Horrifying Supreme Court Ruling Lets Police Collect DNA Because You Might Just Be A Horrible Criminal

from the 4th-amendment-is-dead dept

Tue, Jun 4th 2013 5:04am — Mike Masnick

I had a busy day on Monday, so it took a bit of time for me to finally get around to reading the full Supreme Court ruling in the Maryland v. King case, in which the court ridiculously ruled that law enforcement can take DNA samples from everyone arrested for a "serious" new crime in the hopes that it might help solve old crimes. We've discussed this issue in the past, but the reasoning of the majority ruling in the Supreme Court is rather horrifying. It's interesting to see that the court did not split along its "traditional" lines. Scalia split with Alito, Thomas and Roberts -- who often form a single voting block, while Breyer also was on the other side of his more natural allies, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. Kennedy is the usual "swing" vote, and wrote the decision here, decimating the basics of the 4th amendment. I mean absolutely decimating it.

Kennedy tries to argue that taking a DNA sample from someone arrested is a perfectly natural part of the process of identifying them, but he goes much, much further. Just the fact that he uses this line is when you know the 4th Amendment is in trouble:

To say that the Fourth Amendment applies here is the beginning point, not the end of the analysis.

In other words, I'm about to come up with a bunch of rationalizations as to why we can ignore the 4th Amendment here. The basic argument is a sort of blanket "well, the police need to identify people" argument:

The legitimate government interest served by the Maryland DNA Collection Act is one that is well established: the need for law enforcement officers in a safe and accurate way to process and identify the persons and possessions they must take into custody.

Yes, but that's wholly different from taking a DNA sample from them to then run through a giant database of unsolved crimes to see if you (or, in some cases, a relative) might possibly be implicated. And, then think of where this quickly gets you when the majority makes the following statement:

An individual's identity is more than just his name or Social Security number, and the government's interest in identification goes beyond ensuring that the proper name is typed on the indictment. Identity has never been considered limited to the name on the arrestee's birth certificate. In fact, a name is of little value compared to the real interest in identification at stake when an individual is brought into custody

Hmm. If an identity goes beyond just your name and basic stats info, then what might it include?

A suspect's criminal history is a critical part of his identity that officers should know when processing him for detention

Yeah, but a person's hobbies, interests, writings, possessions, etc may also be a part of someone's identity, and yet those tend to be protected by the 4th Amendment. So what gives? As Julian Sanchez points out, couldn't the identical argument be used to say that any law enforcement should be able to also read an arrestee's email without a warrant? After all it would give them more "context" about his "identity."

This should be a hint: if your Supreme Court argument can be used to basically wipe out the entire 4th Amendment, it's probably not a very good argument.

In response, Scalia's dissent is well worth reading. It's blistering in its criticism of the majority opinion and very much on point.

The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence. That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment. Whenever this Court has allowed a suspicionless search, it has insisted upon a justifying motive apart from the investigation of crime.

It is obvious that no such noninvestigative motive exists in this case. The Court's assertion that DNA is being taken, not to solve crimes, but to identify those in the State's custody, taxes the credulity of the credulous. And the Court's comparison of Maryland's DNA searches to other techniques, such as fingerprinting, can seem apt only to those who know no more than today's opinion has chosen to tell them about how those DNA searches actually work.

Scalia points out that allowing searches unrelated to a specific crime have only been allowed in very special circumstances, and this ruling blows that out of the water. Scalia notes that the whole claim that the argument that these DNA searches are just for identifying really does rip to shreds the basics of the 4th Amendment:

If identifying someone means finding out what unsolved crimes he has committed, then identification is indistinguishable from the ordinary law enforcement aims that have never been thought to justify a suspicionless search. Searching every lawfully stopped car, for example, might turn up information about unsolved crimes the driver had committed, but no one would say that such a search was aimed at "identifying" him, and no court would hold such a search lawful.

Furthermore, Scalia points out that the "identifying" claim is completely bogus because no one was using DNA to better identify the arrestee. It looks at the specific case of King, and notes multiple ways in which the DNA testing would have obviously been done differently if the purpose had been simple identification. They made no rush to sample the DNA, and, in fact were forbidden to by law, until he was arraigned 3 days later. And then it took months for anything to actually be done with the DNA sample.

In fact, if anything was "identified" at the moment that the DNA database returned a match, it was not King—his identity was already known. (The docket for the original criminal charges lists his full name, his race, his sex, his height, his weight, his date of birth, and his address.) Rather, what the August 4 match "identified" was the previously-taken sample from the earlier crime. That sample was genuinely mysterious to Maryland; the State knew that it had probably been left by the victim's attacker, but nothing else. King was not identified by his association with the sample; rather, the sample was identified by its association with King. The Court effectively destroys its own "identification" theory when it acknowledges that the object of this search was “to see what [was] already known about [King].” King was who he was, and volumes of his biography could not make him any more or any less King. No minimally competent speaker of English would say, upon noticing a known arrestee’s similarity “to a wanted poster of a previously unidentified suspect,” ante, at 13, that the arrestee had thereby been identified. It was the previously unidentified suspect who had been identified—just as, here, it was the previously unidentified rapist.

Furthermore, Scalia quotes the actual law in question, which lists out the only reasons why DNA evidence may be collected... and "identification" is not one of them.

Instead, the law provides that DNA samples are collected and tested, as a matter of Maryland law, “as part of an official investigation into a crime.” ... (Or, as our suspicionless-search cases would put it: for ordinary law-enforcement purposes.) That is certainly how everyone has always understood the Maryland Act until today.

Scalia concludes by pointing out the worst part of all of this: once convicted, it's established that a criminal can have their DNA sampled. And thus, this really only matters for one group: those innocent of the crime they were arrested for.

All parties concede that it would have been entirely permissible, as far as the Fourth Amendment is concerned, for Maryland to take a sample of King’s DNA as a consequence of his conviction for second-degree assault. So the ironic result of the Court’s error is this: The only arrestees to whom the outcome here will ever make a difference are those who have been acquitted of the crime of arrest (so that their DNA could not have been taken upon conviction). In other words, this Act manages to burden uniquely the sole group for whom the Fourth Amendment’s protections ought to be most jealously

And, finally, Scalia points out, as we did above, that the basic logic of the majority more or less justifies almost any search.

