-interest, of how quick a person is "put on a list", of how quick (ease of attempting) it is for Some LEO to look into whomever s/he wishes for Some Reason.

Assuming all of these remain constant and aren't affected, yeah, sure, you're less likely to worry about the citizen's average of three felonies a day.

"Extra options" are harmless - unless they dilute the standing approach/practices. And whether it's your office's business department or a police department, you can safely assume they will.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! Similar to your cellphone data, your purchase history data, your financial data.
China's social credit score is only the beginning. Every farm (US, EU, China, India) are going to start tagging(and bagging) their chattle.

Re:This is one side

[ceoyoyo]

Presumably they used the familial matches to get probable cause to compel an actual sample from the man himself.

There's a legitimate Facebook-style privacy concern in that the actions of my family members can provide personal information about me, but unless California has some pretty crazy laws regarding obtaining DNA from suspects and admissibility in court, there shouldn't be any complaints on that end.

Re:This is one side

[goose-incarnated]

? If you get pulled in due to this type of data, it certainly seems worth your while getting an independent lab test as part of your defense.

Why should you have to pay to dispute evidence when we already know in advance that the same evidence includes tens thousands of others?

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't, you bell-end. You aren't queuing it because no sequence is implied.

Re:This is one side

[rogoshen1]

tell us more, you defiantly peaked my interest.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

The otehr problem is that even good policework will probably involve disrupting the lives of innocent people.
Being questioned by the cops is a pretty stresfull experience even for the perfectly innocent. Let alone the more common case in which the person is innocent of the crime in question but guilty of any number of unrelated crimes that are innefiecently and unequally enforced (smoking pot, speeding, movie piracy, etc.)

Re:This is one side

[rogoshen1]

Why can the police hold your property hostage, deny you standing in the court case, and never, ever return it -- despite YOU never being convicted of a crime?

Because corruption.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

What this surely does do is open many new avenues for framing innocent people, and linking innocent people to crimes through circumstantial evidence.
Examples:
- a beverage can taken from your garbage is found at the crime scene (e.g. inside a stolen car)
- an envelope that you licked ends up in an office, then collected during a raid
- blood from your yearly physical ends up smeared on a murder weapon
- hairs from your jacket are found on someone's underwear after a crime

It goes on and on. The common thread in all these is that your DNA, or objects with your DNA on it, can be taken without your knowledge and placed somewhere that you never were, perhaps hundreds of miles away. These bits of "physical evidence" then place you at the scene of a crime. These things could happen randomly, or because a smart criminal uses something available to him, or if a crooked law-enforcement authority engineers it. It is outside your control.

Until now, if you've never been arrested and the authorities don't have your fingerprints or DNA, then it was unlikely that these bits of DNA would lead to you. Now, they will.

Re:This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they didn't have to compel anything to get an actual sample. They just went through his garbage. I don't even think a court order is required for that.

Re:This is one side

[david_thornley]

Companies will make their records available to law enforcement. Some will require a warrant.

This sort of genetic analysis is probably not enough to pass sentence on someone (and I hope it's not, since there are false positives). The prosecution will have to put together a case that will involve other evidence. I'd assume this is enough to get a search warrant.

So far, I haven't seen anything in this that's worth me worrying about, in comparison to other threats to privacy.

Re: This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

But considering they started with a genes that were close to his, how surprising is it that they found the match?
If you get a 95% match on the relative in the gene database, is it really surprising you get a 99.9% match on a close relative of theirs? If he were only a 75% that would be more unusual I think.

For example (with made up numbers), consider:

normally DNA matches have results like 1 in 10 million to be a coincidence, but all that means is that 30 of 300 million people would match, and they don't have to be related - let's assume 4 different families. So close relatives of those 30 people might number around 400 (for simplicity). If the police find a match to a crime scene though in such a database to 1 of the 400 people, that match will only lead them to 7 or 8 of those 30 people - the rest will slip under the radar. Thus if the find the best match of those 7-8 people, there are still 22-23 people who it could have been that escaped scrutiny.
This means instead of the usual 1 in 10 million odds (0.000001% odds of mistake) of it being someone else, it's actually 1 in 23 odds (4+% odds of mistake). To send someone to death row, we should require a little more than that.

Re:This is one side

[pnutjam]

The other problem is forensic science doesn't seem to be in the business of questioning things, look at how long bad forensic science about fires was accepted, look at how bad fingerprints really are for identifying people.

Re: This is one side

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is also the reason random videos are soon going to be useless as evidence. If the evidence is easily fabricated, or misconstrued, its useless as proof of a crime. Especially if the evidence was to be used to uniquely identify the accused, or to rule out the possibility of the accused being involved in the crime.

As for the genealogy vendors out there, the store of DNA samples they've built up is their cash cow. Making it another "social" platform to see who or what group you're related to. If law enforcement starts using it as a supplement to CODIS however, their business is going to dry up, as people won't want their DNA being searchable at any time against evidence in a criminal investigation. The risk of error is too high, and all it takes is a single accusation to completely ruin someone's life.

Sadly, this also suffers from the Facebook problem of "even if you don't use it, they'll get it anyway through who you know." Granted, it would require a family member to use it to be effective, but that's still not something you want to happen. We've reached a point where our ability to determine relationships is beyond society's ability to cope with the reality of that fact, and given our society's additude towards the wellbeing and privacy of others, I don't think we'll fare too well in the immediate future.

Re:This is one side

[Insanity Defense]

amiga3D : "This is the good side of DNA databases"
msnash : "Shut up, why u always see the bad side in everything?"

Because by seeing the bad side you can work to avoid it. Ignore possible problems and you can't block them from manifesting.

In this case, they catch a killer

[Anonymous Coward]

but what about other cases, where the state desperately wants to hunt down someone (for whatever reason, not necessary for murder) --- will they employ similar tactic?

Looks like the West is not that far behind China, or North Korea, or Russia, in terms of BIG BROTHERHOOD

Re:In this case, they catch a killer

[thinkwaitfast]

Dubai and Estonia are actually leading.

Re:In this case, they catch a killer

[Hognoxious]

DNA matches person A, and person B. You need to find out the common ancestor of A & B. (And hopefully they only have one!)

You're going a long way back if you're finding amoebae.

Not so fast!

[SirAstral]

https://www.theguardian.com/co...

There is growing concern over stuff like this. DNA tests often only test a small subset of information which means that false positives are possible and when you have a whole database to match against the greater that chance of a false positive happening.

We already know that law enforcement is sloppy, lazy, and corrupt. Until accuracy and better controls on this data have been instituted then this is going to result in more innocent people getting fucked over while the real criminals get of Scott free with society ignorantly believe it has its man.

Re:Not so fast!

[nonBORG]

Don't worry they can beat a confession out of him now. Seriously do you think he would not be able to find an alibi for however many rapes and murders if he was innocent. They don't just have the DNA here. More scary is witness testimony where it is basically he said she said. DNA may be a little off sometimes but it will rarely work out to the only evidence once they find who it is and investigate.

Re:Not so fast!

[omnichad]

They did at least compare his actual DNA with crime scene DNA. The guy is a loner, prone to sudden outbursts to neighbors. At least he fits some sort of profile rather than being taken in on DNA matching alone. That doesn't mean that other cases will fare so well, but there is a lot of evidence to comb through on this guy so it's likely we'll see some sort of successful proof one way or the other.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy is a loner, prone to sudden outbursts to neighbors.

You must be tragically stupid if you think the above matters with respect to a person being convicted. Of course, in the corridors of your tiny little
mind, a person who is a loner MUST somehow be capable of heinous crimes also, right ? And then there are those sudden outbursts ... yeah,
anyone who does that must be a serial killer.

You're a dumb shit.

Re:Not so fast!

[Ichijo]

Two unrelated people can have a matching set of DNA markers, so false positives are entirely possible. For that reason, all DNA can do is give you some leads, then you still need real evidence to prove that you have the right person.

Re:Not so fast!

