NY Governor Wants To Expand DNA Database 169
crimeandpunishment writes "If Governor David Paterson has his way, New York would take DNA samples from even the lowest level of criminal, doubling the state's DNA database. He says it would help to both solve crimes and clear people who were wrongly convicted. New York would become the first state in the country to do this. Currently DNA isn't collected in most misdemeanors. The plan is getting lots of support among law enforcement, but the New York Civil Liberties Union says there are questions about privacy."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
And then the crackdown on jaywalkers (Score:5, Insightful)
If this happens, what will follow is a crackdown on jaywalking and other everybody crimes so that the database becomes universal. They'll be taking DNA at traffic stops.
Re:And then the crackdown on jaywalkers (Score:5, Insightful)
If this happens, what will follow is a crackdown on jaywalking and other everybody crimes so that the database becomes universal. They'll be taking DNA at traffic stops.
That's quite predictable but a lot of (naive) people will be very surprised when it happens. Maybe they can get over their surprise long enough to consider what this tells them about the nature and intentions of the people who are pushing for these kinds of laws. This whole scenario reminds me of an entry from my quotations file:
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
-- H. L. Mencken
This is a bit like the War on (some) Drugs. Observation: a government has very little power over those who break no laws. Therefore, if you want to expand the police power of government, you need more laws. If there aren't enough criminals, you make crimes of things that are not crimes to produce some more. If there are plenty of criminals, or if that option isn't realistic, then you increasingly treat very minor crimes the same way you handle serious crimes. It seems New York is going with that latter option.
Re:By what perversion of logic? (Score:3, Insightful)
It allows the law enforcement to skip the step of having to arrest you to get your DNA to test.
Re:And then the crackdown on jaywalkers (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's even worse than having a universal database. The database will largely exclude the people who create and enforce the law, along with those they favor.
If the DNA database were universal the legislators and their friends and families would also be included. That would dramatically increase the chance that there would be meaningful limitations on how the data was used.
Re:DNA is a double edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the important issue is whether the data is collected, but how it can be used. For example if law enforcement can try to match a sample from a crime scene against EVERY person in their database, you need a really low rate of false positives. Nationwide there are probably something like a million crimes committed each year (just guessing from the prison population). If you can match each against 300 million people in a database, that gives you 3x10^14 chances to make a mistake. We can't expect perfect justice, but even with a 1 in a 10 BILLION error rate, that is 30,000 false positives per year. Some of those will have enough other (weak) evidence to get convictions. Yet what jury wouldn't be convinced by a (true) claim that the chance of a false match is "only" one in 10 billion?
Also, once the data exists, is (should?) the government be required to check everyone in prison against DNA evidence if it exists? Personally I think this is very desirable, but it would be very expensive.
Also can the DNA evidence be used to predict tendencies to crime. This isn't practical yet, but we might in the future detect genetic markers that have correlation with types of criminal behaviour. Is it fair to say in court that the accused "has genetic markers that indicate a propensity to violence"?
The final problem is that once DNA evidence is very common use, as the poster above mentions criminals will start to plane evidence. Murder someone - plant a few hairs that you collected from someone else. Framing someone becomes much easier.
Juries need to understand that the existence of DNA evidence at a crime scene only shows that ....the person's DNA was at the crime scene - it doesn't say the person was there, or that they committed the crime.
Many of these arguments apply to various other high tech information gathering.
Re:Question: how is this different from other data (Score:3, Insightful)
Just a question to naysayers: how is this different from the state wanting to know where you live, or wanting your name on record?
If I get a cut and bleed somewhere, having my name or address on file doesn't tell you I was there. Having my DNA does.
Re:Question: how is this different from other data (Score:4, Insightful)
- It uniquely identifies a person.
- It may be used against that person in the future, even if the person was innocent at the time of collection.
- It may require drawing blood. Some people are very afraid of needles and should not be forced to submit to a blood test unless the person is to stand trial for a crime where drawing blood makes legal sense (as opposed to it just being something the government thinks would be nice to have).
False Positives (Score:5, Insightful)
So it isn't just about the privacy of your DNA, but the miscarriage of justice by people that don't understand statistics and zealous police and DAs who are in the habit of creating evidence to convict someone they "know" did it (or in the case of DAs, they don't know or care who did it, but their conviction rate requires a guilty verdict and is more important than justice).
This is all just a symptom of a larger problem. The "justice" system is unrelated to justice and has become a punishment system where even those never convicted are punished in many ways (confiscation of money without any process at all, in direct violation of the Constitution, as long as they suspect that a drug user looked at it once). The government exists to serve us, and no, I don't mean serve us with warrants.
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
If police can gain an advantage by enforcing laws against minor and/or discretionary offenses, you can be sure they will take full advantage by enforcing such laws more often. It's been known to happen, and it will happen again if this abominable bill is turned into law.
Re:Question: how is this different from other data (Score:4, Insightful)
Those examples are just further up the slippery slope.
Re:NYC Governor? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a New Yorker, I've never quite understood why Albany is the capital and not NYC.
In most states - and in most counties - the biggest city never remains the capital.
It ignites too many old rivalries and suspicions: Rural vs Urban.
City vs City.
Inland vs Coastal. Manufacturing vs Trade.
Albany was the crossroads:
The Mohawk, the route of the Erie Canal, West.
North, Lake Champagne, northern New England and Canada. South, the Hudson and New York City.
Re:And then the crackdown on jaywalkers (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing about the "slippery slope" fallacy, is that it's most often derided as fallacy by people with a brush in one hand and a can of "slope grease" in the other...
and... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:False Positives (Score:5, Insightful)
If you collect DNA directly from two people you can pretty much be certain that the DNA comes from two different people, barring identical twins. I believe there are 13 markers used to identify DNA, and if all 13 markers are intact the odds of a match are astronomical. The problem comes when you collect DNA from a crime scene - which may have 7 of 13 markers in tact - and compare it to a database. In that case, chances are fairly high that you'll get a match.
Prosecutors will go and tell a jury that the odds of a match are 1 in 1,000,000 (for example). In truth, this means the odds of any two people matching are 1 in 1,000,000, but they don't explain that the match was found using a database of 300,000, so the odds of finding a match were quite high. Unless the accused has a bullet proof alibi, they go down for the crime because juries don't understand statistics.
showcasing our own errors (Score:3, Insightful)
uh-huh. Yeah, sure.
Investigating Officer 1: Lets review this case investigation, with impending court charges against our suspect, just so we can, you know, get him off, if we, you know, fucked up.
Investigating Officer 2: So we expose our ineptness, and corruption, and blow our case stats all at the same time?
Investigating Officer 1: Meh, Its 5pm anyhoo. Couple jars down at the local?
Re:DNA is a double edged sword (Score:3, Insightful)
it can also be deliberately misused to purposefully frame people. Leaving false DNA evidence is much easier than copying someones fingerprints.
I would like to see some real-world examples.
The frame you left behind may be carrying traces of your own DNA.
Your victim now has every reason to spill the beans, expose everything he knows about your operation since the day your were expelled from My Darling Little Angels Day Care Center.
Re:Right to remain silent (Score:3, Insightful)