Today’s judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes; then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the Transportation Security Administration needs to know the “identity” of the flying public), applies for a driver’s license, or attends a public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.

The 4th Amendment was already on the ropes before this. It's pretty depressing to see the Supreme Court look to give it the knockout punch like that.

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Filed Under: 4th amendment, constitution, dna, justice kennedy, justice scalia, privacy, supreme court

115 Comments

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Rikuo (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 1:37am

I've been reading up on this story on other sites, so I'm just gonna nip some possible arguments some people might mention in the bud

1) "Your DNA isn't private, you literally leave it everywhere you go, by shedding skin cells"
- Yes, but those skin cells that flake off of you aren't in the same league of quality as a swab taken from the inside of your mouth. Random bits of DNA that are found everywhere are not used as evidence because they are so easily contaminated.

2) "We take fingerprints already, why not DNA testing?"
- Because fingerprints and DNA are two completely different things. A fingerprint identifies you as you. That is it. DNA does that AND MORE. DNA reveals who you are and who you are related to. It can reveal whether you have a genetic predisposition to certain diseases etc.

3) "It's used to identify someone, which a cop does want to know when they arrest someone".
-As noted above, in the very court case the Supreme Court were looking at, THEY DID NOT USE DNA TO IDENTIFY. The DNA sample sat in a lab for weeks and months, long after the initial time of arrest of the perp. Identifying someone through DNA is a long and cumbersome process. It's not as simple as taking a sample and waving a Star Trek-style tricorder at it, then a photo and name pops up on the screen.
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Richard Ahlquist, 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:11am

Anyone shocked?
Seriously, we are so close to becoming a police state if anyone is shocked by this they must be living under a rock. Just wait, later today Obama is supposed to sign the UN Firearms Treaty despite the will of the people and congress. His lapdog then is supposed to hold a press conference explaining that if you say something not nice about Islam you can be put in jail. America is dead. http://dcclothesline.com/2013/06/02/federal-attorney-warns-negative-posts-against-islam-could-get-yo u-prosecution-imprisonment/
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:14am

When they passed the seatbelt law it was stated they would not pull you over just because your seatbelt was not fastened and you would only be issued a ticket if they saw the seatbelt infraction in the course of dealing with other infractions.

Oh my ... how things change.

Now they are telling us to not be concerned about the potential for abuse regarding collection of dna samples. Yeah, right.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:15am

Re: Anyone shocked?
Uh-oh, the UN is coming fer yer guns.
Will you be locked up in a FEMA camp?
Say goodbye to your golf courses, the UN is coming for those too.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:19am

If it can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
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Vidiot (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:20am

ABSOLUTELY HATE agreeing with Scalia. But have to do it. Perfect dissent.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:32am

Re: Re: Anyone shocked?
How is his outlook on the UN Firearms Treaty any different from the greater techdirt outlook on ACTA or TAFTA or ect ect? It's all the same shit: treaties making an end run around the electorate and the legislative process.
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pixelpusher220 (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:42am

Re:
#1 - a valid argument...for now. Technology improves and it will be quite possible to take that stray hair from your head and do the same thing before too long.

#2 - Are fingerprints taken during arrest used to match you to unsolved crimes? My assumption is that is the current case. If so, then taking DNA for the same reasons is no different.

#3 - Same argument for #1 applies. You describe 'today' and perhaps that's valid, but it won't be all that long before star trek tricorder type tech IS available and can do what you say is impossible. Basing your objections on the state of tech rather than the actual legal arguments is rather like the Music Industry saying pre-Napster internet sharing wasn't a problem.

I just don't see the issue with checking people who've been arrested against the list of unsolved crimes.

I DO see (and have) a problem with said arrestee's information being stored forever if they're acquitted but the 2 issues are very different.
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pixelpusher220 (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:51am

Re:
False comparison. The laws have changed to allow seat belt use to be a primary offense. They haven't been abusing seat belt violations to pull you over (they have numerous ways to do this already). Seat belt use is also better for society, less deaths, less serious injury, less emergency care needed.

Abuse of a system does not mean a system shouldn't be used. It means we should fix the system though the issues with post 9/11 security theater are vast.
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horse with no name, 4 Jun 2013 @ 5:53am

Fingerprints?
People are fingerprinted and have their picture taken at each arrest as well, and yes, new additions are often run against existing unsolved cases (or the cases re-run against the updated database from time to time).

DNA is not any more private than your fingerprints, no invasive process is required. In fact, the collecting of DNA is actually much quicker and easier than finger printing.

Scalia's arguments are a little thin here. Nobody is forcing everyone in the US to submit a DNA sample, in the same manner that people are not asked to submit fingerprints or take a mug shot just for fun. His examples suggest a broad collection of information without reason. His logic would make collecting photos and finger prints equally invasive.

Since we already know that is NOT the case, there is little left here to argue.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:01am

Re: Re:
The legal arguments for basically amount to "screw you, that's why." I mean, sure, unsolved crimes are an issue...if your salary depends on that percentage of all crimes dropping.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:03am

Re: Re:
"#2 - Are fingerprints taken during arrest used to match you to unsolved crimes? My assumption is that is the current case. If so, then taking DNA for the same reasons is no different."

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but my understanding is fingerprints are taken to enter you into a database so that if you commit a future crime they have a way to match your identity and prior criminal history rather than run the fingerprints through a database to try to connect you to unsolved crimes (though I'm sure that's probably done as well...).
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BentFranklin (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:03am

Re: Re:
"Rather, what the August 4 match "identified" was the previously-taken sample from the earlier crime. That sample was genuinely mysterious to Maryland; the State knew that it had probably been left by the victim's attacker, but nothing else. King was not identified by his association with the sample; rather, the sample was identified by its association with King."

The same can be said for fingerprints.
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Michael N. Marcus (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:05am

DNA
For a change, I do not agree with the left-leaning justices.

Anyone who wants some of my DNA can have it.