[ShanghaiBill]

DNA tests often only test a small subset of information which means that false positives are possible

The DNA test matched the database on the subset, which identified a suspect. They then did a more exhaustive DNA comparison with the criminal evidence, and came up with an exact match. There is plenty of non-DNA evidence as well. They already suspected the perp was a cop (not sure why they suspected that, maybe something he said or did to one of the victims that survived). He was also in many of the locations on the dates that the crimes occurred.

Re:Not so fast!

[PopeRatzo]

This whole story, including the involvement of Patton Oswalt's late wife and the posthumous completion of her book which led to a nearly 40 year-old crime being solved, is really something. In a crime novel, it would probably be considered too far-fetched.

Re:Not so fast!

[SirAstral]

Yea, still not a good thing, look at how society reacts to just being a suspect, you are now mostly guilty until proven innocent. Wives will divorce husbands, working fathers will be fired from good jobs, people that know them will ostracize and avoid them, they could lose access to their own children.

People are so hell bent on getting the bad guy they will happily grind up innocent people along the way with little remorse. This is not even considering things like this...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u...

20,000 convictions dropped. Heck people have gone to jail over donuts!
https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Lets face it... law enforcement and quality testing are just not friends. They happily rely on shoddy results and questionable evidence to go full assault on someone in their pursuits to apprehend "the innocent criminals."

Re:Not so fast!

[SirAstral]

As long as there is other matching evidence I am more agreeable with the testing, but if the only evidence is DNA match that is just not enough.

While the chances of false positives are low, reality is just too following case of a person being arrested for looking like and having the same first name of a criminal..

https://nypost.com/2017/06/12/...

or this one...

https://www.theguardian.com/us...

there are 8 billion people on the planet and a lot of people share a lot of similar genetic information name and other identifying information. It is also shocking how much law enforcement is happy to put an innocent person in jail because at least they have someone to arrest just so they can call it a case closed.

There is a reason we need to make Law enforcement jump through hoops and get warrants to exercise power. They are humans like the criminals they go after. An open database of DNA they can use to scan people with is going to end badly for a lot of people.

Just becoming a suspect in a case like this will leave an impact and possibly wreck their life! It has happened all too often!

Re:Not so fast!

[another_twilight]

You're looking at this the wrong way.

There is certainly a problem with false arrest and conviction, and a culture that treats an arrest as though it were a conviction.
None of that gets worse because there's a new vector that might point at someone. Sure, now there are people that may not have previously been brought in, and there will certainly be some people who are arrested, even convicted, on poor quality DNA 'evidence', but if the system is broken, it's going to find a scapegoat, regardless of what it relies on.

This is one more tool to differentiate between the three different suspects you are holding. This is a way to exculpate the poor bastard held for 20 years.

More information, more accurate information means a greater possibility for more accurate results.

Demand more of your police. Hold them to higher standards. Denying them better tools for fear that they won't use them well, or may abuse them leads nowhere.

Re:Not so fast!

[Cyberax]

You can always do full sequencing or microarray SNP analysis if you have actual samples. This will pretty much guarantee that there are no false positives, even in the case of twins.

Re:Not so fast!

[SirAstral]

Nope, looking at it completely the right way.

The problem does not even approach false arrest and conviction... the problem starts at just becoming a suspect. And your none of that gets worse because of a new vector is not represented in the math. The more suspects the police can create the more they get to put in jail. This also has knock on effects for people with past convictions... sure just one more on the pile won't hurt, and you surely will not get into trouble if you happen to still be on probation while being falsely suspected either huh?

Stopping the police from going database shopping for DNA like this IS trying to hold them to a higher standard. I am not denying them better tools, I am denying them a bad tool that they definitely won't use well and will definitely abuse.

Like you said...
"More information, more accurate information means a greater possibility for more accurate results."

This is what I want to demand!

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

> exact match
No. This is not how DNA tests work.
They choose a limited number of markers and if all of those match it is considered exact.
DNA testing is only really accurate when you are matching against a limited number of suspects. If you have a database of 50% of people in the US, even if you limit to only white males or some shit, the chance of having false positives will be increased.

Re: Not so fast!

[houghi]

We should have different word for suspect where there is no evidence at all. Call it them a "wicher" as in "wich" person do we label guilty? To determine the guilt, trow them into water. If this "Wich" floats,it is guilty if it drowns, innocent.

Re:Not so fast!

[The Cynical Critic]

DNA tests not being absolutely 100% accurate has been known since law enforcement started using it as a tool to solve crimes. Anyone raising alarm right now is either decades late or just trying to stir up manufactured controversy.

The reason why DNA testing is so popular is that a false positive is a literally a one-in-a-million type scenario, which makes it several orders of magnitude more accurate and less likely to provide a false positive than any other investigative tool law enforcement has at it's disposal. There's a reason why a large part of the people who have been convicted and then found innocent in cases from before the use of DNA evidence became widespread have been done so using DNA testing.

In other words, like any of the investigative tools available to law enforcement, DNA testing is not absolutely 100% accurate, but it is several orders of magnitude more accurate than any other tool available to law enforcement meaning that if you're going to raise alarm over it's accuracy, you ought to raise an even bigger alarm over every other tool they have at their disposal.

Re:Not so fast!

[AmiMoJo]

There needs to be more come-back for police who fail to properly investigate DNA evidence before making arrests. If they didn't account for the possibility of false positives before arresting someone, they need to be punished. Arrest should not be an investigatory technique, hoping that the suspect will crack under the pressure of questioning.

Re:Not so fast!

[jrumney]

DNA tests often only test a small subset of information which means that false positives are possible

The police seem to be aware of this. In the article I read yesterday, it said they confirmed the match with a second fresh DNA sample they collected, and presumably did a full forensic DNA test on, before getting the arrest warrant.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, false positive of 1 in a million, but the problem is that in the past we didn't really have databases with millions of people in them.

Re: Not so fast!

[DNS-and-BIND]

The Innocence Project exonerated thousands of men unjustly imprisoned. The #1 crime they were falsely accused of? Rape.

Re:Not so fast!

[gweihir]

In other words, an ideal guy to take the fall, even if innocent.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to throw shit on other peoples theory as much as the next guy, but I guess a man with wife and children are that bit less prone to "heinous crimes", even if the only reason would be lack of free time to do it.

Re: Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Witch.

Re:Not so fast!

[The Cynical Critic]

It doesn't change the fact that DNA testing is still multiple orders or magnitude more accurate than any other tools to solve crimes and it's not used as the only piece of evidence in a case. On the whole DNA keeps considerably more innocent people out of prison than it puts them in prison.

Re:Not so fast!

[goose-incarnated]

Yea, still not a good thing, look at how society reacts to just being a suspect, you are now mostly guilty until proven innocent. Wives will divorce husbands, working fathers will be fired from good jobs, people that know them will ostracize and avoid them, they could lose access to their own children.

/quote> All of that only applies to male suspects, not to female suspects. Females get the benefit of doubt in all cases against males. You need relaly good evidence to convince someone that the female committed a crime, and even when you do get the evidence the female usually gets a much lighter penalty than a male.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

"bite marks", "hair matching", "bullet metallurgy", "shaken baby syndrome" "trained dogs" forensic science's every promise of certainty is broken with the passage of time and a better knowledge of the world.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

>While the chances of false positives are low,

The chance of false positives are not low, they are in fact very high. The matching chance of two samples is one in five millions (for some currently used tests) considering the whole US population (or world population). BUT

- the matching is never done over the whole population but the population of a specific place where people have long common genetic history or lineage. The variations are not geographically uniformly distributed. The false positive rate in any subarea of the US is significantly higher than the numbers announced by law enforcement officials.
- there is a non-negligible chance of mishandling by the labs (there is a long history of fraud in the domain, human error, contamination, ...), the police, ...
- the matching is not done between two samples. The matching is done between a list of samples vs a very big database of samples (size n). 1 - ((5E6-1)/5E6)^n. The chance of a sample getting a match in a database of 300000 samples is 1-(4999999/5000000)^300000 = 5% without taking into account the geographical non-uniformity of the genetic variants or the chance of mishandling.

