'Game-Changer' Warrant Let Detective Search Genetic Database (nytimes.com) 108
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Last week, a Florida detective announced at a police convention that he had obtained a warrant to penetrate GEDmatch and search its full database of nearly one million users. Legal experts said that this appeared to be the first time a judge had approved such a warrant, and that the development could have profound implications for genetic privacy. "That's a huge game-changer," said Erin Murphy, a law professor at New York University. "The company made a decision to keep law enforcement out, and that's been overridden by a court. It's a signal that no genetic information can be safe."
DNA policy experts said the development was likely to encourage other agencies to request similar search warrants from 23andMe, which has 10 million users, and Ancestry.com, which has 15 million. If that comes to pass, the Florida judge's decision will affect not only the users of these sites but huge swaths of the population, including those who have never taken a DNA test. That's because this emerging forensic technique makes it possible to identify a DNA profile even through distant family relationships. [...] Genetic genealogy experts said that until now, the law enforcement community had been deliberately cautious about approaching the consumer sites with court orders: If users get spooked and abandon the sites, they will become much less useful to investigators. Barbara Rae-Venter, a genetic genealogist who works with law enforcement, described the situation as "Don't rock the boat." A spokesman for 23andMe said in a statement: "We never share customer data with law enforcement unless we receive a legally valid request such as a search warrant or written court order. Upon receipt of an inquiry from law enforcement, we use all practical legal measures to challenge such requests in order to protect our customers' privacy." Ancestry.com did not respond to request for comment.
DNA policy experts said the development was likely to encourage other agencies to request similar search warrants from 23andMe, which has 10 million users, and Ancestry.com, which has 15 million. If that comes to pass, the Florida judge's decision will affect not only the users of these sites but huge swaths of the population, including those who have never taken a DNA test. That's because this emerging forensic technique makes it possible to identify a DNA profile even through distant family relationships. [...] Genetic genealogy experts said that until now, the law enforcement community had been deliberately cautious about approaching the consumer sites with court orders: If users get spooked and abandon the sites, they will become much less useful to investigators. Barbara Rae-Venter, a genetic genealogist who works with law enforcement, described the situation as "Don't rock the boat." A spokesman for 23andMe said in a statement: "We never share customer data with law enforcement unless we receive a legally valid request such as a search warrant or written court order. Upon receipt of an inquiry from law enforcement, we use all practical legal measures to challenge such requests in order to protect our customers' privacy." Ancestry.com did not respond to request for comment.
Why do these companies even retain the data? (Score:1)
I would like to know why these companies are even allowed to retain the data? Why not destroy it once it has been given to the customer?
Oh right, these business are not about providing their customers with fun and informative genetic analysis. They're about collecting data about people and enabling the deep state.
One day we will learn that 23andMe and Ancestry are NSA front companies anyway, and nobody will be shocked.
Re:Why do these companies even retain the data? (Score:4, Informative)
Some allowed for everyone to share in results as part of the service. Some only give results to the person who requested the test.
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There's a question of what access they're actually getting. If they can search for matches the same as anyone else I'm personally not that concerned as long as they don't abuse that to read the information.
If they're getting access to the underlying data, that's a big problem. That's not something law enforcement should have a right to because they can't be trusted with it.
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Law enforcement is part of that "everything" science the person wanting the test done accepted before the test.
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> One day we will learn that 23andMe and Ancestry are NSA front companies anyway, and nobody will be shocked.
That seems unlikely because Theranos was set up specifically for that purpose.
Re: Why do these companies even retain the data? (Score:2)
Why build one when you can have two at twice the price!
Growing up in the 80s, as a kid, I was once told that Duracell and Energizer were really the same company. I think I remember looking that up decades later and found out it wasnâ(TM)t true. But it did make for an interesting strategy. The whole left-twix, right-twix, is a clever tongue-in-cheek marketing nod to that concept.
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I've seen it with fast food places, as a marketing test thing. There was Zips and Checkers. Exact same thing, only difference was the name. Same color scheme, same menu, right down to the same seasoned curly fries.
After a year all of the Zips locations closed for a day or three, and when they re-opened they were magically Checkers places. Same people, same food, etc. just the new name. I guess the marketing folks thought that the Checkers name was better.