What's the BFD with DNA? It doesn't hurt to give a sample. I don't have a limited supply of DNA.

It's not like the scene from Dr. Strangelove where General Jack D. Ripper was horrified that the dreaded commies would "sap and impurify" Americans' precious vital fluids.

My DNA sample might show that my sister is my sibling or that my ancestors came from eastern Europe or that I didn't leave blood or semen at a crime scene. Horrors!

I have much more to be concerned with than accurate identification.
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out_of_the_blue, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:23am

Well, turns out Mike is a Luddite against "technology".
Sure, it's great when Google tracks your every move on the net, keeps a database collating every bit they can glean, and taps wi-fi as they drive by to surveil your house, surveils you in person with Google Glass, but apparently even Mike has found the point where he objects to invasion of privacy. -- Yes, that's cogent because all information feeds into the same surveillance state. This is just another increment, and doesn't shock me the way Mike makes out that he is. But at last he's beginning to see where the obvious conspiracy of power leads.

This will soon become de facto at every traffic stop, even though at the moment, applies to "serious" crimes.

However, states and courts are not the last word on law. Common law as stated by the people is. Yes, there are difficulties getting our "servants" to stop extending tyranny, and more to roll it back, but it starts with simply not going along with any of this "identifying", surveilling, and tracking.

If you don't want to be invasively tracked with a DNA database, then you should even more oppose the tracking that Google does every day. It's all BAD, aimed at controlling you. Google tracks you outside of law with hidden means, but it's easily stopped with Noscript (removing Google from whitelist), and a hosts file. Take the time NOW to install those to say you're not just an economic unit for the Google-monster to munch on. ... Or, just continue to drift into police state pretending it doesn't exist.
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Monkey with Attitude, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:23am

Re: DNA
Ah yes the age old "You have nothing to hide, so why worry?"

Used so often to justify the tyranny for false security.

Everyday we see trumped up charges, mis-carrage of justice, and destruction of peoples lives for no other reason than some one needed to make a their numbers look better.

So when you unintentitional and unexpectedly run afoul of the law should we sit back and say "good luck" or do you expect us to run to your defense because now its different, now its not some random person but you with his butt on the line?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:28am

Re:
"Because fingerprints and DNA are two completely different things. A fingerprint identifies you as you. That is it. DNA does that AND MORE. DNA reveals who you are and who you are related to. It can reveal whether you have a genetic predisposition to certain diseases etc."

And will that extra data about who you're related to and what diseases you're more likely to get come in handy at solving any crimes? No.

Seeing as they have cops take finger prints of children when they're in elementary school for helping to solve future crimes, I don't see how DNA is much different. If DNA tracking is wrong, then so is finger printing innocent people. It doesn't make sense for one to legal, and the other illegal.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:32am

Re: Well, turns out Mike is a Luddite against "technology".
dna.txt
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:33am

the only course of action is to keep tracks on the 'learned people' who made the decision and then put them under this same scenario. i wonder if they will cry 'the fourth'! as it is, the Constitution is being destroyed by the very people entrusted to defend it, what it means and the circumstances when it applies. in this instant, it seems that the emphasis was on ignoring the 4th and getting the person at all costs
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:33am

Anyone who wants some of my DNA can have it.?? !!
Not really thinking or caring about your descendants are you? As they will share your DNA.
Then when it becomes illegal to have red hair, or some gene that no one will insure (parkinsons or religious gene or whatever) you are dooming them. Your DNA will be sold to medical insurance companies who will adjust their insurance.
SO this is not about YOU its about all your descendants!
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peter, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:35am

Sad to say
This has been exactly the situation in the UK for some time.
Actually it is worse.
Firstly you get your DNA collected if arrested on suspicion of any recordable offence.
Second, the police can (and do) arrest for almost any reason they can think of.
Thirdly, the new laws in this country are made such that almost any offence is recordable. i.e. Two years in prison for selling a bicycle without a bell.

Your DNA is kept even if you are aquitted of any offence, or not even charged with any offence. About the only means of getting your DNA off the database is to prove the arrest was illegal.
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Anon E. Mous (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:36am

Breaking News, your constitutional rights died today, authorities say they were trampled on by nine suspects. Film at 11
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TheLastCzarnian (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:38am

Re: Re: Re:
It seems like the complaint here is that DNA data can be shared and used by entities not associated with law enforcement. What we need are laws that prohibit this, and make the punitive damages so steep that it's not worth the risk, rather than take away such a useful and accurate tool.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:39am

Re:
I hope we got some DNA from those 9 suspects.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:41am

Re: Re:
If law enforcement can run your prints, and you're related to someone who committed an unsolved crime, they can connect DNA from a relative to determine that a relative of yours committed a crime. Then they have probably cause to go after your relatives.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:42am

Re: Re: Re:
*can run your DNA. They can't get that information off prints. (Hence a majority of the difference of the two)
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:47am

Re: Re:
And will that extra data about who you're related to and what diseases you're more likely to get come in handy at solving any crimes? No.

Incorrect. Identifying close blood relatives can be very useful when solving crimes.

Seeing as they have cops take finger prints of children when they're in elementary school for helping to solve future crimes, I don't see how DNA is much different.

That is not why most parents have their children finger printed. They do it to that if the child is lost or abducted, or if there is a dispute over who's child it is, they can be identified correctly.
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crade (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:58am

They already take your fingerprints for the exact same purpose. This is just as wrong, but no more.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:00am

So it's ok to use technology to steal copyrighted material but not solve crime? Gotcha. What an embarrassing loser you are Masnick.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:01am

Re: Anyone shocked?
Link to a legitimate, non-hysterical news source?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:03am

If you can except finger printing during the booking process for those arrested for a crime then why not the taking of DNA?
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surfer (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:04am

w0w
this is the first coherent post I have read from you in almost 3 years, I just had to login for once.

typically I troll TD to report idiot rantings, but out of the blue, you actually stayed on topic, had something logical to add, and didnt berate anyone in the process.

1 internets for you.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:06am

Re: Well, turns out Mike is a Luddite against "technology".
Since when can Google lock me in a cage for the rest of my life?
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TheLastCzarnian (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:06am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Now that I think about it, your DNA profile could be stored as a salted hash, which would allow someone to identify you without being able to use it for any sort of profiling.

