DNA can be gotten surreptitiously, and then vouched for or while a camera at the police stations verifies it.

This just makes it akin to fingerprinting..and another proof-positive that the person arrested is whom he/she says they are...and a side benefit is that the DNA could then be linked to previous crimes, so a rapist who gets busted for peeing on a building, does not get released on low bail.

If I were betting on it I would have bet they'd find that it's like a fingerprint and I'm not an attorney. But that seems to be a pretty obvious analogy even to me. I would have won the bet.

Here's the first sentence under "Held" in the opinion: "When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment."

The 4th Amendment is being ripped to shreds. If that's not an unreasonable search (of a citizen's DNA) and seizure (of a citizen's blood), then I can hardly imagine what an unreasonable search and seizure would be.

-Laelth

Perhaps it was an epithelial scrape of the inside of the cheek? I don't know. I haven't read the opinion, nor do I know the facts of the case that gave rise to the opinion.

I do know, however, that a DNA test requires some kind of seizure of some part of a human's body. A fingerprint also requires a temporary seizure (of the whole person), but not a permanent seizure of human tissue that will then be subjected to a very serious and detailed search. I don't like getting fingerprinted, personally, but I had to be fingerprinted in order to become an attorney. That's different because I consented to the search and seizure. Seizing the tissue of a citizen who is innocent until proven guilty strikes me as unreasonable. A DNA search is terribly invasive, and if my DNA isn't private, it's hard to imagine what is.

The Court has issued some questionable rulings on this subject. Urine is not private, for example, and it can be searched for drugs on the theory that it has been abandoned by its owner and its owner has no reasonable expectation of privacy in regard to their abandoned property. That strikes me as rather draconian, but it's better than saying no citizen has a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their DNA. That's way more police power than I am willing to stomach.

-Laelth

In 2003 a man concealing his face and armed with a gun
broke into a woman's home in Salisbury, Maryland. He
raped her. The police were unable to identify or appre
hend the assailant based on any detailed description or
other evidence they then had, but they did obtain from the
victim a sample of the perpetrator's DNA.

In 2009 Alonzo King was arrested in Wicomico County,
Maryland, and charged with first- and second-degree
assault for menacing a group of people with a shotgun. As
part of a routine booking procedure for serious offenses,
his DNA sample was taken by applying a cotton swab or
filter paper--known as a buccal swab--to the inside of his
cheeks. The DNA was found to match the DNA taken
from the Salisbury rape victim. King was tried and con
victed for the rape. Additional DNA samples were taken
from him and used in the rape trial, but there seems to be
no doubt that it was the DNA from the cheek sample
taken at the time he was booked in 2009 that led to his
first having been linked to the rape and charged with its
commission.

-------

Rapists don't usually leave fingerprints on their victims.

At least cheek swabs are unisex.

but a cheek swab is not?

To get DNA from a "hair sample", you have to rip out the hair so that the follicle is still attached. The follicle has DNA, because it's the cells that produce hair.

Forensic investigators look for two different types of DNA in a strand of hair. Traditionally they look for nuclear DNA (nDNA) which comes from the nucleolus and you can get that if the strand of hair as the follicle intact and not too damaged. This is primary, but you can still get DNA from the hair shaft itself without the use of the follicle. This is Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), and though this type of DNA has less information than nuclear DNA, it is very stable and that's great for investigators or scientists because you can even extract that type of DNA from mummies that are many thousands of years old. So if you're wondering if you can be caught by the police if all they have is a piece of hair with no follicle, yes you can! The downside of using mtDNA versus nDNA is mitochondrial DNA is passed on from the mother, so if you pluck 3 pieces of hair, one from the mother, one from the brother, and the other from the sister, they will ALL be identical. So in this case it is no good at determining who is who. But if it's a random murder site where the suspect is being matched with a hair shaft, they are able to make a positive ID match that hair.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_scientists_get_DNA_from_a_strand_of_hair

Because it's highly conserved.

Translated to English: Everyone's mitochondrial DNA is nearly identical. That makes it nearly useless for identification. Their example of a mother and her two kids is wrong. Because it doesn't go nearly far enough.

