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Pennsylvania moves to seize your DNA
Opponents contend that large-scale testing would constitute an intrusion of Orwellian proportions, classifying a large swath of Pennsylvanians as potential and permanent suspects for future crimes.
Pennsylvania moves to seize your DNA
On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation that would mandate the DNA testing of all people arrested for felonies and some misdemeanors.
"This bill updates our law to ensure that Pennsylvania investigators have access to the most efficient scientific tools to fight crime," Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware County), Senate Bill 775's champion, told the Associated Press.
Advocates of expanded testing say that collecting people's DNA is no different from taking their fingerprints. Opponents, however, contend that DNA is far more personal, and that large-scale testing would constitute an intrusion of Orwellian proportions, classifying a large swath of Pennsylvanians as potential and permanent suspects for future crimes.
“If you are arrested, you would be required to give a DNA sample,” State Sen. Anthony Williams (D-Phila), one of only six to vote against the measure, told City Paper. “I opposed it because with an arrest in this country, there is a presumption of innocence until found guilty.”
Williams says that proponents never offered a good answer “when I asked the basic question: why would we not wait until people are found guilty?”
Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legislative director Andy Hoover says the legislation's safeguards, including a provision requiring the destruction of DNA evidence of exonerated defendants and one barring the use of DNA for non-law enforcement ends, are insufficient protections of our constitutional rights.
“There is nothing that is more personal and private than our bodies,” Hoover wrote in a statement. “If the government wishes to collect the biological information of people who are innocent, whether they are factually innocent or considered innocent under the law, the government has certain constitutional obligations before it can conduct that search.”
In 2009, the FBI joined a growing number of states in collecting DNA preconviction, and its constitutionality is currently being fought out in federal courts. If SB 775 were to become law in Pennsylvania, a lawsuit in state court could also be possible since the state constitution provides even stronger protections for privacy than the federal.
According to the Inquirer, current Pennsylvania law requires DNA samples only from individuals convicted of a felony, or the misdemeanor offenses of indecent assault and "child luring.” The ACLU argues the government should have to get a warrant to “search” someone's DNA, though they do not oppose post-conviction DNA testing. "Under SB 775, the sample would be taken from all felony and some misdemeanor arrestees, without a warrant and regardless of the crime scene evidence, and sent to PSP and the FBI immediately," Hoover told CP in an email.
Critics also point out that the government has done a poor job taking care of the DNA trove it already posseses.
“We already have DNA samples that we don't have the manpower” to process, says Sen.Williams.
Indeed, on Oct. 21, 2010, so-called Kensington strangler Antonio Rodriguez plead guilty to a drug charge, had a DNA sample taken, and was released on probation. The state police lab received the sample in four days but failed to enter it into a database until Jan. 10. The DNA evidence led to his arrest seven days later. In the meantime, Rodriguez had killed one woman and raped three more.
Earlier this year, Acting State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan expressed his skepticism towards expanded DNA testing, saying that it could cost more than $13 million.
State Sen. Mike Folmer was the sole Republican to vote against the measure, but Hoover suspects that there will be stronger opposition from Republicans in the House. Sen. Williams is disappointed that more people didn't join him in opposing the legislation, especially with all of the talk about Big Government.
“That goes against everything the country stands for, and the Constitution,” says Williams. “I have no real understanding why someone from the tea party or a libertarian would be in support of anything like this.”
It could be because Majority Leader Pileggi is a powerful man. It could also be because, as the AP pointed out, the Senate did not hold any debate on the measure.
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