Now we just need to get Congress on board with that idea without getting them hungry and breaking for lunch...
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crade (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:07am

Re: Re: Re:
It's too ways of saying the same thing. Identifying people (specifically which face and name goes with which fingerprints or DNA) is what they need to do to solve crimes.
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Ockham's Stubble (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:07am

Re: Privacy & fingerprints
2 things:

1) Just because I leave DNA all over the place doesn't mean I intend to, have no interest in it, or mean it's "public". Many things are and will be technologically possible that invade my privacy - this doesn't automatically invalidate any expectations of privacy that I have. (We may have to think about new justifications for that expectation, or revise the expectation itself, given new technologies. But that's different.)

2) Fingerprinting children is done *with the consent of parents/guardians*. And though the intent of those parents isn't relevant to the consent issue, most (I'd expect) do it not to solve crimes but to recover their children in the awful circumstance of abduction, etc. (I want my children found first. Catching the criminal is a distant second.) Therefore, I see no inconsistency here.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:08am

Re:
1) The flakes and random DNA you shed is getting more and more interesting as techniques get faster and better at separating differnet strings of DNA. In the future it will get closer to real DNA swabs as a proof, so it is likely a time-limited argument at best to say it isn't evidence.

2) DNA analysis takes a lot of time and determining more specific characteristics takes even longer. Without a specific gene-determination, DNA is not that much more than a fingerprint. Determination of who you are related to is a question of getting DNA from relatives. Therefore basic DNA sequences are of only little more value than fingerprints.

3) This very court case should not in itself tell exactly if DNA is relevant or not in other situations. It is giving an idea about the need for specific procedures in storing DNA and how it should work as a limited tool. However, the precedence should be seen as a need for more procedural laws on the police or three-letter salads rather than a simple shotdown of the fourth ammendment.
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dennis deems (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:13am

Re: DNA
You are referred to post #1 in this thread, by user Rikuo.
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dennis deems (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:23am

Re:
Marked as funny. Parody, right? Great imitation of the regular trolls.
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Pragmatic, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:24am

Re: w0w
Surfer, Blue is conflating Google with "the gubmint." Actually, Google's tracking is to find marketing information such as your personal interests and habits so they can put targeted ads on your emails and in your searches.

They can't make money on jailbirds, they need you to be free so they can farm you for your info. That's the price of a "free" service.

This is why Google opposes censorship, etc. The last thing they want is to have the cows flee the pasture.
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madasahatter (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:31am

Re: Re:
Point 2 - Fingerprints are more rapidly processed than DNA. Many more people are fingerprinted than have had their DNA analyzed. Fingerprints are required for certain jobs and for security clearances.

Thus a rapid check of fingerprints is more likely confirm the identity of the person and incidentally possibly link the person to an unsolved crime. DNA samples have only been required for convicted felons in most jurisdictions so the database has far fewer entries.
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:32am

Re:
That is a pitiful attempt at a strawman, even by your absurdly low standards.
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Gwiz (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:36am

Re: w0w
this is the first coherent post I have read from you in almost 3 years...

I dunno. That last paragraph sounded more like tinfoil hat style anti-Google ranting to me.

Google may or may not be doing all these things that Blue is postulating, but it's immaterial. Google is opt-in. If you don't like what they are doing, don't use them.

It's almost like Blue has fallen for the false axiom that "Google equals the internet". It's not "the internet" any more than AOL or Yahoo was in their heydays.
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madasahatter (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:39am

Re: Re:
Fingerprints are useful to identify the criminal and the victim and fingerprinting children makes identify them easier. Also, there is nothing illegal about voluntarily giving your fingerprints or DNA. The issue was the state law mandated involuntary, warrantless DNA samples must be taken before conviction.

The issue is whether a warrant should be required to obtain involuntary DNA samples of a suspect.
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MonkeyFracasJr (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:47am

Re: mugshots
So you don't have a driver's license then?
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Kal Zekdor (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:47am

Re:
Who says I accept fingerprinting? The fact that your fingerprints can be taken and entered into a database for being arrested galls me to no end. Being arrested is not the same as being convicted. I don't have a problem with fingerprint/DNA databases of convicted felons, but anyone can be arrested, despite not breaking any laws; if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, bear a resemblance to a criminal, match a profile, or just somehow manage to piss off a cop. Usually in these cases you're let go right away after a few questions, but not before they permanently add you into a criminal identification database. It's outrageous when you think about it.
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madasahatter (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:48am

Re:
Fingerprints are unique to the individual while DNA is not always unique. Identical siblings have the same DNA. There was a case in Florida where there was DNA and no fingerprints. The police found themselves with a serious problem because the DNA matched identical twin brothers. They had to determine who was present at the crime scene (I believe a murder) by employment records. One was at work when the crime was committed.

Identical twins do not have the same fingerprints which is why they are superior in many respects for identification.
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madasahatter (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:52am

Re: Re:
I have been fingerprinted for certain jobs so mine are on file in the FBI database. Many are required to submit their fingerprints for specific jobs and security clearances.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:05am

Re: Well, turns out Mike is a Luddite against "technology".
The only difference is that Google only finds what exists online. The Police need to take the information from you. People have all these problems with Google but I already have a fix for that. Expect anything posted on the internet to be seen by everyone.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:06am

Re:
2) "We take fingerprints already, why not DNA testing?"

For what it's worth, Scalia points out in his dissent that the court has never really tested the question of fingerprinting. So even the assumption that it's constitutional is not necessarily settled:

The Court asserts that the taking of fingerprints was�constitutional for generations prior to the introduction� ofthe FBI�s rapid computer-matching system. Ante, at 22. This bold statement is bereft of citation to authoritybecause there is none for it. The �great expansion in fingerprinting came before the modern era of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,� and so we were never asked to decidethe legitimacy of the practice. United States v. Kincade, 379 F. 3d 813, 874 (CA9 2004) (Kozinski, J., dissenting).As fingerprint databases expanded from convicted criminals, to arrestees, to civil servants, to immigrants,to everyone with a driver�s license, Americans simply �became accustomed to having our fingerprints on file in some government database.� Ibid. But it is wrongto suggest that this was uncontroversial at the time, orthat this Court blessed universal fingerprinting for �generations� before it was possible to use it effectively for identification.