Those kind of tests only are valid when taking two specific samples, not a sample vs a big database.

Re:Not so fast!

[tehcyder]

As long as there is other matching evidence I am more agreeable with the testing, but if the only evidence is DNA match that is just not enough.

No prosecutor is going to win a case based on a single piece of evidence, DNA or otherwise.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong. The tests are made to compare one sample vs one sample. The one-in-a-million type scenario is for one sample vs one sample. Law enforcement nearly never uses those tests in this setting but one sample vs a big database of samples. And this is far from the one-in-a-million type scenario.

The matching chance of two samples is one in five millions (for some currently used tests) considering the whole US population (or world population). BUT the matching is not done between two samples. The matching is done between a list of samples vs a very big database of samples. The chance of a sample getting a match in a database of 300000 samples is 1-(4999999/5000000)^300000 = 5% without taking into account the geographical non-uniformity of the genetic variants or the chance of mishandling.

Re:Not so fast!

[j-beda]

It doesn't change the fact that DNA testing is still multiple orders or magnitude more accurate than any other tools to solve crimes and it's not used as the only piece of evidence in a case. On the whole DNA keeps considerably more innocent people out of prison than it puts them in prison.

Sure, but calling for better use of tools, and better understanding of statistics is important. If your tool has a false positive rate of "one-in-a-million", and you test the entire population, you are going to find at least 7600 suspects out of a world population of 7.6 billion. The odds of any one of those being "the one" are pretty small. Restricting your pool of people to test to those mostly likely to be the criminal (ie those in the appropriate location at the appropriate time) decreases the number of people falsely accused.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

As somebody playing an individual competitive sport, I can confirm you that more than 50% of the players are prone to sudden outbursts. I can easily extrapolate to the whole population.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the case goes through plea bargain (90%). Prosecutors are using mob tactics: press insane number of insane charges (maximum risk: life in jail or death, average risk : high, minimal risk: none), drop every thing but one if agreed to plead guilty (average risk: low, same max or min). A lot of innocent men plead guilty in the us. Prosecutors do not need to win a case, they just need to intimidate people.

Re:Not so fast!

[Hognoxious]

Perhaps you should learn the difference between arrest and conviction, and the respective levels of proof required.

Why are you on your high horse? Been collared for looking at jihadi websites again, have you?

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

BTK anyone?

Re: Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

she turned me into a newt!

Re:Not so fast!

[AmiMoJo]

Wait... Do you think I'm an Islamist or something?

Re: Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

The statistical chance of a DNA false positive is far less than the number of people on the planet. It is as sure as death and taxes.

Re:Not so fast!

[angel'o'sphere]

You are not?
I always thought your name is an anagram of islamis. But now I notice the lack of a "T".

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

We already know that law enforcement is sloppy, lazy, and corrupt. Until accuracy and better controls on this data have been instituted then this is going to result in more innocent people getting fucked over while the real criminals get of Scott free with society ignorantly believe it has its man.

Totally agree. Having worked legal IT for almost twenty years and having heard all three sides (prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges), the first thing I'd be going after is investigation of parallel construction so that things 'fit the facts' no matter if he did it or not.

Re:Not so fast!

[The Cynical Critic]

I can see you really want to have a point, but as I already pointed out; DNA testing, or any other tool for the same purpose, is simply not used in isolation. With DNA testing you just don't get any closer to it being the sole piece of evidence than using it to zero in on a suspect and then investigating said suspect for further evidence, which is what happened here. The final case presented to the courts by prosecutors are always going to contain collections of evidence and it's clear this is no exception to that.

More traditional methods like blood type matching, analyzing cuts, bruises and spatter, psychological profiling, in-person interviews or chemical trace analysis are always going to have way more potential suspects and thus stand a much higher risk of trying to wrongfully convict someone. Complaining about the use of DNA testing when this is it's alternatives/complements is simply stupid. When what the prosecutor is basing their case on a one-in-a-million piece of evidence, proof that the man has a violent tendencies, lived in the area when the crimes took place and a bunch of other evidence you can't really complain about anything other than them potentially breaking the genealogy services' terms of service by entering the DNA of someone other than themselves.

You may have had a point had you aimed the same kind of criticism towards a tool as badly debunked as a lie detector, but not when it's the most accurate tool for solving crimes by country mile...

Re:Not so fast!

[ve3oat]

DNA tests often only test a small subset of information which means that false positives are possible

Anything less than a full genome test cannot produce a foolproof match, and it is up to the defense lawyers to convince the judge and jury that this is so. The 12 CODIS markers, so loved by law enforcement, are totally inadequate for proving identity. Even a 67/67 STR marker match of Y-chromosomes is not proof of identity and you have to test terminal SNPs to be sure that the "matching" men even belong to the same haplogroup.

I have been testing DNA for genealogy since 2007 and am appalled at the claims made by some DNA testing companies about the "matching" abilities of their products. As for law enforcement ... well, theirs is junk science.

Re:Not so fast!

[AmiMoJo]

"Ami" is short for Amiga. Back when I signed up that was my main machine.

But really, considering how often I speak in support of gay rights, trans rights, women's right, and how often I deride religion and Islam in particular... An anagram was enough to give you the wrong idea?

Re:Not so fast!

[HornWumpus]

I confess, I read (part of) the fucking article. They really should ban me for that.

They are burying the lead, deep. This scumbag was a COP.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

is a literally a one-in-a-million type scenario

There are 300 million people in the US. So for every person we want to find there's a chance we get one of the 299 others who are just unlucky?

Re:Not so fast!

[sjames]

But this does make it worse. It adds one more way a completely innocent person can be wrongly sucked into a system where even being accused has harmful consequences.

If you need to bust up a driveway, a jackhammer is a much better tool than a hammer. You're damned right I'm inclined to deny that better tool to a bunch of 8 year olds who want to look for treasure.

Re:Not so fast!

[sjames]

We HOPE so, but consider that by "exact match" they do not mean pair by pair over the whole genome. They mean as many as 12 sequences from the broken up DNA matched by mass.

Re:Not so fast!

[ceoyoyo]

Now that sequencing is so cheap, there's really no reason to use a handful of markers to compare, at least not for the actual prosecution.

Most of the arguments here seem to be along the lines of "cops are lazy and courts are dumb so DNA evidence is bad." Perhaps improving the quality of the justice system would be better than railing against a useful technology?

Re:Not so fast!

[ceoyoyo]

What seems to have been done is precisely the right way to do it. You use a high-ish specificity test like DNA marker analysis to screen potential matches (that screening pool is way less than 7.6 billion, by the way), then narrow the resulting pool using other evidence, including more precise DNA comparisons once you have probable cause to get a sample from the suspect himself.

Re:Not so fast!

[sjames]

The difference is that you're assuming police use the test appropriately. Evidence from the news suggests that far too often police jump at the first test that shows positive for anything. Kinda like the guy whose Krispy Kreme crumbs tested positive for meth using a notoriously inaccurate field test.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't call it the National Felon League for nothing. This is well known. People who have social issues turn to sports to overcompensate for their lack of adeptness in the rest of society.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Markers are useful for identification databases, it's easy to search for a match of 20 or so fixed markers. Once you get the match, there shouldn't be a problem with doing a full sequencing to remove any doubt.

Re:Not so fast!

[goose-incarnated]

There needs to be more come-back for police who fail to properly investigate DNA evidence before making arrests. If they didn't account for the possibility of false positives before arresting someone, they need to be punished. Arrest should not be an investigatory technique, hoping that the suspect will crack under the pressure of questioning.

No. There needs to be come-backs for judges who ignore the exact probability of a false positive in a particular case. If the prosecutor submits an incorrect false positive probability, then they need to face some penalties as well.

The cops only do the arresting. They don't lead the prosecution, they don't make a finding and they certainly don't hand out penalties.

Re:Not so fast!

