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Databasing Arizona
If you ever get the urge to expose yourself in Arizona—and really, who doesn't?—be ready to give a DNA sample upon your arrest. And be ready for the sample to stay in the state's database.
Oh, and be ready for the sampling even if you're merely accused of the crime, and booked. No conviction necessary.
Supporters say the move provides an expanded crime-solving tool for law enforcement and compared taking a DNA sample to taking a mug shot or fingerprints at the time of arrest. Current law requires DNA samples only after a person is convicted of certain felonies.
"As we build that database, more people will be caught before police have to stake out a hotel room and wait for a second victim," said Sen. Chuck Gray, R-Mesa, a former police officer who is the measure's key backer.
The provision, part of the state budget package, is now waiting action by Gov. Janet Napolitano, who is expected to sign the overarching bill as part of the agreed-upon state budget.
The idea has opposition from the Democratic left and the GOP right, but not enough to slow it down.
|6.22.07 @ 9:51AM|#
taking a DNA sample to taking a mug shot or fingerprints at
the time of arrest.
That sounds about right to me. I get my socks in a jumble over the
government tapping my phone/email, or getting my bank/library
records (especially without my knowledge). But this just seems to
be SOP keeping up with the times.
M|6.22.07 @ 9:52AM|#
"As we build that database, more people will be caught
before police have to stake out a hotel room and wait for a second
victim..."
...of unreasonable search and seizure.
|6.22.07 @ 9:52AM|#
Hell. Do we really not have enough people in jail yet?
Why don't we just cut to the chase: lock everyone up for life as
soon as they're born. We'll just have two classes of people,
guards, and prisoners. For everyone's safety, the guards will not
be allowed to leave the prison. When they reproduce, their children
will become guards, and when prisoners reproduce, their children
will become prisoners. I think that's the final solution we need
that's simple enough for everyone, even the
most-dimwitted, knee-jerk anti-crime activist, to understand and
therefore be comfortable with.
If that's what it takes to save just one life, it will all be worth
it.
|6.22.07 @ 10:04AM|#
This will expose my ignorance, and probably my naivete as
well...
If one is arrested, but not convicted of a crime, do the mug shots
and fingerprints get thrown out?
|6.22.07 @ 10:09AM|#
If one is arrested, but not convicted of a crime, do the mug shots and fingerprints get thrown out?
No.
M|6.22.07 @ 10:10AM|#
arrested, but not convicted
Related question: How long before this becomes a distinction
without a difference?
|6.22.07 @ 10:17AM|#
It's hard to see how this could be opposed without also opposing fingerprinting. And since fingerprinting has been going on for a long time...
M|6.22.07 @ 10:21AM|#
Max - The purpose of fingerprinting isn't permanently to deprive an individual of a body part. Just (alas, perhaps fruitlessly) sayin'.
M|6.22.07 @ 10:29AM|#
Also, as one of the comments said, "Fingerprint: Identifies who you are. DNA: Who you are, what diseases you potentially have, ethnicity, gender, etc, etc."
|6.22.07 @ 10:37AM|#
M, "DNA" doesn't mean a complete genetic sequence (that still costs a fortune, and you don't need it for identification purposes).
|6.22.07 @ 10:44AM|#
How long before the cops get the idea of making everyone who is in a traffic stop give a DNA sample? Assumeing they haven't already. Why don't the people who support this idea just volunteer for a tag and track program where they get a chip implanted in them and the government can track their wereabouts at anytime? Afterall they have nothing to hide and if they are ever kidnapped, it would be like a LOJACK system.
M|6.22.07 @ 10:53AM|#
Okay, Max, thanks - so I'll revert to my habeas plea. And again, just sayin', but your modifier "still" is important: That price will eventually tumble, like all tech goods.
M|6.22.07 @ 11:09AM|#
John - Replace "government" by "private security company" and you've got a deal. But somehow I don't that'll satisfy everyone.
The Wine Commonsewer|6.22.07 @ 11:12AM|#
I'm in Tucson today and I'd say that the real risk of exposing
yourself is the sunburn on your privates.
We're having a cow about dna samples but everybody just accepts
fingerprinting and mug shots, which stay in the government data
base foever.
Being that fingerprinting and mugs are constitutional there is no
reason to believe that giving up a mandatory dna sample is not. It
is not invasive and is every bit as personal as a
fingerprint.