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Jay (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:11am

Re: Re:
I just don't see the issue with checking people who've been arrested against the list of unsolved crimes.

Because you don't happen to be racially profiled. What we're creating is a massive database of people falsely convicted for crimes and then hold their DNA just in case they commit a crime.

The DNA is held for 50 years by the FBI. You add that to the NSA spying, the fusion centers, and the massive amounts of sentencing rules that are vague and put you in prison for 50 years.

You have a slave/police state. You have a racially motivated justice system that is looking for minorities to exploit instead of assist. You have imperialism going on in America against brown skinned people and it's downright disturbing that this has been allowed.
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pixelpusher220 (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:20am

Re: Re: Re:
Fingerprints are taken to identify you, not to keep on record for all eternity (at least that's the way it used to be).

If you're acquitted or charges are dropped, you shouldn't still be kept in the list of people who've committed crimes.

But checking arrestees against open unsolved crimes is something I don't have a problem with whether via fingerprints or DNA.
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surfer (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:20am

Re: Re: w0w
understood, however, upon my own research www.googleanalytics.com and many, many other 'google apps' attempt to extract an enormous amount of information during everyday surfing.

im not a tinfoil hatter, but I do respect my own privacy, and take considerable measures to ensure my anonymity is anonomous. not for paranoid reasons, but because i believe information is mine to divulge, not to be extracted.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:21am

Bad decision
Reading Scalia's dissent makes it pretty clear how the Court's logic doesn't hold water. I think they just didn't want to be accused of letting a rapist go free, even though that's what the law demands.

The majority claims that the DNA can be taken without a warrant for purposes of identifying the person arrested. Scalia shows how that could not POSSIBLY be the reason in this case:

"So, to review: DNA testing does not even begin until after arraignment and bail decisions are already made. The samples sit in storage for months, and take weeks to test. When they are tested, they are checked against the Unsolved Crimes Collection--rather than the Convict and Arrestee Collection, which could be used to identify them. The Act forbids the Court's purpose (identification), but prescribes as its purpose what our suspicionless-search cases forbid ("official investigation into a crime"). Against all of that, it is safe to say that if the Court's identification theory is not wrong, there is no such thing as error."

In case you missed that: The law authorizing the taking of DNA specifically forbids it be taken for any purpose not stated in the law (actually making it a crime to do so), and identification of an arrestee is not listed as a purpose.
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:51am

Re:
Another key think to note is that DNA is not 100% reliable in criminal cases.

The main example that comes to mind is the Amanda Knox trial/Meredith Kercher witch hunt in Italy a few years back. Amanda Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito were initially convicted and sentenced to 26 (Knox) and 25 years (Solletio) in prison for allegedly murdering British exchange student Meredith Kercher, a major part of which involved a knife allegedly found in Sollecito's apartment that had a DNA sample "compatible with Kerche's profile" on the blade and Knox's DNA on the handle (she used the knife to cook), as well as traces of Sollecito's DNA on the bra clasp of Meredith Kercher.

The two were locked up for two years until 2011 when it came out during appeal that the chain of evidence had not been followed for the case, and that the police investigation hadn't followed the international standards for DNA sample collection, allowing th evidence to be contaminated.

[Of course, it didn't help matters that the prosecution of the case did everything it its power to assassinate the character of Amanda Knox. I kid you not, the prosecutor's initial proposal for motive was that Meredith Kercher was sacrificed as part of a "Satanic ritualistic orgy", before backing down to the slightly-less slanderous claim of the motive as "sex game gone wrong". And some people say that the American court system is messed up...]

Point is, DNA evidence is by no means absolute proof that a person is guilty of any crime. Innocent people have already suffered because of contaminated DNA evidence.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:54am

Re: Re:
You want them to take DNA from suspects for the purpose of solving other crimes.

This is ironic, because the Supreme Court here is trying to bend over backwards to say that this is NOT the reason. Because such a reason would not support a warrantless, suspicionless search of someone who is merely arrested.

In fact, this is the entire reason the Supreme Court is wrong here. Everyone knows the purpose of taking DNA in this case was not identification. The dissent goes into great detail on why, but I think you already know this.

"#2 - Are fingerprints taken during arrest used to match you to unsolved crimes? My assumption is that is the current case. If so, then taking DNA for the same reasons is no different."

See page 46 for how fingerprints are different than DNA.

"You describe 'today' and perhaps that's valid, but it won't be all that long before star trek tricorder type tech IS available and can do what you say is impossible."

As Scalia says on page 48:

"The issue before us is not whether DNA can some day be used for identification; nor even whether it can today be used for identification; but whether it was used for identification here."

And I leave you with tis:

"Today's judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes; then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the Transportation Security Administration needs to know the "identity" of the flying public), applies for a driver's license, or attends a public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection."
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:55am

This will be revisited...
The information available from the database of DNA samples will undoubtedly be abused egregiously, unlawfully, and repeatedly. Cases will be brought that will eventually reach the Supreme Court again where they will see the errors of their ways in this decision and choose to reverse it. Either that or (less likely with our current crop of politicians in office) Congress will specifically pass laws to address the issue and invalidate the Supreme Court's decision.

Actually now that I think about it, states can actually do that themselves. This decision doesn't invalidate state laws that could be passed against it. It merely states that it is not a constitutional issue. If the Maryland Supreme Court had decided their case based on some other reasoning other than it being a violation of the 4th amendment, there would be no reason for it to go to the Federal Court for reversal.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:02am

Re: Re: Re:
Texas now requires a scan of your fingerprints as part of the process of getting a driver's license and has for several years. That started about the same time that they put magnetic strips on the licenses. I'm not sure whether the fingerprint data is stored on the magnetic strip or not but just in case I always take a giant magnet to the strip every time I get a new license. They don't need that information accessible by simply swiping a card. They can go look it up if they really want it that badly.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:18am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I'm not sure whether the fingerprint data is stored on the magnetic strip or not"

That would be awfully stupid, since people can change what's on the strip. (But on second thought, that doesn't mean they aren't doing it that way...)
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The Infamous Joe (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:38am

Re: Re: Re:
This is nonsense.