[squiggleslash]

This is Slashdot. If you say that while you happen to disagree with their religion, you don't think all Muslims are rapists, do not see any legitimacy in deporting them or restricting their rights, and feel that terrified people who are fleeing persecution and war should be let in to your country even if they belong to a religion you're not terribly impressed by, then it means you're a liberal muslim hippie muslim atheist muslim muslim lover.

You should know that by now.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't give any specifics, but I have a relative who works for a county district attorny's office. I asked him about DNA evidence and he said it's not anything like how they show it on TV. The results rely, in a huge way, on who does the analysis and their personal thinking and biases come into play heavily.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

this

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, still not a good thing, look at how society reacts to just being a suspect, you are now mostly guilty until proven innocent. Wives will divorce husbands, working fathers will be fired from good jobs, people that know them will ostracize and avoid them, they could lose access to their own children.

/quote>

All of that only applies to male suspects, not to female suspects. Females get the benefit of doubt in all cases against males. You need relaly good evidence to convince someone that the female committed a crime, and even when you do get the evidence the female usually gets a much lighter penalty than a male.

Mentally insane people also get less of a sentence, and so do children. Why would it be different for women? They don't have the same mental faculties as a male adult, they should not be treated the same. They should, and are, held to a lower standard.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a slashdot thing. It's a reality thing. Plenty of people in the real world notice that feminists and Islamists are more alike than they are different. It's one (of many) reasons Hillary lost.

Feminists may SAY they're pro-women or pro-trans or whatever, but when it comes to ACTION, those priorities often take a back seat when it's between calling out Islam and attacking those evil racist bigoted conservatives for daring to criticize the religion of peace.

From the recent election cycle, I would say people started to notice around the time Sam Harris dared criticized Islam, and Ben Affleck flipped out on him. That's one reason for the left's loss in that election cycle.

See, people in reality don't think all Muslims are rapists, while still believe in tougher immigration controls. Your caricature of what they're thinking is just that, a highly inaccurate caricature (word of advice: you really shouldn't tell other people what they think, AmiMojo evens writes in his journal how much he hates it when it's done to him)

Re:Not so fast!

[squiggleslash]

Thanks for that. You just proved every single word of my comment correct while claiming the opposite, with your ludicrous assertions about Feminists and your unsubstantiated assertions that right wing jackasses aren't claiming Muslims are generally rapists when I can see with my own eyes that you fuckers are always making that claim. A great combination of obvious lying, mixed with "Wah wah Feminists aren't always attacking Muslims and won't join in when we call them all rapists so they must be anti-women and pro-Islam" - which is what I was criticizing you shitheads for.

Go back and re-read what you said... and then ask yourself if it really was the best way to debunk my views on you and your ilk.

Re:Not so fast!

[HornWumpus]

Similar but not exactly.

This guy was a cop, not a football player. Funny how they don't mention his status as an oinker.

Re:Not so fast!

[AmiMoJo]

I think this has to be the strangest thing anyone has ever said about me here. No offense to angel'o'sphere, but it's just bizarre.

Who ever heard of a feminist Islamist?

Re:Not so fast!

[clong83]

There's more to it than that from what I have read. He was married and had three kids and was raising them when most of the murders/rapes occurred. Got divorced in the early 90s, about the time the crimes stopped. Neighbors reported some epic screaming matches from the house that could be heard several houses away.

As further evidence, many of the surviving victims reported at the time that their attacker sobbed and would often talk about a woman named "Bonnie" while raping them. The guy they just arrested was engaged to a woman named Bonnie in the early 70s. They split up, apparently acrimoniously, and he married someone else. Then the rapes/murders started.

Moral? I guess if you are in such a toxic relationship that you have to go out and rape/kill people to chill out, you should probably get divorced before the 20-year rape and murder spree.

Re:Not so fast!

[angel'o'sphere]

I made a joke.
The parent called you an islamist, or something. I think he was an AC and below my threshold

How ever the Amiga relation is funny.

My name here comes from my pilot name when I used to play Descent, originally on Macs, and later many many multi player battles with PCs.

Re: Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

He was dirty cop and got fired for stealing.

Re:Not so fast!

[david_thornley]

Suspects are not routinely thrown into jail, and a detective is not going to have more than a limited number of hot suspects. If the police track down someone on DNA evidence, they aren't going to just increase the suspect pool. The DNA evidence is neutral in that regard.

There's plenty of ways people on probation can get associated with a crime. It may not be a solved problem, but it's not a new one.

Re:Not so fast!

[david_thornley]

It would be nice if you'd notice things in the real world.

Re:Not so fast!

[david_thornley]

Arson investigation techniques are real frightening, if you read up on them. So many false assumptions.

Re:Not so fast!

[BrianMarshall]

I imagine that this website has more than its share of loners.

Re: Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are women in the world who find it liberating to not feel a social pressure to wear sexualized clothing when they go out in public. Women who wish to be a sexual being to only one man. Some of these women wear a shroud out in public and relish their freedom to do so.

Re:Not so fast!

[Tony Isaac]

The probability of false matches depends entirely on which type of DNA test was used. The older tests, such as Y-DNA STR tests, looked at between 12 and 111 markers. Y-12 matches mean basically nothing. But modern autosomal testing compares between 400,000 and 900,000 markers (SNPs). These tests don't just yield "match" or "no match" results, but rather, measure the strength of the match in terms of centimorgans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... These tests can't always definitively tell the difference between "you" and a parent or child, but if your DNA strongly matches another person's, there is no way you aren't closely related.

Re:Not so fast!

[Tony Isaac]

This used to be true with older tests that only measured a few markers. But today's autosomal tests compare between 400,000 and 900,000 markers. When there's a close DNA match, there is no way you're not closely related. Sure, it might not be able to determine whether the match is your twin or your parent, but other forensic evidence can be used to exclude other close family members.

Re:Not so fast!

[AmiMoJo]

Thanks, I didn't see the AC.

Seriously, thanks, I can now legitimately say I've been assumed to be everything from a communist to a liberal to an Islamist.

Re: Not so fast!

[HornWumpus]

Fair enough, he was only a cop for the first 30 rapes. After that he was an ex-cop with lots of cop friends.

Re:Not so fast!

[Insanity Defense]

Similar but not exactly.

This guy was a cop, not a football player. Funny how they don't mention his status as an oinker.

Strange, pretty much every report I've seen has that front and center.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

You just proved every single word of my comment correct while claiming the opposite

I didn't claim anything "opposite" to you though. You said there's this slashdot thing where people conflate feminists and islamists. I'm pointing out that this isn't just a slashdot thing, and that it happens in outside in the real world too.

your ludicrous assertions about Feminists

I didn't make ludicrous assertions about feminists. I pointed to real life observations (instance of Affleck vs Harris), with real world consequences (Democrats losing the election). These are not assertions. These are facts.

right wing jackasses aren't claiming Muslims are generally rapists

I didn't say "right wing jackasses". I said "people in reality". You seem to want to paint every person who favors stronger immigration controls as "right wing jackasses", but they aren't the only ones who favor that. That you paint everyone who disagrees with you with such a heavy handed brush is what led me to call you on doing the very thing AmIMojo hates: telling other people what they think, even when they aren't thinking those things.

when I can see with my own eyes that you fuckers are always making that claim.

See above. Not every person who votes for Trump or wants tighter immigration controls all think "Muslims are generally bad" or whatever you tell them they're thinking.

You saw some right wingers claim what you say they claim? Good for you. I saw some that don't. And Trump said he saw Muslims cheering on 9/11. The plural of anecdote is not data.

It's highly ironic and hypocritical that you criticize right wingers for generalizing Muslims, but here you are generalizing right wingers.

"Wah wah Feminists aren't always attacking Muslims and won't join in when we call them all rapists so they must be anti-women and pro-Islam"

Where did you get the idea I was saying that? I pointed out at a very specific example: Afflect vs Harris, and Harris has always insisted he ISN'T saying all Muslims are bad people.

You are exactly what AmiMojo complains about in that journal. You're trying to tell me (and many other people) what I'm thinking, and when I tell you're got it wrong, you think I'm some shithead troll.

