Felony Friday: Utah Bill Would Enable Collection Of DNA Samples During Booking

In June of 2013, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Maryland vs. King dealt a potentially fatal blow to the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court’s decision held that when a suspect is arrested for a serious offense and is brought to the police station for booking that a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is allowable. The decision argued that the collection of DNA is comparable to fingerprinting and photographing. The ruling did not specify what was meant by “serious” crimes, but ruled the confiscation of DNA as being reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.The Fourth Amendment was not written to make it easier for the State to investigate crimes, but instead was included in the Bill of Rights to protect innocent individuals from unreasonable searches. Colonial Americans experienced the intrusive tactics utilized by British officers under the King’s rule and the Fourth Amendment sought to protect citizens against intrusive, unreasonable searches without just cause.The individuals that face the biggest risk as a result of the court’s decision are those that have been falsely implicated in a crime. Cops have nothing to lose by adding the DNA of an innocent man to the national database and everything to gain. Allowing police to collect the DNA of those arrested for “serious” crimes does not only create a slippery slope, it erects a 100 ft tall waterslide for our liberties to tumble into the abiss of tyranny.So far twenty-eight states collect DNA samples of those charged with felonies. According to utahpoliticalcapitol.com, the state legislator in Utah is advancing legislation to allow law enforcement officers to take DNA samples from suspects at the time of booking for any felony offense. Currently, Utah takes DNA from a prisoner after they have been convicted of a felony. Amendment HB 212 is written in a way that would allow the State to forcibly take DNA from anyone booked for a felony offense all the way back to January 1, 2011. The amendment also allows the DNA of minors over the age of 14 to be confiscated and filed in a national database.The House voted on Tuesday to approve the bill 43-28. The measure will advance to the Senate, where hopefully it will face resistance.The result of the bill in Utah will be closely monitored by proponents and detractors alike. Regardless, of the outcome, this will not be the end of the fight. Defenders of DNA sampling see no downside to the practice of collecting DNA. Their argument focuses almost entirely on the enhanced ability of law enforced to solve crimes as a result of a more robust national DNA database.Those standing in opposition to warrantless DNA gathering are quick to point out the State’s poor track record on privacy issues. The revelations made public by whistle blower Edward Snowden, who uncovered a vast NSA spying program that captures almost every single communication sent by U.S. citizens, eroded the trust many individuals held in the government. Snowden’s work served to further justify liberty activists that have long fought to prevent the government from hoarding private information.It is ridiculous that in a supposedly free society we are forced to fight in order to protect our DNA from the grimy tentacles of the State. If Utah is able to pass this bill, then surely more states will follow. Eventually, hospitals will take DNA from new born babies and enter the infant’s unique identifier into a global database in the name of keeping us safe. Everyone living person would become a suspect when a crime is committed.To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.”In a scathing dissent to the Maryland vs. King decision, Justice Antonin Scalia described the slippery slope this decision set in motion. Justice Scalia argued that the Fourth Amendment categorically prevents searching a person for evidence of a crime without cause.

The Court attempts to disguise the vast scope of today's holding by promising to limit it to those who have been arrested for what it calls serious offenses. That line lacks any principle basis and will not last. If you believe that a DNA search will identify someone arrested for bank robbery, you must believe that it will identify someone arrested for running a red light. To decide otherwise would require the sort of senseless distinctions that this Court is not accustomed to make, is not supposed to make if there is any difference between prescribing legal rules willy-nilly and deciding what an existing legal principle requires. In the end, logic will win out. Make no mistake about it because of today's decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested rightly or wrongly and for whatever reason. This will solve some extra crimes to be sure but so would taking your DNA whenever you fly on an airplane. Surely the TSA must know the identity of the flying public. For that matter, so would taking your children's DNA when they start public school. It maybe wise as the Court obviously believes to make the leviathan all seeing so that he may protect us all the better, but the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would not have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection. I respectfully dissent.

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