the fourth amendment

[self biased]

dead.

[Sava]

DNA is only private if a big pharma company wants to patent it.

[Hauldren Collider]

How exactly is this unlawful search and seizure? They can also get your ****ing fingerprints. Have you just been taking Gattaca way too seriously? Because that movie sucked.

[Lorizael]

I'm not a legal expert, but this doesn't look like an awesome decision. My understanding is that previously, it was only okay to perform warrantless searches during an arrest to make sure the suspect had no weapons and did not try to destroy evidence. As long as the suspect is not a shapeshifter with an arsenal of retroviruses at their disposal, I can't think of a good reason why DNA would fall under that exception.

[self biased]

How exactly is this unlawful search and seizure? They can also get your ****ing fingerprints. Have you just been taking Gattaca way too seriously? Because that movie sucked.

They equated warrantless DNA samples with fingerprinting, but the analogy is terrible. The New York Times wrote back in January about a case in which a genetics researcher was able to identify five randomly selected people—as well as their entire families—based on nothing more than several strings of DNA letters selected randomly from an anonymous group of 1,000 people. Fingerprinting can only ever identify the individual being fingerprinted. The privacy interest at stake here is clearly broader than the individual being arrested, as it extends to individuals related to the arrestee.

Here's the article, if anyone is interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/health/search-of-dna-sequences-reveals-full-identities.html?_r=2&

[regexcellent]

So, I've been looking at this for a while and I can't figure out how it could possibly be bad.

So they have your DNA. So what? It'll help them with their investigation and I don't see a downside.

[Hauldren Collider]

What is in your DNA that you desperately don't want people seeing?

[DaShi]

My login passcode.

[Hauldren Collider]

Well there's your problem. You're supposed to have alphanumeric characters for those, but your password would only be a combination of TAGC

[giblets]

They equated warrantless DNA samples with fingerprinting, but the analogy is terrible. The New York Times wrote back in January about a case in which a genetics researcher was able to identify five randomly selected people—as well as their entire families—based on nothing more than several strings of DNA letters selected randomly from an anonymous group of 1,000 people. Fingerprinting can only ever identify the individual being fingerprinted. The privacy interest at stake here is clearly broader than the individual being arrested, as it extends to individuals related to the arrestee.

Here's the article, if anyone is interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/he...ies.html?_r=2&

OH MY GOD now the government will be able to find out whom I'm related to...?

[DinoDoc]

How exactly is this unlawful search and seizure? They can also get your ****ing fingerprints. Have you just been taking Gattaca way too seriously? Because that movie sucked.

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 non-investigative 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.

[self biased]

****, i mean when scalia is writing the dissent that criminals still have rights...

i mean, the bathroom in a greyhound bus station outside bizzarro world is not technically in bizzarro world.

[regexcellent]

The court doesn't split "left-right" like people think it does.

Breyer was in the majority.

[Berzerker]

a genetics researcher was able to identify five randomly selected people—as well as their entire families—based on nothing more than several strings of DNA letters selected randomly from an anonymous group of 1,000 people.

does that sound re-assuring?

i thought dna was much more accurate

[KrazyHorse]

This seems wrong to me:

1) fingerprinting seems like a legitimate means of identification, beyond the level of certainty provided by photographs; is there a similar benefit to DNA analysis? Seems like not, as I'm not aware of a substantial number of cases where fingerprints are altered or fail to specifically identify the individual. Therefore, the primary motive here must be investigatory
2) blood analysis provides all manner of information about an individual which he may rightly consider confidential@ the affliction or predisposition to various diseases, the ethnic group he belongs to, various other markers of health or ancestry
3) given 1 and 2 above, why does the 4th amendment protect an arrested individual's genetic information any less than it does the property in his home? I fail to see the distinction. Does any arrest void all 4th amendment protections? If not, where is the line?