Go back and re-read what you said... and then ask yourself if it really was the best way to debunk my views on you and your ilk.

After you. You use terms like "you fuckers" and "you and your ilk" as if I'm part of this group of "right wing jackasses"

But why don't you go re-read my post and see if I actually presented my own position on anything. Hint: I didn't.

Re:Not so fast!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, thanks, I can now legitimately say I've been assumed to be everything from a communist to a liberal to an Islamist.

It's the horseshoe theory, where extreme left and extreme right end up being very similar

I mean, aren't you one of those people who like to point out just how similar the anti-SJWs are to the SJWs they complain about?

Well, that street goes both ways. As you have been fighting the anti-SJWs for so long, you've made your rep around here as part of the other extreme... but since both extremes are so similar, you're see as just as deplorable as the anti-SJWs you fight.

It would certainly explain your downmods and general treatment.

Or you could be like Trump and keep telling yourself you have done nothing wrong, and the downmods are all because of the haters and right wing globalists out trying to get you.

Re:Not so fast!

[HornWumpus]

Not TFA. It's buried deep.

Such good access

[whoda]

So geneology websites are secretely feeding their data to the government? They make it sound like they simply put his data into a 'DNA search engine' on the internet and got a match.

How distant was the 'distant relative' that they got the original DNA hit from I wonder?

Re:Such good access

[93 Escort Wagon]

How distant was the 'distant relative' that they got the original DNA hit from I wonder?

It was Lucy.

Re:Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the feds have been digging all the biohazard waste our of the dumpser behind 23andME for some time.

Re:Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

I think "DNA search engine" is exactly how some of them work. You send in your DNA sample, and in a couple weeks you get back information on yourself and some close matches of people that also sent in their DNA, so you can find relatives you didn't know you had. Pretty frequently there's a story about somebody accidentally finding their biological parents or oops, their real dad, through the matches they get back from these services. I imagine its just a terms of service thing telling you to please not send in DNA that isn't yours. Probably way easier for law enforcement to just cough up the $100 and send in whatever sample they want than to try to compel one of these companies to cooperate.

Re:Such good access

[omnichad]

They used an ancestry-type DNA service and submitted it as if they were a consumer. These sites match you up with potential relatives already. The government didn't really need anything other than the DNA service's risky privacy policy.

Re:Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Lucy.

I can see it. She was always bullying Charlie Brown. It's not inconceivable someone else in the family would have the evil gene.

Re:Such good access

[Dorianny]

They are not so secretly selling access to their data to anyone that is willing to pay! Why do you think they are so eager to analyze your spit so cheaply. Match it up with other big data and it's marketers dream, imagine being able to identify targets that fit the genetic profile of people predisposed to poor impulse control.

Most likely the investigators simply bought access in order to avoid getting one of those pesky search warrants

Re: Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

YUM YUM yeeeeeah baby YuMMMY!!

Re:Such good access

[jrumney]

I don't think the website is knowingly sharing data with law enforcement without a warrant. I'm guessing the cops created a fake profile for "John Doe", uploaded the DNA sequence they had from the crime scene, and started tracing through the families of the "probable distant cousins" that it identified, filling in the gaps in the family trees from government birth records, which they have complete access to (while the general public and genealogy site generally only has easy access to historic data).

Re:Such good access

[jrumney]

You also get a digitally encoded version of your DNA sample back from most of these companeis, which you can enter into other websites. I'm guessing they used this, as the decades old DNA samples they had from the crime scene are unlikely to be in a form that can be analyzed by these consumer DNA test labs.

Re: Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus is clean, man.

Re:Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

So geneology websites are secretely feeding their data to the government?

Which was pretty much inevitable. Government has been using Third-party doctrine for years now:

The third-party doctrine is a United States legal theory that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties -- such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and e-mail servers -- have "no reasonable expectation of privacy." A lack of privacy protection allows the United States government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment prohibition against search and seizure without probable cause and a judicial search warrant.

If you put information in the hands of a private corporation, you also have pretty much put it in the hands of law enforcement if they decide they want it ... and they won't require a warrant or judicial oversight to get it.

How anybody is acting surprised by this is a mystery to me.

Barring new laws, or new court rulings, every single bit of information you voluntarily hand over to a corporation is within the reach of law enforcement.

I just can't fathom why people would voluntarily provide DNA samples to a for-profit company. Even without the third-party doctrine, it's a terrible idea in terms of privacy. With the existence of the third-party doctrine, this kind of thing is pretty much inevitable.

If you didn't see this coming, you haven't been listening to those of us pointing out that this was only a matter of "when", not "if".

Re:Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, win the Internet.

Re: Such good access

[Anonymous Coward]

something tells me you would like to comsume my DNA, orally

Bite your fingernails?

Re:Such good access

[EdwardFurlong]

I kind of doubt that is the case, as a consumer you submit a tube of saliva.

For 23andMe you can read their transparency report

https://www.23andme.com/transp...

"Under certain circumstances Personal Information may be subject to disclosure pursuant to judicial or other government subpoenas, warrants, or orders, or in coordination with regulatory authorities. However, we use all practical legal and administrative resources to resist such requests. In the event we are required by law to make a disclosure, we will notify you in advance, unless doing so would violate the law or a court order."

Re:Such good access

[EdwardFurlong]

I don't think they are secretly feeding their data, see 23andMe transparency report

Under certain circumstances Personal Information may be subject to disclosure pursuant to judicial or other government subpoenas, warrants, or orders, or in coordination with regulatory authorities. However, we use all practical legal and administrative resources to resist such requests. In the event we are required by law to make a disclosure, we will notify you in advance, unless doing so would violate the law or a court order.

https://www.23andme.com/transp...

Re:Such good access

[omnichad]

It's not like the sequencers can only find DNA in skin cells from your saliva. A small amount of blood or semen mixed with a carrier liquid will probably work just fine.

Re:Such good access

[EdwardFurlong]

I'm just saying they probably did not submit a sample as if they were a consumer.

Re:Such good access

[omnichad]

All the major providers have officially denied having any involvement. They probably did act as consumer - there would be no need to go through official channels with how lax the privacy policies seem to be.

Re:Such good access

[EdwardFurlong]

The major providers require a vial of saliva, how would they pose as a consumer?

Re:Such good access

[drjoe1e6]

THIS is why I read "news for nerds." Thank you for a great laugh.

Re:Such good access

[Actually, I do RTFA]

And it doesn't matter if you participate. All that matters is that your blood relative does.

Re:Such good access

[HornWumpus]

Send them a tube of saline with a crime scene sample dissolved in it. Duh.

Re:Such good access

[Tony Isaac]

No. Raw DNA results are standardized and compatible. The police could simply use the DNA data from their forensics lab, and upload it directly to GEDMatch. No genealogy Website needed to be involved other than GEDMatch (which was listed in the story).

Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Investigators then obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called "abandoned" DNA samples from Mr. DeAngelo. "You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain," she said.

THIS is the part one really needs to worry about. Is it abandonment, or is a search warrant needed since it's "our person"?

Re: Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch Gattaca. A legal drug test can become an illegal peek at your dna. Prescient.

Re:Abandonment?

[dohzer]

The reality is that there's nothing to worry about unless you're a criminal, or wish to purchase health insurance without being denied based on a DNA analysis.

Re:Abandonment?

[borcharc]

This is the response of tyrants. The old if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide. Fuck that, privacy is paramount to catching "bad guys".

Re:Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

The third-party doctrine strikes again.

Re:Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the flip side to leaving your DNA in a public place called "House Arrest?"
Ooops, "House arrest with on-site garbage dump".
Nope, still not enough: "House arrest with on-site garbage dump, HEPA filtration on ventilation exits, sewer incineration, and no visitors ever?"