Something similar may be going on with Carls Jr
Re: Why do these companies even retain the data? (Score:2)
Yea where i live Checkers is called Rallys
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Not originally. They were "tiers" of product from the Mfrs. From low to high:
GM - Chevy -> Pontiac -> Buick -> Oldsmobile -> Cadillac
Ford - Ford -> Mercury -> Lincoln
Chrysler -> Dodge -> Chrysler -> Imperial
Originally there was little to no duplication in models of the various tiers. In the late 70's and early 80's they started to figure out how to cost-reduce by duplicating models across tiers, "all we have to do is change the nameplate" and they were good to go. Eventually i
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Fun fact. All the relatives and family of someone who did sign off on them testing and acquiring did NOT sign off on them testing samples against the data their relative agreed to share.
I haven't read the contract, but I'm guessing there was no clear "We will use your data in perpetuity to clear or indict any family member, relative or stranger that happens to match your samples" clause.
I'm reasonably sure that even if the testee (heh) is aware their family could be fingered by their data, a) they won't sh
Re:Why do these companies even retain the data? (Score:4, Informative)
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so they can funnel it to the mormons
This is the real answer. Every wonder why so many FBI and CIA are Mormon?
Probably because they're exactly the type of people who don't question authority, even when that authority is transparently ridiculous. It also probably has to do with the fact that Mormons tend to seek those jobs out.
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See also the religious prohibitions on consumption of alcohol. Not true for every individual, but it in general means there is a lower likelihood of getting into enough trouble which might get in the way of obtaining a security clearance. The Mormon church also used the BSA as a major part of its youth program for much of the last century, and the BSA promotes patriotism and service pretty hard.
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Re:Why do these companies even retain the data? (Score:5, Informative)
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Also for further research to make the product better, so they have plenty of samples at the ready. But the conspiracy bullshit just feels right doesn't it?
Re: Why do these companies even retain the data? (Score:1)
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While I am also skeptical of the power of these genetic analysis companies and worry about it being abused by the state, I don't understand why this hyperbolic conspiracy theory was upvoted. NSA front companies?
Vocal idiots like you are the reason so few people take issues of privacy seriously. You take genuine concerns and turn them into baseless conspiracy theories. The stereotype of a privacy-minded individual is a tin-foil hat madman hiding in a bunker. That shouldn't be the case. If you want to convinc
Bullshirt (Score:4, Informative)
With or without express company approval, or the consent of the courts, DNA information is too valuable to law enforcement for us to believe they haven't already schemed access.
Without legitimate access, it might be necessary to reverse engineer a case against a suspect to satisfy the courts, but that's still easier for LEOs than making a case with shoe leather and legit evidence.
Re:Bullshirt (Score:4, Informative)
Reverse engineering a case is already a thing. It's called parallel construction, where the police obtain evidence by illegal means and then construct a path to probable cause via legal means after the fact.
It's 100% legal and affirmed by the Supreme Court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It's 100% legal and affirmed by the Supreme Court.
This assumes the judge and jury even know about it. I can't imagine parallel construction being popular with judges and juries.
Imagine this...
"You see, your honor, that while the officers did in fact obtain the evidence illegally they could have found this evidence by going through the proper procedure and obtaining it legally."
"Then why didn't the officers obtain the evidence legally by the proper procedure?"
My guess is that in these cases the parallel construction would be kept secret, or the evidence wo
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LEO find the family tree using DNA from a crime.
Find something to about the DNA in the USA from someone related.
Work out who was doing what in the past decades... by doing police work...
Get a match with the one person who left their DNA at the crime.
Look at the DNA again to ensure its really that person.
No mil, police, police informant, illegal migrant, person who got away with decades of crime due to city politics can escape their past.
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International Mobile Subscriber Identity [youtube.com] catchers, aka: cell phone site simulators, are fairly easy to deploy and abuse by ever smaller law enforcement communities.
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? No mil, police, police informant, illegal migrant, person who got away with decades of crime due to city politics can escape their past.
I'm afraid that they can, and do. The statute of limitations exists. So does bribery, the difficulty of gathering interest in a crime decades ago, and difficulty of compelling extradition to the jurisdiction of the crime. DNA evidence is also corrupted by age of the samples, and evidence is lost or even stolen from police storage.
Re: Bullshirt (Score:3, Interesting)
The legal term I think youâ(TM)re looking for is called parallel construction. But if the defense determines that all your evidence derived from in illegally obtained source, The prosecutor has to prove that they would have found the same evidence through some other a.k.a. parallel means.
You may have missed the announcement a few months ago where Amazon was helping cops bypass search warrant to gain access to video footage from their Ring doorbells. These big corps are all about selling us out if it me
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* Public, no Law Enforcement access
Welp, that genie is out (Score:2)
May as well close the barn door now.
