The mere mention of DNA may make people’s eyes glaze over, but it also brings a smile to their faces. After all, DNA is magic and solves everything. If you’re guilty, DNA will prove it. Innocent? That too. Potentially related to the possible perp, who can’t be identified but close enough to have the cops drop the hammer on you? Wait, what?

That’s familial DNA searching, and progressive New York loves it.

The DNA subcommittee of the state Commission on Forensic Science Monday unanimously approved the use of familial testing in New York and recommended the full body authorize the method at its April 12 meeting.

In its recommendations, the subcommittee stated police and prosecutors must prove all other investigative methods have been exhausted in a case before they can resort to familial testing — which takes a strand of DNA from a crime scene to determine if it matches anyone’s close male relatives who are in criminal databases.

Before you latch onto the “must prove all other investigative methods have been exhausted” language, this is the same sham used in wiretaps, also purportedly a “last resort” measure. It doesn’t work that way, Instead, it’s just a few boilerplate sentences to the effect of “it has been determined that alternative investigative techniques will not be effective in identifying the perpetrator.” Recite the mantra and you’ve jumped the hurdle.

What gave rise to this call for police to resort to DNA a few steps removed from the bad dude? As usual, a sad case, a victim’s name and something must be done.

Calls for the test’s authorization gained steam after the parents of Karina Vetrano, the Howard Beach jogger killed in Spring Creek Park Aug. 2., advocated for its authorization weeks before their daughter’s alleged killer was arrested. Even after the arrest of Chanel Lewis, who is charged with the murder, Phil and Cathie Vetrano said the test must be approved to help catch future killers.

So what is the magic way to catch “future killers”? When a search of CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) fails to find a match, they play horseshoes:

This new search looks for known people who do not match completely, but nonetheless share a significant portion of the perpetrator’s DNA profile. The theory is that such commonalities, depending upon how many there are and how rarely or frequently they occur at random in human populations, are more likely to be observed in relatives than in unrelated people.

So if you can’t find the perp, you find their relatives (maybe) and squeeze them to give up the perp. Or shoot them if they come to the door with a Wii controller in hand or an aggressive stance, Or there’s the familial propensity argument, that crime runs in their DNA, which justifies taking people for whom there is no evidence of wrongdoing and making them perp lite.

But isn’t it worth it if it solves just one crime? Allison Lewis at the Legal Aid Society explains in a Newsday op-ed:

If you end up on law enforcement’s radar through a familial match, cops might rummage through your trash for abandoned DNA, ask your neighbors or employer about your whereabouts or show up at your door and request your DNA to prove your innocence. You may never know it’s happening before you are excluded. Or your life could be turned upside down, depending on police discretion.

Opponents of familial searching don’t dispute the underlying principle of gene sharing among relatives. And by scooping up a broad range of people, the method will occasionally close cases. The question is whether the government should access our DNA this way.

Familial searching implies that criminality runs in the family, and that law-abiding relatives of the convicted deserve less privacy and more suspicion. The suggestion that criminal behavior is genetic echoes dangerous, long-debunked pseudosciences.

That’s the “G-rated” version of the potential problems. A slightly more cynical view would note that false positives (they happen, oops) mean the cops do a colonoscopy on completely unrelated people, notwithstanding their right to be left alone. But far worse is the potential that the cops are in a rush, decide to toss the relative to get what they want.

Even worse, meet a somewhat uncooperative relative (remember, there is a chance their DNA didn’t get into CODIS for winning the Nobel Prize) and tune him up or take him down. Some folks aren’t intrinsically amenable to being interrogated or searched by the police for something that had nothing to do with them. Go figure.

Erin Murphy, a forensic expert and professor at New York University School of Law, said the subcommittee’s recommendations fail to “include many important safeguards to minimize the intrusive effects of these policies.

“For instance, the draft policy does not require judicial review of the request to do a familial search nor require that police collect and publicly publish data about familial searches and their results so the public can make an informed decision about whether DNA databases are being abused,” Murphy said in an email.

Oh wait, you thought that some judge would decide whether to intrude on the innocent before the cops did their voodoo? Nah, that would just delay them by minutes, not that a warrant provides much of a hurdle. But even that absolutely minimal protection is too much in that it could stay the police from going after a relative.

The state Senate has already passed a bill, introduced by state Sen. Phil Boyle (R-Suffolk) and sponsored by state Sen. Joe Addabbo (D-Howard Beach), that would mandate the test’s authorization. It’s being carried in the Assembly by Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Rockaway Park).

“With today’s unanimous approval of FM by the DNA Subcommittee of the Commission on Forensic Science, which was considered to be the most challenging hurdle to passage, New York State is very close to adding its voice to this search for justice,” Pheffer Amato said in a statement. “If the Commission accepts the Subcommittee’s recommendations, it will say that, as a government, we are absolutely committed to using all available tools to convict the guilty and free the innocent.”

In the “search for justice,” who wouldn’t want to use “all available tools,” even if it means investigating, beating, maybe even killing, people who are unquestionably not the perpetrator of a crime because the DNA machine says they’re close enough? See how much progressive administrations love science compared to that horrifying federal one?