For this to matter, your DNA would have to be at the scene of the crime. Combined with the fact that the mere presence of DNA isn't an automatic guilty sentence, but just another form of evidence, and I really fail to see the problem here.

No matter *how* racist the cop, you'd still need to have your DNA at the scene of a crime for this to hurt you; and if your DNA is at the scene of a crime, the cops *should* question you about it.

Where's the police state part come in?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:43am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I remember when I first found out that they were doing this I planned to play with super glue that day before I went to get my license. I then got busy and forgot about it before I had to go.
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btr1701 (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:43am

4th
> Kennedy is the usual "swing" vote, and wrote
> the decision here, decimating the basics of the
> 4th amendment. I mean absolutely decimating it.

Well, at least that means we still have 90% of the 4th Amendment left...
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:46am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Even if the fingerprint data isn't stored on the card but rather simply some id that can be used to reference my information in their database with a scan of the card, that still doesn't change the fact that they don't need to have access to it by simply swiping the card. Hence the need for the magnet to erase the strip.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:48am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"and if your DNA is at the scene of a crime, the cops *should* question you about it."

And if I have a bloody axe in my basement, the cops *should* question me about that, too. Except they shouldn't even know about it, because they shouldn't be searching my basement without a warrant just because I was arrested for something entirely unrelated. They also shouldn't be in my BODY without a warrant unless they have a good reason.
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btr1701 (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:51am

Prints
I guess I'm not seeing the difference between taking someone's fingerprints upon arrest and running them through AFIS to see if they come up related to any other crime (something the Supreme Court, including Scalia, has allowed for decades) and doing the same thing with DNA.

Why would one be constitutional and the other not? Both searches operates on the same level of probable cause, so I'm not sure why Scalia (and Mike) object to the latter but not the former.
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Allen, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:51am

Re:
"When they passed the seatbelt law it was stated they would not pull you over just because..."

Who stated that? 51 seatbelt laws were passed in 50 states plus the district of Columbia. I remember when it passed in Texas--I had been driving 9 months. The law had a 4-month grace period where you would only be granted a warning, but on Dec 1 1985, everyone was told if they weren't wearing a seatbelt, they'd be pulled over and ticketed. My dad was ticketed twice within the first year of the law.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:51am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Did you also gently pound it with a hammer to destroy the RFID chip that's probably in it? May as well be thorough.
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Transbot9, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:53am

Eh.
So long as someone doesn't take DNA information from a public database and try to patent it, I'm not really concerned.
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The Infamous Joe (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:57am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Go home, AC, you're drunk.

Your analogy makes no sense. If you're arrested for burglary and your fingerprints match those found on a bloody axe from a crime 4 years ago, you shouldn't be questioned about the bloody axe?

The fact that your DNA is matched with DNA found at an unrelated crime scene is a *fact*. There can be a logical explanation for it, of course, but it's still a new piece of evidence in a crime, and should be investigated. *Exactly like fingerprints.*

Where is the police state?
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The Infamous Joe (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:00am

Re: Re:
They're not considering taking *only* DNA, are they?
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Uriel-238 (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:06am

Yeah. Not sure.
This may be a case of technology marching on.

Right now, DNA testing is slow and expensive, but we need to count on the possibility that it will become fast and cheap in our living future.

And yes, this is an advance of tyranny in the name of security, but it's not a big advance. And given that plenty of death-row convicts have been exonerated by DNA testing, this has the potential of making our system more just.

I as much as the next guy don't like the coppers in my home and in my phone unless they have a damn good reason (and a tidy warrant that specifies what they're searching for). But we also depend too greatly in the courts on witness accounts which are notoriously unreliable. The sooner we get to CSI where our courts depend on robust material evidence, and no witness accounts, the better.

Yeah, our cops and DoJ are owned by powers other than the people, but it wasn't always so, nor will it always be so, and this is well within the advancements that I'd want any law-enforcement service to have.

Not sure in these circumstances, though.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:08am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
But why are you TAKING my DNA in the first place? That's the key. You can't just go taking DNA for no reason whatsoever. If you're taking it for the sole purpose of matching to other unsolved crimes, that's not permissible. It's only constitutionally permissible to do if you're taking it for the purposes of identification - but you can't reasonably say that it's used for identification here, and Scalia does a better job than I could of saying why. And page 46 says how the fingerprint database is not the same as the DNA database.
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The Infamous Joe (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:14am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
They're taking you DNA because you were arrested, the same reason they take a fingerprint.

Now, if that DNA database were shared with outside organizations, or used to determine medical health, etc, then I agree with you that this is unacceptable, but that's a problem with the database, not the act of taking DNA to identify a person.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:21am

Re: Yeah. Not sure.
"And given that plenty of death-row convicts have been exonerated by DNA testing, this has the potential of making our system more just."

I think you're totally confused here. If there's skin under the victim's fingernails and you already have enough other evidence to arrest someone, it will be trivial to get a warrant to get his DNA. But that is NOT what we are talking about here. We are talking about cases where not only is there no warrant, there is not even a suspicion that the DNA will be helpful in the case.

Imagine, for example, someone who is arrested for filming a cop with his cell phone. DNA is not going to do a single thing to help or hurt that case. You're only taking it to see if there's something ELSE you can get him for, without so much as a suspicion that he did something else.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:24am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"They're taking you DNA because you were arrested, the same reason they take a fingerprint."

Did you READ the dissent? Especially around page 46, like I cited?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm pretty sure they don't have those but if they do start doing that, yes that will happen.
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btrussell (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:31am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"But checking arrestees against open unsolved crimes is something I don't have a problem with whether via fingerprints or DNA."

How about convictions?

It would be nice to live in a world where we are innocent until proven guilty again instead of having to prove our innocence.

If we really need to stop/solve all crimes, how about we start at the top where it all "trickles down" from?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:32am

Does the government then just store your DNA in perpetuity? And how much of you DNA, just enough to individually identify you or your whole sequence?