How much is that data worth? (Score:2)
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Did not want that result? Use one of the many testing services that don't offer that type of service to science.
People had to send in the DNA to be tested.. it was their results to share with the USA and the world
Re:How much is that data worth? (Score:4, Informative)
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Any expert who provides the expert result that they have a match, better have it down to one person and not just the "siblings, parents, children, cousins"...
with the police having a good feeling it was the brother, father, son on the day... the more legal and exact retest would be telling...
DNA getting seen as match in court then retested by a real expert to be found the brother/father
Wonder what nations
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Re 'a sibling match won't stand alone as proof in court"
Depend on what quality of test a gov feels like it wants to pay per test
Some nations gov approves the totally lowest cost test they can find on the open market that year?
With a block on any bank account its going to be hard to pay an expert to go over the gov test...
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People sent their DNA in knowing "anyone" will get to study the results for any reason.
AFAIK people did not sign up for this. People affected by this may have accepted scientific analysis of anonymized data, but certainly not searches for "similar DNA" by law enforcement and the release of identities of possible matches. And no, law enforcement can not lie themselves through the process, as their evidence gathered this way would lose evidence status in court.
The thing which really surprised me was, that the case allegedly investigated this way was not about anyone being in immediate danger, b
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To find a company that was for their testing only...
Any people are happy to help science and anyone looking at all DNA for any reason...
"Anyone" is the police, gov, mil, another nation, a company, short term/long term international science projects...
Or to select a company test that was sent back to the one person...
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You can have my DNA as long as you can't pin it to my persona. This level of separation, which does not impede scientific research, and which was promised to people submitting their DNA, was broken by that court order because "serial rapist many decades ago". This breach of trust was not limited to one already suspicious DNA sample, but for the entirety of records held by GEDmatch.
BTW I did not hear a shed of a hint, that the company holding these DNA samples appealed the initial verdict, or engaged in much
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The rest is just normal police work.
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Yet the police needed a court warrant to get the data set, and the court warrant made the headlines! Nope, it does not look like a "the police simply searched through data they found" situation. The article makes it very clear:
Legal experts said that this appeared to be the first time a judge had approved such a warrant
The company made a decision to keep law enforcement out, and that’s been overridden by a court.
and it gave them access only to the profiles of users who had explicitly opted in to such queries
Nothing even hints at an immediate threat coming from the alleged perpetrator, FWIW the perp may no longer be alive. Yet they broke the trust relationship between DNA submitters and these DNA service providers. GEDmatch were the first, but certainly not the last ones to face such a co
Re: How much is that data worth? (Score:2)
The government passes legislation to protect their monopolies. Revisit the FCC interpretation of the 1994 Telecom act. Think you as a competitor are going to get equal access to Verizon fiber? Nope. Thats why Verizon pulls all the copper out of the ground. You cant compete at all because they own the last mile on a tech deemed exempt from fair access.
So yes thats how they get paid.
Destroy the Data (Score:1)
"23 and me" and the like... should destroy the data rather than let government run searches against it.
Or here's another possibility....
Inject errors into the database intentionally and randomly so that the database can not become a record of accuracy.
If your clone commits a crime - then you could go to jail if you share the exact DNA.
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If they did not want that result used, they would have selected from the many other DNA services..
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"brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, parents, children, nephews, nieces, cousins... " left DNA too?
That final DNA has to be tested to match one person.
The family tree is not much use other than to narrow the one person who left their DNA.
Crimes by the mil, police informants, police, the wealthy, the poor, illegal migrants over decades will slowly be found.
No state, city, rank, wealth, fake ID, deal with polic
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Thats the new DNA test that counts.
The family tree just finds the person who expected to get away with the crime.
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There is no valid contract with 23 and Me between customers and the company. I say this because the customer has no way of knowing the nefarious ways their DNA will be used in the future. For example, I'd like to know if the contract allows for tracking their body's energetic imprint by the Space Fence Initiative? Does the contract allow the government to blast the customer with an energy weapon upon targeting them by their DNA's electromagnetic signature?
Well the closest their contract will come to incl
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Selling the aggregated data to other commercial entities is probably a huge moneymaker. Why would they destroy it?