Re:Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Discarded biological material containing things such as your saliva, hair, or fingerprints are fair game for police to examine without a warrant.
They have been doing this for over 20 years, including duping suspects with offering a drink of water or soda and taking the discarded container for testing. Courts have generally ruled that a person has no expectation of privacy in discarded genetic material, just as there is no expectation of privacy with fingerprints left in a public place. Also, the Supreme Court ruled in California v. Greenwood (1988) that the 4th Amendment did not apply when the police searched trash bags left on the curb by a suspected drug dealer.

Re: Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. That's paranoid schizophrenia. A luddite variant of it, in fact.

Re:Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

woosh

Re:Abandonment?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that was sarcasm, without the /

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to commit a crime, make sure you spread as much random DNA around as possible. Grab an ashtray full of cigarette butts and a plastic bag full of used disposable coffee cups on the way and scatter all those other people's DNA samples all over the scene before you flee. Drown that crime scene in other people's DNA.

Re:so...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to commit a crime, make sure you spread as much random DNA around as possible. Grab an ashtray full of cigarette butts and a plastic bag full of used disposable coffee cups on the way and scatter all those other people's DNA samples all over the scene before you flee. Drown that crime scene in other people's DNA.

Better to torch the entire crime scene and in so doing destroy all DNA on site. You're overthinking it, son.

Re:so...

[tehcyder]

If you're going to commit a crime, make sure you spread as much random DNA around as possible. Grab an ashtray full of cigarette butts and a plastic bag full of used disposable coffee cups on the way and scatter all those other people's DNA samples all over the scene before you flee. Drown that crime scene in other people's DNA.

Better to torch the entire crime scene and in so doing destroy all DNA on site. You're overthinking it, son.

Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Abandonment:national database.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it's abandoned, there's nothing keeping one from forming a national registration database accountable to no one.

Re:Abandonment:national database.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

So government csn go wandering around a public mall during a concert, taking pictures and dna samples of the people as they touch stuff and walk away and building a database of it all?

Here I thought an omnipresent eye in the sky over major cities (where a super high res camera takes a picture of the city every few seconds so they can track vehicles leaving crime scenes after the fact [and whatever else they want] back to its source) was a panopticon terror.

This has to eventually come out.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's going to be a trial of some sort, and which database they used will eventually come out.

Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's pretty nice they finally nabbed a guy whom they think is the killer. Still have to give him a fair trial, as is due.

But no, this is already very, very disturbing. To wit: "You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain" the goverment official says. Yes you do, everywhere, involuntary. Meaning that to have any privacy left you can't go to any public place. In fact, if you want to have any privacy left, you can't have any relative, even a distant one, go to any public place, ever. This "a public place" starts right at your door. Hey, even your airco's exhaust is public, and it will contain your dna, so... etc.

So while I don't disagree it's nice to have finally found a very likely suspect in the case (but still only a suspect, not convicted yet!), to do it they had to destroy all privacy forever. "Only for murder cases" you say. I have seen in other cases and fully expect to see here that it won't stay that way. Soon it'll be for everything, down to getting loans, or even China style, for getting on the bus. So no.

I don't think destroying all privacy forever to nab a suspect is such a good idea.

Re: Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

How does what happened here, or what is likely to happen with this kind of DNA testing 'destroy all privacy'?

It seem a little luddite to react in such a shrill fashion.

I know conspiracy theories can be constructed. Still, there are many, many aspects of privacy that are completely untouched by this tech.

Re: Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now you're only looking for my tin-foil hat.
Come back when you're ready to turn on your brain and entertain argument.

Re: Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

just keep letting them move the goal line you dope

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[GrumpySteen]

What part of "go to a public place" made you think you would be in a private place where nobody would know you had been there?

Public places are not private. Finding your DNA in a public place doesn't destroy your privacy any more than people seeing you in a public place does.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

I just saw an article the other day about people's DNA getting to places they've never been. It happens and it happens a lot. Your DNA gets picked up by someone else, transported somewhere you've never been, and transferred onto things you've never touched. Like others have said, your DNA then appears somewhere the serial killer has been to or it's on something he's known to have touched. Now you're the prime suspect and they will destroy your life whether or not you're found innocent after several years of harassment and trial, even if you're never tried there's a good chance everyone you know would still think you could be guilty. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[liquid_schwartz]

I don't think destroying all privacy forever to nab a suspect is such a good idea.

There goes your social credit score as described here: https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, It's great they caught the presumed killer if he did it, but I have serious concerns both for the suspect and long term consequences.

For the suspect, I like it when multiple avenues of evidence point to guilt. Currently, as far as we know, this is only based on DNA evidence (which I normally trust). But in this case, the DNA was deemed similar to DNA of relatives. The fact that this guy's DNA is similar to that of his relatives is not surprising. I'm not sure the same "1 in whatever million match" math applies when the suspect is picked from a pool of people already sharing similar DNA. I'd be much more weary of this DNA evidence than I would for when a suspect is arrested and then a sample is taken. If they find more evidence (like momentos from victims, diaries, etc), then of course there is no problem, but on DNA evidence alone, it might not be enough to convict. I just hope they got a search warrant for the "discarded DNA" or this case will get messy.

The long term repercussions are even worse, as you say. I don't see it unlikely that in the future, background tests will be required for all sorts of positions (including politicians). The idea that such DNA could, in the future, be checked against any sample found within the last 100+ years to any brothel, adult video store, gay night club, adult movie theater, bookie, gambling joint, or anywhere else you may not be inclined to advertise on your facebooks or twitters spells a grave danger to democracy as a whole. Just imagine the campaign ads that will result if opposition research gets wind of any bad/questionable/embarrassing decision ever made in your life. It disqualifies practically everyone from politics except for the person/people controlling the database, and that's not democracy at that point.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[ckaminski]

I believe the Founding Fathers would have considered DNA subject to 4th amendment protections. IE: Get a warrant.

I cannot control where I shed skin and hair.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[Hognoxious]

I cannot control where I shed skin and hair.

Yes you can. I have a 100% proven method for not shedding skin and hair in Gorky Park. It could probably work for other locations too.

Re: Sorry, I don't think so

[rogoshen1]

If the government was to create a database of every citizen's DNA (or realistically due to network effects; some fraction of the population) people would be justifiably horrified.

If a private company starts down that road, it's the reaction of a Luddite to find that disconcerting?

The problem is that in the current US political and technological landscape. The line between what the government *WANTS* and what it can do *ITSELF* is utterly irrelevant:

"Hi Mr. 23 and me CEO? Hi yes, i'm so and so from the DOJ; I'm calling because we're going to need full access to your customer data on an ongoing basis. Unless you want to be strung up for obstructing justice. Yes of course you'll have our total discretion. Thank you."

And this is before any backdoors are built into networking equipment and the like. Don't be naive, if it exists electronically and/or is on US soil, anything a private company can build, the government with the right rubber stamped document can access.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

"to have any privacy left" is a dishonest way of praising it as you never had any privacy at all in those cases.

People have been able to track your movements and activities for all of human history and people who were worth the effort were tracked. You had an illusion of privacy provided you were uninteresting enough to not be worth tracking at the relatively high cost, of a PI's time. However that's security through obscurity which as anyone on slashdot should know is equivalent to "unsecured".

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[Rakarra]

I'm pretty sure my cats, who are indoor only and have never been outside the house (except to the vet) have their DNA all over the city at the places I visit by now.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[david_thornley]

If I go somewhere and leave DNA, I can also be visually spotted. If someone is tracking me, they can use either or both methods. If nobody is tracking me, my DNA is going to go away pretty soon. Somebody will throw away the napkin or wash the flatware. I'm going to leave a more lasting trail from people seeing me or security camera footage.

If I'm asking for a loan from the bank, they're going to want assurance that I'm me, They're going to look at documents, not DNA. If they care where I've been, as I said, they're going to find it easier to get from eyewitnesses than DNA.

They can search my trash for my DNA, but only if they're actually suspicious of me.

There are serious threats to privacy in the modern world. I don't see that this is one of them.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[Agripa]

But no, this is already very, very disturbing. To wit: "You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain" the goverment official says. Yes you do, everywhere, involuntary.