I don't think the 4 Justices who voted for this really thought this through.
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Franklin G Ryzzo (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:36am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You mean like average citizens and journalists have being arrested for filming police officers, or throwing water balloons, or posting rap lyrics on Facebook?

DNA should not be collected without a conviction because these days the police can arrest anyone for anything. The charges may not hold water, but its a moot point once they've violated your rights and put you in a biometrics database. How can you possible be ok with this?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 10:43am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
According to the Maryland law, the sample is not put into the database until you've been arraigned. So at the very least, the most frivolous of charges wouldn't result in the DNA being saved (assuming they follow the law.)

Of course, by doing it this way, they're completely admitting that they aren't actually doing it to identify the person. If you were truly doing it for identification you'd want the results right away, instead of mandating that the process not even start until after the person is probably out on bail.
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Wolfy, 4 Jun 2013 @ 11:02am

Watch... This decision will be used down the line to justify a search of the person without a warrant. They'll say in court, "After all, it's legal to search a person right on down past even the cellular level to a person's very genes without a warrant..."

It's crap like this, is why guns and ammunition are flying off the shelves in the US.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 11:42am

Re: Re: Re:
Until now......
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 11:46am

Re: Re:
You find the truth to be parody? Sad.
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joey baggadonutts, 4 Jun 2013 @ 12:16pm

i am not seeing the problem here......
honestly, whats the problem here? if you get arrested, they take your fingerprints, they take your DNA. if running that info thru a database solves a crime.....like the murder of a child.....or a kidnap of your little sister.....or whatever!!! then i am all for it. they are NOT taking DNA off of joe blows walking down the street. they are taking it from ARRESTED people. if you're arrested, you gotta give it up!!
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Cowards Anonymous, 4 Jun 2013 @ 12:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
But checking arrestees against open unsolved crimes is something I don't have a problem with whether via fingerprints or DNA.

Police can't get a conviction for "disorderly conduct" or whatever they want to use to justify stop & frisk? Check their DNA in the database... ah, it seems you spit on the sidewalk back in 1992! Arrest justified!

http://www.infowars.com/florida-man-arrested-for-spitting-on-sidewalk/
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Uriel-238 (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 12:56pm

What if it's not kidnapping but "sedition"?
honestly, whats the problem here? if you get arrested, they take your fingerprints, they take your DNA. if running that info thru a database solves a crime.....like the murder of a child.....or a kidnap of your little sister

If it were only used to solve crimes like murders and kidnappings, then we might have a point, but our law enforcement does have a nasty habit of arresting people on non-laws and then looking for things that they can pin on you. And as was pointed out in a prior article law enforcement is more into just nabbing collars for points than seeing actual justice done.

Limitations on law enforcement exist partially because some laws are stupid, but also because there's a tendency to arrest and trump for non laws, e.g. driving while black, or contempt of cop.

In the meantime the arguments for and against taking a DNA swab as standard booking procedure would also apply to fingerprinting, which we tolerated because we believed it was law. What the Hell? Is this a matter of us ignoring a problem because we're used to it?
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Richard Hussong (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 1:02pm

I find Scalia's page 46 unpersuasive
Scalia makes the argument that the primary purpose of collecting fingerprints is identification, with solving of earlier crimes only secondary, while the primary purpose of collecting DNA is solving earlier crimes. This seems to me to be a distinction without a difference. If it is constitutionally permissible to use fingerprints to fish through AFIS in order to attempt to connect an arrestee with earlier crimes, then it does not matter at all whether doing so is common or rare - it must be constitutionally permissible to use DNA for the same purpose.

DNA sampling could be made more like fingerprinting if all samples were classified by a standard profile of alleles, then destroyed, keeping only the profile as a kind of "DNA fingerprint". This would increase privacy by making it impossible for anyone to get hold of a DNA sample and analyze it for any purpose other than identification. Of course, it would also preclude future use on those samples of more-sophisticated DNA analysis techniques, whose reliability will probably be greater than today's.

The one feature of DNA fingerprinting that is fundamentally different from actual fingerprinting is the possibility of identifying familial partial matches. It is hard to imagine how this could be prevented in general, although such matches could, and probably should, be made inadmissible in court. It is also conceivable that they could be treated as fourth amendment violations, causing the results of any investigations based on familial matches to be inadmissible, as well.
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Rikuo (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 1:32pm

Re: Fingerprints?
"no invasive process is required."

Yes there is. I know, taking a cheek skin cell does not harm you in any way, but it is still literally invasive, you are being told to put something in your body. I don't care how benign it is, if something is going into my body, I and I alone am the final judge on whether or not to do it (about the only exception I can see for this would be forcing a Jehovah's Witness to accept a blood transfusion in a life threatening situation or something along those lines).
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Rikuo (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 1:34pm

Re: Well, turns out Mike is a Luddite against "technology".
Wait wait wait...you know about Noscript and hosts file (robot.txt)? Since when?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 1:58pm

Re: I find Scalia's page 46 unpersuasive
"If it is constitutionally permissible to use fingerprints to fish through AFIS in order to attempt to connect an arrestee with earlier crimes, then it does not matter at all whether doing so is common or rare - it must be constitutionally permissible to use DNA for the same purpose"

Once you have the DNA sample it's permissible to use it. But they were not taking it for a constitutionally permissible reason.

If an officer wants to talk to you he's allowed to pat you down for weapons, even without probable cause, because it's a safety issue. If he happens to find drugs during that patdown, that can be used against you. But the officer is not allowed to pat you down for the REASON of looking for drugs. That would be an illegal search. Even though both searches are of the same person and have the same result, one is allowed and one is not.

It's sort of the same here. It's obvious that Maryland is not taking DNA for identification purposes. If they were, they wouldn't wait until after the arraignment to even start doing anything with it. No, they are taking it for the purpose of criminal investigation. And that PURPOSE makes it an illegal search.

There's also the fact the DNA is not replacing fingerprinting. Once you've photographed and fingerprinted someone, you have their identity. You have both what they look like and an unchangeable unique identifier that they can't get rid of. Adding DNA on top of that provides nothing new in terms of identity. Furthermore, the government has the responsibility to use the least intrusive way of doing things, when dealing with warrantless searches.