Satellites Track Your DNA? (Score:1)
This article speaks of the "Space Fence" as a way to track your DNA.
https://lifeboat.com/blog/2019... [lifeboat.com]
I don't like this (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a little far fetched, but I could see this scenario happening:
A couple gets knocked up in high school, they decide to put the baby up for adoption. They stay together, get married, have another child, but both die without telling their 2nd child he has a younger brother out there. The 2nd child uses a DNA service as an adult. Meanwhile the adopted 1st child rolls through town, kills someone. The police get partial DNA, go to the DNA service and what do you know, there's a someone local with DNA tha
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So, in your hypothetical, when did the THIRD child come into the picture? We have the oldest child (the bastard, up for adoption), the middle child (the one after they got married), and the third child (the one they never told the second child they had (seriously, didn't the second child not
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So, in your hypothetical, when did the THIRD child come into the picture? We have the oldest child (the bastard, up for adoption), the middle child (the one after they got married), and the third child (the one they never told the second child they had (seriously, didn't the second child notice that other kid around the house?) who was the YOUNGER brother of the second child)?
Typo. Older brother, not younger.
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Typo. Older brother, not younger.
Apparently the definition of typo has changed.
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Later testing would have to confirm the person is a match, not just the "family" part.
Few nations experts would put their name for a quality of later testing that was wide open to any later wider father, brother legal questions.
I will let people search for the real results on that one
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Are you suggesting that sibling DNA can't be distinguished?
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Are you suggesting that sibling DNA can't be distinguished?
I'm simply saying that, if the police find a degraded sample of DNA that matches close enough to another sample, they can convince themselves (and, more importantly, a jury) that "close enough" is good enough to convict, and you've got an innocent person in prison or on death row. There are plenty of cases where police have decided people were guilty and ignored or downplayed (whether consciously or not) potentially exculpatory evidence.
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When the police have partial or degraded DNA then they might be matching only short sequences and there's a lot more scope for mismatches for example with degraded DNA.
DNA evidence is sometimes overrated as well. Many people consider finding someone's DNA means they're guilty automatically but it doesn't always, it's presence also has to be inexplicable without the person being there wh
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Re:I don't like this (Score:4, Insightful)
"Tunnel Vision", as applied to LE investigations, is already a serious problem. Allowing cops to just run any and all DNA from a crime scene against a huge database is going to get lots of matches ... with varying degrees of accuracy. One of those matches lives in the area? Bingo, there's their culprit, no further investigation really necessary, amirite?
Apart from the highly dubious legality of demanding a third party help with an investigation, this is going to result in a few highly publicized ***SUCCESSES*** ... like the Golden State Killer ... and a lot of cases where individual have their lives ruined by lazy LE with their blinders on.
Maybe one or two outrageous court awards will deter this ... but, based on the evidence of the last few years, even outrageous settlements (mostly paid by insurance policies) haven't deterred the even more outrageous LE behaviour. Because there is zero repercussion to the individual officers.
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One serious issue about fishing expeditions is that they are not doing full genome reconstructions, they are typically looking at a relatively small set of markers and then proclaiming something like "one in a million chance" that it's a false positive. If they don't already have good evidence to suspect the person that matches, and they search databases of millions of people, they are guaranteed to get some false positives.
The other serious issue is that there is no guarantee as to the qua
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OK, I guess I watched way too much SVU and CSI growing up.
Fiction is only interesting and believable if there is a seed of truth to grow from. If the fictional story doesn't surround a larger truth then it's as interesting as watching paint dry.
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there's a someone local with DNA that's almost a complete match to the suspect.
Your story would make sense if the brothers were identical twins and one was put up for adoption and the other was kept (which I imagine would be a very rare occurrence) but it wouldn't work for siblings. DNA tests could confirm the two brothers are related but they DNA would be different enough to rule out the 2nd brother as a suspect. Besides, even in sealed adoptions, records are kept and government agencies would be aware of the "secret" sibling even if the younger brother were not aware of his existe
Germany? (Score:1)
Can anybody here recommended a service in Germany or somewhere else with similarly strong data privacy laws (no five-eyes nations, obviously)?
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It's simple. AFAIK, there's nobody in Germany that does that.
And likely, if they did, LEOs would already have access.
It just needs one high-profile case to sway the public opinion anyway and then politicians cave it like a tooth-pick under a sledge-hammer.
Re: Germany? (Score:2)
Sounds like the USS Maine all over again. You provide the story, I will provide the war.
Create high profile case out of thin air... exploit public emotion.. watch public demand we surrender our constitutional rights. Rinse. Repeat.
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And likely, if they did, LEOs would already have access.