I disagree, however, that any of the foregoing is actually
constitutional and I suppose that if we're good libertarians we
need to condemn dna sampling and revisit the fingerpinting mug shot
issue and rag on that as well.
|6.22.07 @ 11:17AM|#
...and one last thing -- we need to start arresting a lot more
people now to pay for the new DNA program, so think of everyone out
there as a criminal. That's all.
Oh, and be careful out there.
|6.22.07 @ 11:37AM|#
I guess I'll just have to expose myself in New Mexico and
Texas.
Try Nevada, I believe it's encouraged there.
|6.22.07 @ 11:38AM|#
M, "DNA" doesn't mean a complete genetic sequence (that
still costs a fortune, and you don't need it for identification
purposes).
Not necessarily, but testing for cancer markers, or paternity, or a
million other things that the police have no business having such
easy access. But, having a DNA sample is necessary and sufficient
for a complete sequence - and prohibitively expensive now will
become trivial in a few years.
I guess it needs to be said again. A fingerprint only contains
information regarding the shape and texture of the tips of your
fingers - nothing more. DNA can potentially be used to innumerate
every distinguishing characteristic. Random shit - what I'm
allergic to, if I'm color blind, whatever. Bad, bad, bad.
|6.22.07 @ 11:38AM|#
WC - The Oregon Supreme Court just answered affirmatively to
your supposition.
There is no difference between fingerprints and DNA.
see: http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S53056.htm
(cut and paste it I guess)
|6.22.07 @ 11:45AM|#
Yeah, I know the OR Supremes couched (thats "cooched" to you
non-Oregonians), their reasoning with the robe of 'felons
only'.
Bur I woulod submit that they have started the slide towards DNA
collection for all arrestees:
To wit:
"No particularized probable cause or suspicion is needed to justify
gathering or retaining a permanent record of a person's identity
through fingerprints and photographs, even when he or she has only
been arrested, and this court never has required that a person's
fingerprints and photographs be discarded after their initial
evidentiary and identification purposes had been served or after
that person has completed his or her sentence and/or period of
supervision or conditional release. The fact that DNA testing
enables the state to obtain and preserve a much more accurate
record of identification of a convicted person does not
meaningfully distinguish taking that person's blood or buccal
sample from taking his or her fingerprints or photograph."
This is bad news.
TWC|6.22.07 @ 11:46AM|#
Cecil, thanks, I guess. Big Sigh.
I'm going to go throw the kids in the pool.
TWC|6.22.07 @ 11:49AM|#
Pig, it's bad, but so's fingerprinting. You'd think so too if today was the day the Supers ruled that collecting fingerprints was okay. But since the cops have been doing it for decades it just seems regular SOP.
New World Dan|6.22.07 @ 12:00PM|#
M,
The test points of the DNA profile were deliberately chosen to
avoid any association with known disease markers, such that the
privacy implications aren't substantially greater than with
fingerprints. Of course, that only pertains to an individual
sample. The biggest privacy implication is that it's possible to
derive familial relationships given a little more work. The
specificity there drops off by several orders of magnitutde. So if
there are 1 million samples in the database, and they checked yours
against it, the odds of a false match are still highly improbable.
However, when checking paternity, there may be dozens or even
hundreads of potential matches. Also, they can determine gender
from a sample, but if it's something they're adding to the
database, that's a fact that they already know. The way DNA testing
is currently done, I'm not that concerned.
|6.22.07 @ 12:03PM|#
And don't forget...
It will be our country's best and brightest civil servants in
charge of labeling and cataloging the samples.
Some courtroom in 2012:
Judge: I do not care if you claim to be white male with blue eyes
and olive tone skin, sir. You're arrest record from Tucson in 2010
clearly shows that you are, in fact, a female of Chinese extraction
born with pasty white skin and a missing left foot.
Poor Bastard: Your honor can see that I am a white man with blue
eyes and olive skin, can't he?
Judge: Justice is blind my friend. And you just got an enhanced
sentence for speaking at your trial. See you in 262 months,
sucker.
|6.22.07 @ 12:21PM|#
...I suppose that if we're good libertarians we need to
condemn dna sampling and revisit the fingerpinting mug shot issue
and rag on that as well.
Concur.
H. I. McDunnough|6.22.07 @ 1:24PM|#
ed | June 22, 2007, 10:24am | #
I'll start worrying when I come face-to-face with my
clone.
What kind of name is Ed for a pretty thing like you?
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