I think you would have a point if identification was one purpose among many for this DNA testing. I think it's clear that under this law, identification is not a purpose AT ALL. We likely would have started using fingerprints to identify criminals even if they were not sometimes useful in investigations. We would NOT have started this DNA testing EXCEPT that it is useful in criminal investigations.
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Cowards Anonymous, 4 Jun 2013 @ 2:30pm

Re: i am not seeing the problem here......
The problem is that the police can arrest (detain) anyone without charges for up to 24 hours (or more under certain circumstances). If they can sample DNA on arrest rather than on conviction, or even being charged, then they CAN effectively take DNA off of Joe Blows walking down the street.

Arrest != Criminal. Peaceful protesters who are often arrested are a prime example of that.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 2:41pm

someone explain please how it is that those that are supposed to be so learned in law and to defend the Constitution rule in so ridiculous ways and do whatever they possibly can to destroy the Constitution? bit strange, really
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crade (profile), 4 Jun 2013 @ 3:49pm

Re: Re: Re:
Nuking everyone would solve crime.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 4:15pm

And if Masnick had of been raped by this guy
??

Would it be ok then, do you think the lady who was raped by this dirtbag agrees with you ?

What if you were raped Masnick ? you would not want him caught and punished for it ? or would you invite him back the next night ?
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Anonymous, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:07pm

Re: Re: i am not seeing the problem here......
Welcome to the land of the free.
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Anonymous, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:10pm

Re: i am not seeing the problem here......
What tune will you be singing if you're arrested on a false accusation?
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Anonymous, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:11pm

Re:
The CONstitution is what gave us the supreme court. The fix was in from the beginning.
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Rekrul, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:11pm

Re: Yeah. Not sure.
Right now, DNA testing is slow and expensive...

You mean they can't just drop it in a test tube, stick it in the centrifuge, let it run for a few minutes and then the results instantly pop up on the computer screen? CSI lied to us???
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Anonymous, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:12pm

Re: Re: Anyone shocked?
You mean something that suuports YOUR point of view?
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Rekrul, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:15pm

Where are you supposed to turn for justice when the highest court in the land doesn't give a shit about your rights or the Constitution?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 6:27pm

Re: Re:
could one decline fingerprinting/DNA testing under the 5th amendment?
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Anonymous, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Anyone shocked?
*supports
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 7:42pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Texas? Remember the Allymo! Yeeee-haw!
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2013 @ 8:33pm

Re: Prints
I've had it with the apologists trying to equate taking fingerprints with DNA! A couple of questions for you:
- Can you avoid leaving fingerprints at a crime scene?
- Can you avoid leaving DNA?

And for the slow among you the answers are yes to the first and no to the second.

If you are unable to understand the difference, then you are the reason why the USA is going down the tubes with regards to civil rights.
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Eewww, 4 Jun 2013 @ 9:46pm

Re: And if Masnick had of been raped by this guy
Please don't talk about your sexual obsession with Mike, no one is interested in your erotic fantasies.

@everyone else: Does anyone around here have some brain-bleach?
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Ophelia Millais (profile), 5 Jun 2013 @ 1:36am

Re: Anyone who wants some of my DNA can have it.?? !!
SO this is not about YOU its about all your descendants!

...including the ones you didn't know you had until the DNA proof! :)
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btrussell (profile), 5 Jun 2013 @ 3:10am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Getting rid of all laws would solve crime.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jun 2013 @ 4:32am

Re:
Some would say hire the high powered law firm of Smith & Wesson.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jun 2013 @ 5:59am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The police state comes in once you consider the actual results of the ruling. We can already take DNA from convicts no problem. The only group this ruling effectively changes things for is those innocent of the crime for which they were arrested. So now the cops have a vested interest in arresting people even when they know them to be innocent as a pre-text for getting their DNA.
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Tubal (profile), 5 Jun 2013 @ 10:00am

Mike, who is so often wrong in his statements of the state of current law, is right on here.
Mike should stick to making policy arguments of what he believes the law should be. It his is strong suit.
When he spouts erroneous assertions of what the law is, he does his advocacy a disservice.
As for the decision, the solution appears to be to push for protections under state statutes or state Constitutions, much like occurred after the Kelo decision on imminent domain.
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btr1701 (profile), 5 Jun 2013 @ 11:23pm

Re: Re: Re:
> Then they have probably cause to go after your relatives.

There's no such thing as 'probably cause'.

The term is probable cause.
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btr1701 (profile), 5 Jun 2013 @ 11:43pm

Re: Re: Anyone shocked?
> Link to a legitimate, non-hysterical news source?

http://www.tullahomanews.com/?p=15360
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btr1701 (profile), 5 Jun 2013 @ 11:55pm

Re: Re: Prints
> I've had it with the apologists trying to equate
> taking fingerprints with DNA!

Sucks to be you, then, since you can't do anything to stop it.

> A couple of questions for you:
> - Can you avoid leaving fingerprints at a crime scene?

Yes.

> - Can you avoid leaving DNA?

Yes.

> And for the slow among you the answers are
> yes to the first and no to the second.

Weird, that there are so many crime scenes from which no suspect DNA is recovered.

You're full of crap.

> you are the reason why the USA is going down the tubes
> with regards to civil rights.

And you're apparently the reason why the USA is bottoming out in basic education and common sense.
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btrussell (profile), 7 Jun 2013 @ 3:05am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"New York Senate makes it a felony to annoy a police officer"
http://boingboing.net/2013/06/06/new-york-senate-makes-it-a-fel.html
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mike, 6 Feb 2014 @ 1:28pm

Re: Re:
Actually, seat belts do not, in the greater sense, save lives. Before seat belts were put into cars people consciously drove slower and safer, after seat belts they drove faster, because they thought they were safer. Seat belts caused pedestrian death rates to skyrocket, while motorist death rates remained the same. This is fact, look it up. Seat belts actually caused more death. Do they make you safer? Relative to speed, yes. In the whole, absolutely not.
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