Actually, no. This is covered by privacy laws and courts cannot simply override them in Germany. Germany is not a Police State, unlike the US.
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Good idea. If there is one thing I have learned in life: you can trust the Germans to do the right thing.
/s
Nature's laws vs. human (Score:1)
The only reliable laws are the laws of Nature — Mathematics, Physics...
The human laws are subject to change and — worse — reinterpretation...
It is still just as safe as your home and effects — which law enforcement could always access with a properly-issued warrant...
And why should it be safer than the gun you have in your drawer — banned in much of the nation despite a clear and explicit injunction against such prohibitions
Overly Broad Searches (Score:1)
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It would seem to me that such a warrant could be challenged on the basis of it being overly broad.
Yes, but not until after the cops have transferred a bunch of that data to themselves. And they will never, ever let it go, whatever lies they might tell you about deleting data. Cops lie, that's one of their primary functions.
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Troll? No. Fact [nytimes.com].
Same story, different day (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember in grade school having one day where some people from the local sheriff office came in to take every student's fingerprints. This memory stuck with me because as a little kid this was a bit scary. There were people with guns telling everyone what to do, not explaining why, and it involved getting black ink on my hands.
I found out later that the story told to parents was that this was to more quickly and easily children if there was a kidnapping, lost child, etc. I found out that the fingerprint cards were given to the parents with instructions to keep them safe. I had a couple questions about this practice. Just how popular of a practice was this? And, how effective is taking fingerprints in confirming the identity of a child? Or, put another way, if a child didn't have fingerprints taken at school then just how were children identified?
I don't recall hearing about the taking of fingerprints from children being routine anywhere. Perhaps the sheriff at the time just thought this was a good idea but it didn't go any further.
What I did find out many years later is that fingerprints are rarely used to identify children. The most basic reason for this is in the case of a lost child the possibility of fingerprints being used is rare. The child is simply never found, is found dead and decomposed, or if found alive then the child is able to be identified by photos and such. Remember that even though DNA identification gets a lot of attention it is still a very new thing, only getting even close to common in the last decade or so, and therefore is still not used all that often. What is far more common, at least from what I've seen, is that dental records, blood typing, and other medical data is used.
One problem with using fingerprinting to identify a person is that it is rare to have fingerprints on file somewhere, and kept in a way that is authoritative. Taking fingerprints of children at a school creates a kind of authoritative database. The teachers and deputy sheriffs will confirm that the fingerprints on the card where of the child named on said card. The parents given the cards will confirm that they received the card from the school and that they kept it unaltered. Which brings to mind the true reason of these fingerprint cards being created. If there is a crime in the area, and fingerprints were found, the sheriff can ask parents for the fingerprint cards.
Also, being a small, scared, and stupid, little kid at the time I cannot recall if the deputies only took only one set of fingerprints or if parents received all the fingerprint cards produced.
What does this have to do with DNA identification? Everything. What is happening now is not any different than what happened long long ago in a small Midwest school far far away. We have people trying to scare us into giving up little bits of our freedom for the promise of safety in the future.
I went into detail on my experience with fingerprinting as a schoolchild in part to ask the question on if this is unique, are other parents being scared into giving the police fingerprints of their children in the hope it can be used to identify a lost child? I also did this to hopefully nail home that this has gone on for a very long time, and that there are plenty of other tools to identify people in cases of crimes being committed.
The use of DNA as a means of identifying people is a bit unique here as it gives familial data with a detail far more precise than blood type, hair color, etc. Apart from that... same story, different day.
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That was a pretty common practice in the US and still is. There is a national program to support it: https://childidprogram.com/ [childidprogram.com]
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I remember in grade school having one day where some people from the local sheriff office came in to take every student's fingerprints.
I remember the same, but it was during a field trip to the local FBI office. I remember my dad refusing to consent to allow it. As a little kid I didn't understand. Today I do.
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I have a correction to my post above. I realized I repeated myself instead of clarifying my point. This sentence needs correction/clarification,
"The most basic reason for this is in the case of a lost child the possibility of fingerprints being used is rare. "
Instead it should be more like,
"The most basic reason for this is in the case of a lost child the possibility of taking fingerprints and being necessary for ID is rare. "
In the case of a child that's never found there's obviously no fingerprints. In
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So, I never saw the police as a friend, but instead as a danger to my family and self. I'm not alone. As an effect of the drug war, many young Americans have been raised to distrust police and to view them more as a deadly snake, waiting to attack when we are vulnera
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Dumb Criminals (Score:1)
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I don't think you get it.