As far as the court is concerned, "a place that is a public domain" includes an interrogation room where the police hold you until you have shed enough DNA to collect there. Why do they even *have* warrants to collect DNA?

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop pretending public transportation is actually a thing in the US like China. Can't exactly take it away.

Re:Sorry, I don't think so

[painandgreed]

I'm pretty sure my cats, who are indoor only and have never been outside the house (except to the vet) have their DNA all over the city at the places I visit by now.

It's a good way to make sure nobody makes a polyjuice potion out of your hair

Let me guess

[Plumpaquatsch]

He wanted to find out if he had any famous rapists in his ancestry.

Abandoned samples?

[Anonymous Coward]

We love such vague descriptions.

How was it, someone offered to blow him, and kept his sperm in her mouth?

Re:Abandoned samples?

[gweihir]

More likely the went through his trash.

Re:Abandoned samples?

[HornWumpus]

The south park vice cop was on the job.

Prosecutor's fallacy

[recrudescence]

Isn't what is described in the summary the very definition of the prosecutor's fallacy?

Re:Prosecutor's fallacy

[david_thornley]

The summary described police looking for a suspect. That's not a prosecutor's fallacy. If the prosecutor tried presenting the DNA as the only evidence, and insisted that it was definitive, that would be the prosecutor's fallacy.

Re:Prosecutor's fallacy

[recrudescence]

But this is exactly what happened (at least according to the summary and the article). They weren't looking to confirm De Angelo's DNA in particular and found that it matched. They were just "looking" for a suspect in the sense of finding someone with a DNA match (via the genealogy website trick). The 'suspect' was only labelled a suspect *after* being linked to the case via DNA evidence. What is happening is that now they have a suspect thanks to DNA, they're trying to back-splain how he committed the crime and how his role as a police officer had something to do with it. This is not a person previously suspected of these crimes (at least not according to the summary and article). The chances of subsequently then matching "abanadoned samples" is not "further incriminating evidence"; the chances of abandoned DNA profile matching the crime scene DNA after his DNA profile was selected on the basis that it matches the crime scene DNA is not a 'wow' moment. This has exactly a probability of 1 (minus noise).

Re:Prosecutor's fallacy

[david_thornley]

They have other evidence that, if they'd found it earlier, would have marked the guy as a suspect, such as his location at the times of the crimes. Enough further evidence to warrant a conviction? I don't know.

Re:Hillary for President in 2020

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG!

"Abandoned" DNA samples are a very bad precedent

[gweihir]

The idea basically means anybody can legally sequence your DNA. That is not good at all and the problems far outstrip any positive uses.

still thinking

[AndyKron]

I'm still thinking of a reason to go on living in this world, but so far I've come up empty.

Re:still thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

The thinking is the reason. You won't be here to see who wins.

Re:Yes, your garbage can be used as evidence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Moran. This is not new law.

Why do you think the Police offer suspects a cup of coffee? Protip: It's not just good manners.

Re:Hillary for President in 2020

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if they make co-ed prison visitation easier for non-congenital purposes. Otherwise Trump will be lonely without her and Ivanka.

Check Other Police Officers For Zodiac Killer

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't help thinking that DeAnegelo was able to avoid detection so long because he was an insider, a cop. This made me think the Zodiac Killer could also be a cop. It's worth investigating!

"abandoned" DNA ?

[misnohmer]

"You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain,"

So any DNA found in a public space is considered public domain? I can collect DNA from any public space and use it any way I want, including selling it or any information I gather from it (genetic predisposition to diseases, etc).?

Re:"abandoned" DNA ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect "abandoned" is a less alarming way to say they dug through his trash cans to find a discarded napkin.

Claiming "Abandoned" and "Public Domain" is a lot easier than convincing a judge that a report from 23andMe is probable cause for a search warrant.

This could harm genealogical and police research.

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time they uploaded the DNA sample, the cops wouldn't have known the name of the suspect, correct? So whose name did they use when creating a profile to send this sample to the testing service? I suppose it would be okay if they used "First Name: Murder / Last Name: Suspect", but if they just made up a random name for the purposes of getting on the website, imagine how many other profiles with fake names created by cops are floating around these sites, creating false relations (at least in name, even though technically blood is positive) for all sorts of people trying to do their family tree. Furthermore, these false relations could impede police investigations. Unless every police department on every level of government around the entire world is keeping each other informed on which online DNA genealogy profiles they've set up for investigations, they'll be leading each other around on all kinds of false directions, spending all kinds of resources chasing down the wrong suspect just because of some matching uncommon last name in a database.

DNA is a perfect match, however...

[tomhath]

If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit.

Re:DNA is a perfect match, however...

[Anonymous Coward]

if the poo is pee you must agree

Re:DNA is a perfect match, however...

[Rakarra]

If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit.

if the poo is pee you must agree

Burma Shave

Ah, geneology sites...

[jenningsthecat]

They're the genetic counterpart of Facebook. Even when you explicitly don't sign on for that crap, you're still swept up in it. It's good that they caught the guy and all; but it's going to be bad when insurance companies and potential employers use genealogy databases to deny coverage and jobs to blood relatives of those who have 'undesirable' or 'risky' something-something-somethings.

Re:Ah, geneology sites...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect they've been quietly doing this for a while, and waiting for a high-profile case to cement a precedent; it's the DNA equivalent of the San Bernardino iPhone incident.

Sacremento D.A. Mis-states the law

[Anonymous Coward]

"You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain,"

Um. No. "Public domain" is a term from copyright law. Places aren't public domain.

GDPR VIOLATION?

[Anonymous Coward]

To me they gave away sensitive personal information. GDPR violation?

Not that Iâ(TM)m against catching a serial killer. The people of the world need to be careful they are not giving away their rights, and identity.

Re: This could harm genealogical and police resear

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply having the same last name doesn't create any kind of relation, Mr. Smith.

DNA info sold to health insurance companies!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like Facebook.... A fun way to share your life with friends and family... AND be owned by NSA, government and Advertiser's.

Do you really think these DNA site don't get tons of revenue from Health Insurance Companies?!?
I would not be surprised if they were owned by insurance companies. "Let's start a company where people actually willingly give us their DNA so we can jack their rates if we find them at any risk for...."

WAKE UP!

Keep EVERYTHING PRIVATE!

Re:DNA info sold to health insurance companies!!

[Actually, I do RTFA]

At least for now, it's illegal to charge people different rates based on their DNA profiles (part of Obamacare.) Of all the uses, I'm least scared about that - it's hard for me to imagine that politically changing (although, of course it will.). Being tracked everywhere in an inescapable fashion... that's terrifying. The medical benefits are the only upside.

Re:"Abandoned" DNA samples are a very bad preceden

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of all the problems Stingray's cause, even though most of the infrastructure is owned by someone else, and phone operation is in the public domain. The only thing that's private is the data on the phone itself, and Stingray doesn't need that. The law's basically haven't caught up to what technology allows. And there's no incentive for the state to give up this bonanza, since they're already complaining how encryption is stymieing them. They'll have to change because abandonment is a willful act, while what we do every day (shed) isn't.

Re:Hillary for President in 2020

[liquid_schwartz]

SHE WILL BE IN JAIL

I'm still pushing for the bi-partisan deal of locking up both Clinton, Trump, and at least a few dozen more high profile law breakers. Keep doing it in pairs, one D and one R, so allow it to move forward without claims of being partisan. Both parties shield *many* lawbreakers.

Re:Hillary for President in 2020

[GLMDesigns]

ha. ha. ha. Thanks for the lulz.

Re:Hillary for President in 2020

[mschuyler]

"Congenital"? I don't think that word means what you think it means, but tanks for the laugh. P.S. Try "conjugal"

Some modest proposals

[Joe Branya]

A few years ago somebody got the list of porn tapes a supreme court justice had rented. Suddenly we had a privacy crisis. Soon a law was passed "protecting" these records from public disclosure. The lesson is simple; if we want to have our privacy protected we must invade the privacy of our rulers- the President, the legislators, the judges and all the public figures including the network anchors and the late night TV hosts. They hate being exposed but more than that they hate being laughed at for enjoying an occasional sperm facial tape.

