The federal government has found a new way to invade our privacy.
As of January 2006, a new amendment quietly placed onto the Violence Against Women Act allows the government to collect DNA samples from anyone under arrest.
People don’t even have to be guilty of a crime to have DNA collected, but by having their DNA in the FBI database, it may be implied by some that they have committed a crime.
Taking DNA from violent criminals who have been proven guilty is justified in certain instances and can help put away repeat offenders. However, if the government collects DNA from every Tom, Dick and Harry, it is encroaching upon civil liberties.
This arbitrary DNA sampling is an invasion of privacy and increases chances of genetic discrimination, since there has been little precedent set in disposing of DNA samples after conviction or acquittal.
This first step of building a DNA database in almost all cases can create the potential for genetic profiling and be used in the near future by a person’s employer, schools, banks and insurance companies, if boundaries are not set now in regards to disclosure.
“If nothing else, there needs to be a full, open debate in Congress and the public in general,” said Gabe Rose, president of Bruin Democrats. “This amendment seems to have been rushed through Congress without a fair discussion.”
DNA holds intimate evidence of a person’s medical background of which the state has no need, such as predispositions to genetic diseases and parentage.
“If the DNA is strictly used for identification purposes, then it is a more advanced type of fingerprinting,” Rose said. “But when it is used for other purposes, there are legitimate issues regarding privacy.”
Mildred Cho of the Stanford Center of Biomedical Ethics and Pamela Sankar of the University of Pennsylvania, Center for Bioethics claimed in a paper that collecting DNA samples infringes upon civil rights because there are no provisions made for when the DNA sample is no longer needed, and that DNA can be taken without probable cause.
In addition, Cho and Sankar argue that DNA taken forcefully creates a social stigma ““ that people will be labeled as guilty for not giving up their genetic history at the drop of a hat; that they have something to hide.
This law also allows officials to collect DNA from arrested illegal immigrants. In 2006, about 238,000 immigrants were detained by the Border Patrol regarding immigration enforcement. The FBI is expecting to process approximately 100,000 DNA samples submitted in 2006 and may receive 250,000 to 1 million samples in the next year.
A sponsor of the amendment, Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), has claimed in interviews that the law was written in such a way as to specifically include illegal immigrants.
It is a waste of money, resources and time to catalog the information of illegal immigrants, who are hardly the primary cause of violent crimes in the U.S.
Supporters, such as Kyl, justify the law on the assumption that illegal immigrants will commit some type of crime. Kyl said 13 percent of illegal immigrants detained by authorities last year had some sort of criminal record, according to an interview with The New York Times.
That is a small fraction, and the only thing immigrants may be guilty of is an immigration offense, which is ““ at the most ““ a borderline-criminal offense.
Cho and Sankar also argue that minorities are already overrepresented in arrest patterns and if DNA sampling is expanded, it increases the chances that minorities may be seen as criminals.
The benefits of genetic fingerprinting are not to be undermined. People suspected of violent crimes, especially sexually-based offenses, should have their DNA catalogued. Having DNA on file for these crimes can speed up investigations and offer valuable evidence in convictions. In California alone, the FBI DNA database has aided in 1,925 investigations.
However, this new amendment poses dangers to the privacy and civil liberties of the U.S. if the Justice Department decides to actually wield the law at full strength as planned.
Although beneficial in some ways, the collection of DNA from people who have not been proven to have committed any crime may force the American public into an Orwellian existence.
E-mail abissell@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.