Do police have a right to stick a needle in your arm, or a swab in your mouth, to collect samples of your DNA—without a warrant and regardless of whether you’ve been convicted of a crime? That’s the question that is now being debated in courtrooms across the nation.
Early last summer, a brief was filed by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in the case of United States vs. Mitchell. EFF argued that pre-conviction collection of the defendant’s DNA violated his 4th Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure. However, just before the case was to be heard, the defendant pleaded guilty, and the issue became moot.
In response, EFF’s Rebecca Jeschke called on the Supreme Court to intervene, saying that the mandatory DNA collection from people who are not convicted of crimes “continues unchecked—perhaps leading to a future where everyone’s DNA is sampled, profiled, stored and routinely accessed by government officials without suspicion of any criminal wrongdoing.”
Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies continue to violate the rights of ordinary Americans pursuant to a little-known, rarely challenged federal mandate.
On Jan. 4, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed making his state the first in the country to take mandatory DNA samples from all convicted offenders, even those charged with minor crimes.
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