This won’t hurt a bit…
Published by michael November 28th, 2004 in politics, law
Add another shovel-full of dirt to the grave of liberty in the USA. Okay seriously, I’m an undying optimist, but Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia is realizing itself with remarkable speed. Although I recently learned that as much as 45% of the public still rejects the theory of evolution, I can’t stop marvelling at our collective lack of political intelligence.
Since the passage of proposition 69 California joined the ranks of 35 other states that currently require DNA sampling for all convicted felons, and the mere arrest of certain types of adult offenders (remember that a felony could be as much as a kid smashing a window, or spray-painting graffitti if the propery damages exceed a given value). Here’s the gist from Wired columnist Julia Scheeres in her story yesterday:
The new law, officially called the DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act, is expected to add the genetic data of 1 million people to California’s databank over the five years, making it the largest state-run DNA databank in the country.
Authorities assure us at this point only 3 people would have access to the database, but that’s not stopping the ACLU from suing. Proponents of the DNA law argued that innocent people need not worry (echoing sycophant fans of the Patriot Act?) where many organizations including the ACLU of Northern California vehemently opposed it:
California law already requires the collection of DNA samples from violent felony offenders convicted of murder, rape, child molestation and other serious crimes. Proposition 69 would expand that government database to anyone arrested for any felony offense, even if the person is later proven innocent, suffered a case of mistaken identity, or is never charged with a crime. Once individuals are put into the database, they must request a court order to be removed—even if they are factually innocent and never charged with a crime—and the government has no obligation to remove them. Each year in California, more than 50,000 felony arrests do not result in criminal charges.
Courts sometimes overturn propositions, like the racist prop 187 a few years ago. In this case, we can only hope the ACLU is sucessful where in other states, challenges to similar laws have failed.
One Response to “This won’t hurt a bit…”
Leave a Reply
Search
About a year or two ago, I went to an NYU law forum where a speaker presented the audience with a thought experiment pertaining to this very topic. The ultimate problem with government run DNA databanks is that there are no real checks to the power weilded by the agents who run these banks. One potential path is a Minority Report-type scenario, in which people who possess certain genes, for example a “pedophilia gene” (there have been studies and even court cases; see Kansas v Hendricks), will be arrested before they even commit a crime. If this seems too outlandish and improbable (like the idea of a DNA databank might have a decade ago), then consider the actual breast cancer gene that many women carry. They may or may not develop the cancer later in life, but with a databank like this one, insurance providers would have access to that information and might treat them the way they treat HIV positive individuals now–by jacking up their insurance costs and considering them “high risk” patients. Ostensibly, they could do the same for people who were determined to have the homosexuality gene. It’s a frightening prospect with very little safety or balance. I hope the ACLU wins.