Let's say your suspect has siblings. They have identical mitochondrial DNA. As does their mother. As does their grandmother. As does their aunts and uncles. As does their cousins. As does their great aunts and great uncles. And so on.

Vast swaths of your family tree have the same mitochondrial DNA. The mutation rate is so low that you and your great, great, great, great grandmother probably have identical mitochondrial DNA. Along with every one of her descendants.

Further, let's say your family's Italian. Virtually all Italians will have nearly identical mitochondrial DNA. Which means you'd have to completely sequence the mitochondrial DNA in order to narrow down "all Italians" to "a massive swath of your family tree". Doesn't sound like a good use of $100k or so.

People, even smart people, believe too much of what they see on CSI.

At least you used to need it. The technology may have evolved since that was the case.

It's a sad day when I agree Scalia.

....but the only thing that surprises me as that Justice Scalia was on the correct side of an issue for once...

This is a HORRIBLE precedent and has some really nasty potential consequences, other than being in direct contradiction to the fourth amendment as the dissent notes...

Talk about a slippery slope...

And how is this significantly different than routinely collecting fingerprints from all arrested people? Other than "OMG IT'S NEW", it strikes me as pretty much the same thing.

...the cops arresting whomever they please for "serious crimes" just to get the DNA sample...just to name a few...

you get something that has been legally OK for decades.

What's so different between DNA collection and fingerprint collection?

ETA: Also, you're constantly shedding tons of cells full of DNA. There's no need for subterfuge to get a sample. You leave plenty of DNA on your trash.

...

At which point you're compelled to give a sample that is conclusively tied to you.

...want my DNA? Go get a warrant and show probable cause...at least that WAS the case until today..

It's not like people normally put their garbage in front of their house.

Or shed DNA all over the place when walking in public, which could be collected from plenty of things by simply following the person around.

Yep, those are completely impossible.



Oh, and how, exactly, is this different from collecting fingerprints?

...all of this publicly shedded DNA is not PERSONALLY identifiable as it is mixed in with everyone else's...

The bigger issue here, and the one that somehow doesn't seem to concern you, is the way that this mandatory collection of DNA could be misused.

I don't have a problem with a convicted person having their DNA taken, but whilst under arrest for presumably one specific crime, where you are PRESUMED INNOCENT, to have your DNA taken and run against who knows whose database for any and all open/cold cases is by definition a violation of the fourth amendment. For fuck's sake that was the point that Justice Scalia argued in his dissent...

If DNA from a family of four's trash matched a crime, it would be very easy to get a warrant to test each member of that family.

...as SHOULD be the case with THIS ruling...

Again, that well known fire-brand liberal Antonin Scalia made the same point...

Your scenario requires the police to already suspect you for a crime, but not have enough to arrest you. Your claim is DNA samples upon arrest would cause them to make a false arrest to get your DNA. That's really not the situation from the ruling. And is quite contrived. That means in your particular scenario, there's other ways to get your DNA.

The actual ruling is dealing with the universal DNA collection from all people arrested by the police. Meaning the person is not already a suspect in another crime, but becomes a suspect due only to DNA match.

But we already do this for fingerprints. We've been doing it with fingerprints for decades. Why is DNA different?

...and I have zero confidence that it would be handled properly, or destroyed per policy outlines...

Bottom line the SCOTUS has ruled essentially that cops can take from you whatever identifying material they wish from you simply because they arrested you.

I am staggered that on a liberal board I have to defend the massive intrusion against fourth amendment protections from fellow liberals. The potential for malfeasance with DNA is simply staggering, and using the "well they already get fingerprints" argument is an over-simplification of the issue. This ruling pushes the US over the precipice, and who knows where it will end up.

My question to you is why not collect DNA samples from every single child born in the US, after all, we're all going to be identified by pictures/fingerprints/biometrics anyway............????

Both uniquely identify you.

They aren't sequencing your entire DNA. They're slicing up a small, highly variable part of your DNA that contains no genes. Sequencing your entire DNA would cost an enormous sum of money, and take quite a while per suspect.

...i happen to believe based on prior history that they will drive a Mac truck through it and wave this particular decision in everyone's faces as they do it..

