Comments on: “Bill of Rights a live wire, 222 years later”

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 14:00:07 +0000

Again, the main problems are because the DNA provides *identification*. As the NYT pointed out a couple of weeks ago, some local police are entering into databases DNA of persons who are not even arrestees but simply witnesses or other bystanders, sometimes obtaining it without consent through coffee cup leavings and the like. Someone intending to misuse the database later may indeed need DNA identifiers for the persons whose privacy they intend to breach — again, coffee cup leavings may be enough — at which point they can start looking for old dirt.

By: William Nuesslein

William Nuesslein — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 13:49:05 +0000

I proved not to be the brightest candle by letting off “of the DNA database” from my last sentence. Criminal records provide information of Jones holding up the 7/11 as a youngster. Such information should be private. But what can be done knowing your alleles? Even here, the information comes from non-coding regions of your DNA so your propensity for cancer wouldn’t be revealed.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 12:53:03 +0000

For example, the FBI criminal records database has been abused when local police personnel have run background checks on persons for improper motives (for example, because private investigators have paid them to do so). DNA databases run by local law enforcement, and predictably run at a lower level of professionalism than the FBI’s, will inevitably be vulnerable to such improper requests.

By: William Nuesslein

William Nuesslein — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 10:25:24 +0000

“.. on the need to focus on state and local police use of DNA databases before the inevitable abuses establish themselves”

I am not the brightest candle on the cake, but I have some light in me, and I can’t conceive of the inevitable abuse.