An interesting article in the  Washington Post highlights the inherent conflict in DNA as a most personal possession of human beings and a exceptionally good identifier in criminal prosecution.  I know for a fact that Jim Watson wouldn’t care one way of the other when he discovered DNA, but he must be awfully proud to be the source of such debate. 

The conflict comes from the fact that the DNA of millions of people who have never committed a crime is just sitting around waiting for someone to put it into a databank somewhere to be pulled out as needed.  And it’s not just to show provide information the individual “donor”, but the donor’s family, ancestors, and maybe even mailman for all I know.  The point is that your kid’s DNA can lead the cops straight to you, as his daughter’s did the BTK killer.

Now that DNA is going to be collected from arrestees, not just the convicted, a whole new world of potentially innocent people will be brought into the DNA pool.  No, not just the arrestees, but their families and children who are not yet a twinkle in their eye.  Are you seeing the scope of this situation?

But then, there’s the flip side:

As things stand in some states, lab analysts who discover a potential suspect in this way may not be permitted to share that information with investigators. Such a policy, said William Fitzpatrick, a New York state district attorney, “is insanity. It’s disgraceful. If I’ve got something of scientific value that I can’t share because of imaginary privacy concerns, it’s crazy. That’s how we solve crimes.”

As much as I hate to say it, Fitzpatrick is right.  We expect cops to identify criminals who commit egregious crimes, such as rape and murder, and we have a tool readily available for them to use, but like some prissy school marm, deny them access.  It’s got an element of insanity in there.

But the problem with the scope of these DNA databanks is that they are scarfing up every bit of DNA they can find.  This includes the DNA of victims, anyone else who may have been at a crime scene at any other time, the cleaning lady, whoever.  The potential sources for DNA databanks is only limited by the number of people on earth.  And that, amigos, includes you.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that authorities may not conduct searches for general law enforcement purposes without suspicion about individuals. Although convicted criminals have a diminished expectation of privacy, searching a database for unknown relatives might violate that principle, said Jeffrey Rosen, a George Washington University law professor.

“The idea of holding people responsible for who they are rather than what they’ve done could challenge deep American principles of privacy and equality,” he said. “Although the legal issues aren’t clear, the moral ones are vexing.”

Now some people may be happy to have their DNA collected and held in a databank, just as some are happy to allow warrantless searches at will, because “they have nothing to hide.”   But what of your children?  Or your cousin?  Are you prepared to be the source of your kid going to prison, because you have nothing to hide?  And what if you did nothing wrong, but your DNA happened to be at a crime scene for a totally innocent reason.  Not an easy thing to dispute.

This is a very tough issue, because there is much to be said about police being able to locate the person who snatched some kid who will likely turn up dead on a roadside unless found quickly.  The criminal could well be someone that everyone in the community thinks is a good guy, like the baseball coach or the nice guy in the house down the block.  Nobody wants a dead, sexually molested child. 

Where does the line get drawn?