Unlike you, I don't trust our government to have our best interests at heart...remember they're the ones that capture all of our emails now, with or without warrants..."for our safety"....you think they won't store this DNA evidence in a secret database somewhere?? Don't make me laugh...

But my guess is that they are sequencing the entire DNA found at the crime scene. In doing so, they can presumably identify things like race or ethnicity. It seems to me that, unlike fingerprints, being able to collect DNA from random arrests in order to solve cold cases could lead to racial profiling in a way that collecting fingerprints would not. This would, in my opinion, push the DNA collection further down the slippery slope of inappropriate searches in a way fingerprints would not.

that Familial DNA testing (which does allow you to identify race) can lead to racial profiling. Familial DNA searching has been used by law enforcement to solve unsolved crimes so it is not like it doesn't happen.

As for it taking months for the result and it costing a lot of money - my genome sequence cost me $100 and didn't take months by any stretch of the imagination. Also, if it is a cold case, they've had months!

The reality is that a DNA sample is NOT the same as a fingerprint - if it was, there would be no use for DNA samples because the fingerprinting would provide everything law enforcement needs. That fact that it may be a very small incremental difference does not negate the fact that it is different. We could, for example, compare the difference to the difference between taking a picture with a 35 mm lens and taking a picture with a 70 or 100 mm lens. Yes, they are both the same in that they are both pictures being taken but that doesn't mean that they are exactly the same. To simply ask repeatedly how it is different from fingerprinting does not magically make it the same.

Your derisive dismissal of what may be legitimate concerns about DNA testing (which are shared by a large number of people - even people who are ambivalent about this ruling such as myself) is not the type of open dialogue I expect of a liberal forum and your tone is a profound illustration of the deterioration of the general tone at DU since I joined. Even in the worst case, I can often recognize the legitimacy of even some profoundly conservative viewpoints with which I do not agree. Your failure/refusal do so so even among the "allies" at DU saddens me - it suggests to me that the divisions and divisiveness in this country is too deeply entrenched to ever be surmounted.

soda can, or that cigarette butt, or whatever.

A law enforcement official will follow you, furtively, and observe you throwing away that coke can, that cigarette, that tissue, and then they will immediately retrieve it.

That's often what they do in order to show a judge that a "mystery" sample matches a suspect, and provides them with sufficient "probable cause" to get a warrant.

That has been happening for years. Now, the Supremes are calling DNA the equivalent of fingerprints. They won't take your DNA unless you get arrested, so the best way to avoid that scenario is to not get arrested.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....

That's the upside of this decision--someone who is innocent isn't going to be railroaded on a tiny "partial fingerprint" that is open to interpretation.

...and therein lies the problem...

photographs on file...which are all "identity indicators."

The only difference is, some "eyewitness" can say that guy in the driver's license picture is "the robber," but if "the robber" left any DNA at the scene, and it doesn't match the person the eyewitness fingered, then that person goes free.

It's just one more thing. We're well down that road; have been for some time. Military, first responders, law enforcement--all have undergone DNA collection; it's not just for people in federal prisons anymore.

...but this ruling allows the collection of DNA to see if your are GUILTY of something OTHER than that which you have been arrested...

If you go into the LE or the Military you automatically give up your right to privacy...but having the cops arrest you for a "serious crime" so that they can get a free shot at your DNA because they can't prove their case any other way is bullshit...

And I'm sorry but I'm not yet at that point down that road where I can just shrug my shoulders and say "fuck it" and let TPTB completely shred the Constitution...

They have computer programs that can compare your facial characteristics with those of suspects at crime scenes. Once your picture goes into the database, you don't have much if any control over how it might be used.

I know some states have rules about DNA, and I admit I have not read this ruling, but some states will take the DNA and then dump it, not store it, if the person is not found guilty of a crime.

Other states keep it and collect it. Also, the context must be a "valid arrest"--not a "round 'em up and grab that DNA" exercise.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/03/188291914/supreme-court-upholds-warrantless-collection-of-dna

When you discard the cup, you discard some DNA. No search warrant needed if the police pick up the cup and keep it.

It's like taking a test to find out your ancestry, or doing the Maury Povich appearance...

No blood needed at all.

..although it was part of the case...

