If they were at all gracious, they would have  waited for the ink on Maryland v. King to dry.  But no, that would be too much to ask.  In fact, they weren’t waiting for the Supreme Court to pull out the big ol’ approved stamp at all. They were already way down the slope.

From the New York Times :

Slowly, and largely under the radar, a growing number of local law enforcement agencies across the country have moved into what had previously been the domain of the F.B.I. and state crime labs — amassing their own DNA databases of potential suspects, some collected with the donors’ knowledge, and some without it.

Rules? Judicial approval? Even the pretense of privacy safeguards?  We don’t need no stinkin’ privacy safeguards.

These local databases operate under their own rules, providing the police much more leeway than state and federal regulations. And the police sometimes collect samples from far more than those convicted of or arrested for serious offenses — in some cases, innocent victims of crimes who do not necessarily realize their DNA will be saved for future searches.

Having as much DNA as possible, and without all the strings that come with more official repositories and databases that are subject to scrutiny, not to mention handling that doesn’t contaminate or undermine the integrity of the collection, is a boon to local police. You never know, after all, when their half-baked database is going to pop up a name you never expected.  Today’s victim could be tomorrow’s perp.

These law enforcement agencies are no longer content to rely solely on the highly regulated network of state and federal DNA databases, which have been more than two decades in the making and represent one of the most significant developments in the history of law enforcement in this country.

The reasons vary. Some police chiefs are frustrated with the time it can take for state crime labs to test evidence and enter DNA profiles into the existing databases. Others want to compile DNA profiles from suspects or low-level offenders long before their DNA might be captured by the state or national databases, which typically require conviction or arrest.

While lawyers and judges, maybe even a scholar or two, argue over the propriety of collecting DNA from innocent people upon their mere arrest (remember, until someone is convicted, they’re innocent), such legal niceties hold little interest for those who would be far happier with a universal database. After all, what do you have to hide.  Hmmm?  That’s right, I’m asking you.

The manipulations to gather DNA are fairly easy to see. From the victims, they need their DNA in order to distinguish it from the perp. They did this with fingerprints as well, always taking the prints of the victim so they could separate out the bad guy’s prints.  It worked then. It works now. And those are prints, for which there are no privacy rights.  But the argument applies equally to, and works just as well with, DNA.  When the guys you’ve called to catch your assailant ask for some cooperation, you give it.

Then there are the suspects, who don’t realize they’re suspects because everybody is still being nice to them and nobody has thrown them up against the wall yet.

“You wouldn’t mind giving us just a dab o’ DNA so we can exclude you from the list of people potentially going to prison for the rest of their natural life, would you?”

“No way, sir. Here’s my dab. If you need a bigger one, why I’ll do just about anything you ask. Anything to make you leave me alone, officer.  Anything.”

Don’t try to reason it out, or explain (because you’re the first person to ever think of this) why it would be far wiser to assert one’s constitutional right and interest in privacy, and therefore the shtick won’t work with you and others should be as smart as you are.  People comply. Almost all people comply. You don’t? You’re special. The rest do. Even the guys for whom compliance is just utterly moronic comply, like the one whose DNA is going to be a perfect match, comply.

“Our take is that it’s good for law enforcement and good for the community,” said Doug Muldoon, police chief of Palm Bay…

It used to be what’s good for GM was good for the country.  But then, DNA had yet to be discovered back in 1955, and we had yet to be told that our world was on the verge of destruction at the hands of criminals.  You see, Chief Muldoon understands something that many of us refuse to accept. Law enforcement doesn’t perceive its interests as being in conflict with the good of the community. Indeed, they see anything that facilitates their doing their job as being in the best interests of the community by definition. If you can’t imagine how this could be, consider the old saw, I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand.

So they’re doing it for all of us, even though each of us is just a perp waiting to be caught.  Anyone still wondering when the camel’s nose is going to find its way under the tent?  Forget it. It’s been in the tent all along.