So Much More Than a Fingerprint
During the debates on the DNA collection bill that was recently signed into law, the refrain we heard over and over again from the proponents of the legislation was that DNA collection was merely “a 21st century fingerprint”. While we and others argued that DNA certainly contains far more information than a few swirls on the skin, we were assured that many, many states have already gone this route and have not had problems related to the increased amount of data collected in a DNA swab. According to a story published yesterday in the New York Times, however, California is doing stuff that is downright creepy, and there is absolutely nothing in the law just passed in North Carolina to prevent the exact same thing from happening here.
According to the article, CA scientists used a genetic analysis procedure called “familial searching” or “kinship searching” to help the police identify a suspect — and they did so by using a DNA sample collected for another purpose from the suspect’s own son. The procedure involved widening the genetic net to include convicted felons whom they knew had not committed the murders but whose DNA profiles were partial matches to the suspect — similar enough to the suspect’s that they might be related to him. Wow.
In other words, “the immediate concern is that kinship searches could produce a long list of convicted felons who are only partial matches to an unidentified suspect. The risk is that the police, while looking for a suspect’s family members, might intrude on people who have not committed a crime. Some lawyers call it guilt by genetic association.”
NCSJP went through the text of the new law, as well as comments made by lawmakers during the legislative process, and we were unable to find anything that would strictly prohibit this kind of action from taking place here in North Carolina. It is almost certain that after talking with many of the legislatures over the past month, the votes would have come out very differently had legislatures be aware of this possibility. This type of case is precisely the reason that NCSJP, the ACLU, and a number of lawmakers wanted to see a study conducted before jumping headlong into a major shift in our criminal policy.
We will reaching out to local legislators and policy makers in the next few weeks to make them aware of the possible breach of the public’s trust. We want to know why we should continue to trust their assurances that the DNA collected from innocent people will not be used incorrectly or illegally.
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