We can get DNA out of poop, nowadays...! They use that method in homeowners' associations, where all the dogs have to be DNA-tested to live in the community, so that any "phantom turds" can be tested to find out who wasn't picking up their poop!

Someone at the lab has to do the "dirty deed" and extract the DNA!

Here's a company that does it, check out the name!

http://www.pooprints.com/

I was able to read the opinion, finally, as it was posted online after the OP and after my initial response. Certainly, a cotton swipe is less intrusive than a needle (but only marginally). I still think I have a reasonable expectation that my DNA is private and protected by the 4th Amendment. How the state gets my DNA has little bearing on that if we're talking about part of my body that is attached to me (like the epithelial cells in my mouth).

-Laelth


Edit:Laelth--this post needed careful and quick reconsideration.

It gave me a creepy feeling.

I had no choice, though, when you serve in the Armed Forces, they're orders, not suggestions, and they wanted it in the event that those of us serving got blown to bits and it became difficult to identify us. It's also helpful when it comes to "Proof of Life" claims in hostage scenarios.

As I've said previously, I think we are, as a society, crawling towards biometrics as personal IDs. This is a step on the way. With that, of course, comes "diminished privacy," but we've been on that arc for centuries, now.

I still feel the need to gripe about it, though.

-Laelth

What would we be, if we can't rail about this or that! It gets the blood moving and the brain thinking!

Is it a police state yet?

that may be problematic. snipping half a strand of hair is pretty innocuous unless you're bald or nearly so.

extracting blood is another matter entirely, especially because this exposes you to risk of infection, blood pressure changes, loss of consciousness, uncontrolled bleeding in the case of hemophiliacs; not to mention the actual pain of the blood draw itself.

I agree, blood samples would be more problematic.

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[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
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if the swab is contaminated. also what if the person resists? taking a fingerprint from someone resisting is doable, but prying open a mouth is another matter. not that there's normally much sympathy for arrested people who resist processing, but still. especially when some resistance is a function of drugs, meds gone bad, mental illness or in some cases physical problems, or of course police misbehavior.

I predict an upsurge in broken and lost teeth during arrests....

Just slip the tip of the swab under the lips at the corner of the mouth, then withdraw.

get identifying DNA from a snip of hair unless the root or follicle is attached.

Drug testing is a different matter, of course.

You run something that looks like a long q-tip over the inside of the person's cheek. You are constantly shedding skin cells, and the swab collects some of them. The swab is sterile, and removed from a band-aid-like wrapper just before it's used - you don't want to contaminate the swab with DNA from something else, because that interferes with the collection.

You can not get a DNA sample from "snipping half a strand of hair". Hair is just protein. It doesn't have DNA. To get DNA from hair, you would need to yank it out of the suspect's head to collect the hair follicle, where there is DNA.

Really don't see how this is more odious than fingerprinting. It's a hell of a lot faster and less messy than fingerprinting.

Then you don't have much imagination.

DNA can be used to determine all sorts of things, including things that are of immense interest to health insurance providers.

Are you so confident of the database that this info is going into, that it will never be used in a manner not intended? That it will never be hacked, or sold?

They don't sequence all of your DNA.

They treat your DNA with restriction enzymes. These enzymes cut your DNA if they find a specific pattern in the DNA. For example, one enzyme might cut if it comes across a "CTAAGCTTTT" in your DNA. If I have "CTAAGCTTTC" in same place in my DNA, the enzyme will not cut.

A standard mix of restriction enzymes is used to slice up your DNA, and they use gel electrophoresis to separate the resulting DNA chunks by size. Your DNA will be cut into a unique pattern of sizes by that mix of enzymes.

It's not possible to detect the presence of a disease-causing gene using this method.

Thanks for that bit of info!

Even though a good chunk of that was a bit er, over my head, I got the gist of what you were saying, and I think the point you made is very salient to this discussion.

And it is limited that way for obvious reasons.

but I gather that this limits the database's utility!

It's described in plain English in the decision linked in this thread.