So the hunt is on. Want to know who Bill Clinton's daddy really is? Why just grab an "Abandoned DNA sample" (meaning a water glass he has sipped from) and get a street person to submit it for $79 to 23AndMe or one of the other sites as "My DNA". Then follow the GEDMatch instructions and upload the results. Voila! Party Time. Map Bill's real family

Is Alen Dershowitz 100% Jewish? Is Bill Clinton's real father the lawyer all the locals in Hope, AK think he is? How many Congressmen knocked up a girl in high school ? MLK? Are you a Kennedy? Who in media is part black or part Neanderthal? How many half-sisters and brothers does Sigourny Weaver have lurking in the bushes out in Scarsdale (her daddy Pat was a handsome devil)? You too might be an heir to the Bronfman fortune, one of Charles Manson's kids or General George Patton's grandson..... Family reunions will be a lot more interesting.

Of course our rulers will be shocked, truly shocked, and quickly pass laws to shut down the party but the genetic cat will be out of the bag and some 18 year-old will found D-NApster and host the Obama DNA in Iceland or Tuvalu. Imagine the new forms of blackmail and international terrorism... A bit of Bill Cosby's medicine cabinet to put you to sleep and you wake up and find some Rumanian kid is selling your eggs or sperm on Alibaba...

Re:Some modest proposals

[HornWumpus]

Better question: Who is Chelsea's dad? My money is on Web.

Re:Some modest proposals

[tomhath]

A few years ago somebody got the list of porn tapes a supreme court justice had rented.

Citation needed.

You're probably thinking of the confirmation of Robert Bork when Democrats were pulling out everything they could think of to obstruct the nomination. Thirty years later and they're still at it.

Bork seems to have become the catalyst for legislation designed to prohibit video store owners from divulging lists of customers` video rentals. The issue first surfaced during Bork`s confirmation hearings, when a Washington newspaper published lists of the judge`s video rentals during the last several years. The films were general releases such as ``Ruthless People,`` ``The Man Who Knew Too Much`` and ``A Day at the Races``; there were no X-rated rentals.

Re:Some modest proposals

[cstacy]

Blockbuster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You meant false negative

[FeelGood314]

The false positive is guaranteed if my sample size is large enough. If I test for 20 markers that have 2 values each, and I test 1 million people I will likely find a match to you. (More if the distribution of each marker isn't 50/50).

However if you have a known sample of the perpetrator (say a semen sample), and the DNA doesn't match then you are pretty much 100% sure the suspect is innocent.

Not in your own control

[Diddlbiker]

What struck me was the fact that it was the relatives they got the genetic data from. It doesn't matter that you carefully avoid submitting your DNA to ancestry sites (or other DNA sampling sites); if your family does, you can still be traced.

Of course there's the mandatory but what about the children retort, but as others pointed out... today is murder and rape. Tomorrow it's watching kinky pr0n. And next week it's protesting fascists.

And yes, the same technology can be used to prove someone is innocent in jail. Pray tell me, what are these cases where the government does not give up over decades to prove they jailed the wrong guy? Because I have a hard time believing anyone who's innocent will benefit from this.

words

[fyngyrz]

lead --> lede

Re:words

[HornWumpus]

Anibody who ownly nos won wey two spel a word hase know emagenation.

Re:Hillary for President in 2020

[Rakarra]

I know this is a joke, but I'm trying to figure out under what circumstance Hillary could POSSIBLY be President before 2020. It's some bizarre civics exercise, and I'm coming up with a blank for anything other than a Hillary-led government coup.

Re:Yes, your garbage can be used as evidence.

[Rakarra]

Moran. This is not new law.

Why do you think the Police offer suspects a cup of coffee? Protip: It's not just good manners.

Police have been offering cups of coffee for far longer than the very short time that we've been processing DNA. It's good manners, because you want a suspect to be relaxed. For a successful good cop/bad cop routine, you need the good cop.

Criminal twin

[Caerdwyn]

I have a twin brother who is a criminal with a lengthy record; the only reason he's not still a guest of the State of Washington is changes in Washington's Three Strike laws.

Like HELL I'm going to let these websites set me up for false accusation for his crimes.

By the way: if the government falsely accuses you of a crime and it costs you a six figure legal bill to defend yourself, too bad. You're out the money, and no prosecutor in the world gives a damn about that or has any incentives to not do so. Had to sell your house? Too bad.

Re:Criminal twin

[david_thornley]

If you've got an identical twin brother, you're immune from being convicted on DNA evidence alone.

Re:Criminal twin

[Caerdwyn]

And you are a criminal defense lawyer?

Even if what you say is true, that will not prevent me from being stalked by police, arrested, being falsely accused (with all the legal expenses and notoriety that entails), and my blood taken by force.

Like happened IN THIS CASE.

https://www.sfgate.com/busines...

Re:Hillary for President in 2020

[david_thornley]

Here it is:
1. Democrats control House in 2018 elections, so Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker in 2019. Democrats also get control of the Senate (much harder).
2. Trump and Pence are taken down by investigations somehow - resign, get convicted, whatever, without being able to nominate a new VP (or having the nominee stonewalled by the Democrat-controlled Senate).
3. President Pelosi nominates Hillary Clinton for VP, is confirmed by Senate.
4. Pelosi has a health issue or steps down or something.
5. Clinton becomes President.
6. ???
7. Profit!

Democrat control of the House is very likely, but the other necessities are a lot iffier. However, that gets her to be President without a coup.

Re: Hillary for President in 2020

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a blue wave coming in November.

Criminal coctail ddos

[Anonymous Coward]

Collect samples of "public domain" DNA from a group of criminals. Mix samples into a criminal coctail. Use PCR to amplify the known regions used in basic forensic DNA identification process. Repeat process until you have enough of the material to do a denial of service attack on the crime scene.

This process prevents mass screening of DNA by comparision against a database of the common markers. Join the club by donating your own DNA into the criminal coctail and you have plausible denialibity against basic DNA tests.

A proper DNA comparison against nonstandard marker positions still result in a match as the PCR based criminal coctail only contains short fragments of DNA.

Born in CA after 83?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've already got your DNA...

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/11/12/california-collects-owns-and-sells-infants-dna-samples/

Re: Hillary for President in 2020

[Anonymous Coward]

What law did Hillary break? She has been investigated over and over and found 'not guilty' in each ( though I doubt she was fully innocent ).
Trump and top GOP will go to prison, esp for treason, but Hillary will not.

This time it's different

[eric_harris_76]

The first guy they matched that way turned out not to be the one, on examination of his own DNA. Oopsie!

Re: Hillary for President in 2020

[ebvwfbw]

Where have you been? She hasn't been before a court yet to be found not guilty. From Comey's testimony, anyone else would be in jail. No doubt about it. There is no "intent" under the law. She violated the Espionage Act. There seems to be no doubt about that. Then there is the quid pro quo for Russia. Yes, she's colluded with the Russians. No doubt about that either. Uranium one deal, the 500K to her "foundation." Goes on and on from there. Seems to me there's a list of like 20 laws she's busted good. Depends on who is coming up with the list though. I'd settle for the ones that we know she's broken.

It's becoming clear that Comey, McCabe and so on also worked with people in Justice to not go after Democrats. It was a whole corrupt system under Obama. They all need to be rounded up and put in jail, for a long time. Guys, don't forget Holder.

Wonder if he'll beat it.

[ebvwfbw]

Talk about an ultimate game of where were you on the night of fill in ... what 48 blanks? He may be able to get the DNA stuff thrown out. It's California after all. Then, could they cause reasonable doubt. I'm thinking so. It would make a good Matlock show.

Reminds me of the bullshit with Thomas Jefferson and how black people want to say he raped someone instead of his brother doing it.. who probably really was the one all these years later.

Power of DNA

[trevrox]

See, everyone should have a DNA test done when they are born, that should be our birth certificate....