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Testing was a huge new topic on TV, TV shows, the internet for a while now...
The lower price to help science, help find out all kinds of history. A very attractive test for at least one person in how many "family tree" structures to get testing all over the USA.
How many in any one nation have to get tested to map out almost every family?
Unless the cult, faith says no to testing?
Someone criminal/spy/police/mil from the US did something in anther nation for work/on holiday a
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The authorities do not need the perpetrator's DNA to be in the database to track that person down. They can get a short list of possible suspects that match to siblings, parents, great aunts, fourth cousins, etc.
Chances are pretty good that, if not today then in the very near future, the DNA of most everyone in the U.S. will be match-able (or at least go
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The "dumb criminal" part is either the being-a-criminal part, or leaving DNA around your crimes. Either of those things is dumber than uploading your DNA somewhere. As stories like this make clear, even if you protect your copy of DNA, you aren't really keeping it much of a secret, because other people (relatives) already have it so the data is out of your control. Thus, secrecy of DNA isn't a reasonable thing for most people to expect to accomplish, and sharing the data comes with little relative downside
It'll just get tossed out in court (Score:2)
That said, there's a few dangers here:
1. Police will often gather evidence illegally and then cover up the illegal evidence gathering by claiming they got the evidence through another means.
2. They can use this evidence to threaten (potentially innocent) people into taking a plea bargain. 30+ years of "Tough on Crime" laws means you're facing decades of prison for even minor drug offenses let alone violent crimes. Faced with that risk plus unreliable and at times racist j
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Indeed. A corrupt Police-State at work.
Time to kill these businesses (Score:2)
By walking away and not even remotely considering giving them anything.
Been saying this for awhile (Score:2)
I've been saying this for awhile, but this is why you don't use these services. You have no idea and no control over what happens to your data (DNA) once submitted.
I'd love to do research on my family and such, but cannot do it in good conscience because of these types of articles that continue to come out/come to light.
-Miser
And yet the rubes keep signing up (Score:2)
To my sorrow I have family members who've signed up with one if not both of these two companies. I didn't hesitate even slightly when telling them that I consider them to be traitors.
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Ban The New York Times (Score:1)
Their privacy-violating bullshit ("Log in to continue reading in private mode") should not be tolerated for information dissemination.
Shame on /. editors for allowing this trite garbage.
And fuck the submitter for not finding a site that will let you read the story while in private mode. Go jump off a bridge.
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well DUH (Score:2)
Ok, that's kind of impractical, because in this day and age you need to function, however ALWAYS minimise the data you give.
Create a worthless gmail account, for example "myspammailbox@gmail.com", so when companies ask for your email address you have given one, that you own, so you have not lied but the information is worthless.
Sad (Score:2)
I'm adopted and have zero knowledge of my genetic/family history. I'd love to take one of these tests and find out about myself.
I won't/can't, because I refuse to archive my genomic data where it can be used against my great-great-grandchildren when they stand up against their oppressors. :(
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I'd love to take one of these tests and find out about myself. I won't/can't...
Ditto, but I hadn't even considered the generational implications. Very insightful.
Sounds dodgy (Score:2)
"If users get spooked and abandon the sites"
At present I don't believe there's a signing mechanism. You can flood it with jun
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The Fourth Amendment reads: 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated;
DNA is a person and should be secure from search against unreasonable searches. Randomly searching a DNA database violates that.
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That then result later finds a related person who left DNA at a crime.
A later test will then find if the person later found has the same DNA that was found at the crime AC.
A DNA database open to the world is open to a gov...
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I am generally a privacy bigot, and I'm glad the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution exists. However, I think there are some steps missing from your logic. The 4th amendment provides that my papers can't be reached without probable cause and a warrant specifying what is being sought. This would also apply to the phone company's records not being searched (without their consent and/or probable cause along with specifics of what is being sought). But let's say that the police had a phone number suspected
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Also, IMHO, general public is always happy to help law enforcement (who are just trying to protect & serve common good of general public), quite unlike what self-appointed "privacy advocates" always claim/pretend!!!
Are you for real?
First, I'm quite certain that there are plenty of people in the general public that are not always happy to help law enforcement. Your admission of the existence of "privacy advocates" shows this.
Second, a great many social ills could be diminished if we did away with a great many restrictions on the government. Just think of all the criminals we could put in jail, or put to death, if only we didn't have to slow things down with trials, courts, and all this other stuff.
Third, you assume t