One of the most significant aspects of CODIS is the
standardization of the points of comparison in DNA analy
sis. The CODIS database is based on 13 loci at which
the STR alleles are noted and compared. These loci make
possible extreme accuracy in matching individual samples,
with a "random match probability of approximately 1 in
100 trillion (assuming unrelated individuals)." Ibid. The
CODIS loci are from the non-protein coding junk regions
of DNA, and "are not known to have any association
with a genetic disease or any other genetic predisposition.
Thus, the information in the database is only useful for
human identity testing."

But that makes it more useful for identification.

When you're talking about the DNA that makes our bodies "work", everyone's copies are nearly identical. There's not a lot of different ways to digest sugar.

The "non-coding regions" are much, much more variable. That's why you can use those regions for identification.

There's hope for an old fool like me, yet!

The technology is straight out of science fiction. Not just a hair or spitball is needed, it's a microscopic grease stain left on a handrail or bomb fragment.

The Pentagon has been collecting DNA from the bodies in Iraq and Afghanistan and who knows where else. If they've got it, you know NSA or whatever super spy shop now OK'd to turn its focus on America has the data.

From what I've seen over the past 12 years, it won't be used exclusively on the crooks. This is going to make it easy to set up those the Feds want to put away those they don't want running around free.

However, the rest of the millions of innocent people in the DNA database were not.

The DNA database contains a disproportionately large percentage of African Americans, about 40-percent, indicating racial profile in crime investigations.

The database you are concerned about is DNA collected from members of the military. It's used to identify the bodies/body parts of otherwise unidentified dead soldiers.

African Americans are "oversampled" compared to the general population, but that's because African Americans are also "overrepresented" in the military. But I'd love to see the link backing up your 40% claim.

And the "fingerprint database" is also a mirror of the racial makeup of people arrested. How come the DNA database is so terrible, but the fingerprint database is just fine?

My point was what I wrote:

The Feds already do the same thing with fingerprints.

You aren't upset about fingerprints.

You're upset about DNA.

Why the difference?

Here's one worth asking: Now that the President says it's OK for him to kill anyone he identifies as a terrorist threat without trial, how long will it be before the government starts identifying people as threats based solely on the presence of DNA?

Think about it.

Why are you upset about DNA collection but not fingerprint collection?

I eagerly await your next desperate attempt to change the subject instead of answering a simple question.

What's your user id?

Never mind, based on your posts I'll just check to see what reports have been generated in the past 24 hours and wipe your account. Your badge more than likely won't work in the morning either FYI.

Coming from you, that's saying something.

nt.

ok....

Don't let the police destroy it. That would be crazy.

beat me to the punch

OK to take DNA: Kennedy, Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Breyer
Not OK: Scalia, Ginsburg, Sotomayor , Kagan

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/03/18722878-supreme-court-upholds-dna-swabbing-of-people-under-arrest?lite

Just to save people time. Scalia's dissent begins on page 33 of the PDF.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-207_d18e.pdf

Awkward.....

I'll never understand people who put irrational fears and the fallacy that is slippery slope over utility.

up finally to get a casino gaming license. I feel the same way about a DNA sample. I'm willing to let the bone marrow people have that but not the government.

As far as I'm concerned, if my prints or DNA were to turn up at a crime scene, it wouldn't be me they needed to come after. I wouldn't be the one that committed the crime. The cops don't need to talk to me. That's enough reason to avoid letting them have it.

The first sample was crime scene evidence left by the perp. The second was taken on booking for another offense, regardless of consent.

DNA is more accurate even than fingerprints, and arrested individuals have been required to submit prints for decades now. I have no problem with a national IDENTIFICATION database of DNA-so long as ID is all they do with it.

It's what other groups (like insurance companies) could do with that data that concerns me.

Schnell.

Pick a fight with someone whose history you know. You're barkin' up the wrong tree with me, bubba.

I'm talking about taking fingerprints, regardless of the presence of AFIS.

If you don't, what's your proposal for positively identifying people when they're arrested?

I don't really see a problem with it once someone is found guilty(not saying you feel that way). They already have a foolproof method in place for cataloging inmates during the pre-trial term. Photograph, fingerprint, and number. The DNA swab is not to ensure they know who is in jail. It is much deeper. It can bee seen that fingerprints are already used for much more, and the person prints aren't discarded if the person is found not guilty.