posted June 04, 2013 07:55 AM            

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DNA analysis is the major crime-solving advance of our time. It’s the science behind many exonerations, and many more guilty pleas. It’s far more accurate than fingerprinting or eyewitness identification. So the more DNA collection, the better, right?

Federal prosecutors and 28 states have answered yes to that question by routinely collecting DNA samples from arrestees. On Monday, the Supreme Court approved Maryland’s DNA law, ushering in a new era of massive double-helix collection. There are two oddities about the court’s 5-to-4 ruling. The first is that the majority pretended that this decision had little to do with solving crimes. The second is the lineup: The dissent is a smoking Scalia special—and he’s joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor rather than the court’s conservatives. Anthony Kennedy picked off Stephen Breyer (along with Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts) to eke out a majority. But it’s Scalia who wins the argument.

Here are the background facts: All 50 states collect DNA from people who have been convicted of crimes, and that’s not what’s at issue here. Instead, we’re talking about whether the states can widen their databases of genetic material to include people who have been arrested and not yet found guilty. Kennedy presents this as merely a basic booking procedure. It’s like fingerprinting, he says, and “the legitimate government interest” is “the need for law enforcement officers in a safe and accurate way to process and identify the persons and posses­sions they must take into custody.” It’s a simple matter of allowing the police to make sure they know whom they’ve got, and alerting judges about whether the person who has been arrested has a record, so they can take that into account in deciding whether to release him on bail.

Kennedy is also unconcerned about the level of intrusion. Cheek swabs count as a search under the Fourth Amendment, which protects us all from unreasonable searches and seizures. But since swabbing is minimally intrusive, it’s no big deal. The majority also dismisses the privacy concerns that come with DNA collection: “The argument that the testing at issue in this case reveals any private medical information at all is open to dispute,” Kennedy says.

Has Kennedy never watched a TV crime show? That is basically Scalia’s opening question, in an opinion he felt strongly enough about to read from the bench—not the standard practice. “The Court’s assertion that DNA is being taken, not to solve crimes, but to identify those in the State’s custody, taxes the credulity of the credulous,” he writes. Then he decimates Kennedy’s discussion of booking and bail with a few obvious and unchallenged facts: It took weeks to test the DNA of Alonzo King, the arrested man who challenged Maryland’s DNA collection law, and months for the samples to come back from testing. By then, booking, arraignment, and bail were long over. “Does the Court really believe that Maryland did not know whom it was arraigning?” Scalia asks. “The truth, known to Maryland and increasingly to the reader: this search had nothing to do with establishing King’s identity.” Nor is Maryland particularly slow relative to the other states—in fact, it’s perhaps a bit faster.

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Continues here: http://mobile.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/supreme_court_and_dna_collection_maryland_v_king.html

posted June 04, 2013 10:54 AM            

Thinking long term, they'll potentially know (and have on file) who you're connected to (genetically), your potential maladies, your traits...
...just doesn't sit right with me, especially if they expand it to schoolchildren.
No, there's been no word of it, but I'd bet money that that's coming within a decade.
They'll frame it as being useful for abduction and missing children cases (and it genuinely will be), but...I guess I'm not the trusting type in these matters.*
People won't kick up a fuss, because - oh! - the children.

There's a whole new world coming with genetic profiling.
How easy it will be to classify, sort, and...?...who knows.

* I've always been like this.
When I was in the 3rd or 4th grade, a police officer came in to take our prints.
I said, "I know why you're doing this."
"You do?"
"Yep."
"It's so if you get lost, we can find you."
"Ok. Also so if when I'm older and commit a crime you'll know who did it."
He just looked at me.

posted June 04, 2013 01:43 PM            

I actually didn't know about that.

It will bother me less if it's anonymized, but I couldn't tell from your link if it is.

posted June 04, 2013 04:26 PM            

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There's a whole new world coming with genetic profiling.

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Indeed. It is a real dichotomy for me. On one hand, it will help solve crimes. Save lives by detecting disease but if used improperly by insurance groups et al........

posted June 05, 2013 09:00 AM            

There is so much that can be done and known with one's geneic code, and the speed and sophistication of he technology is only going to increase exponentially.

A fingerprint's...a fingerprint.
It's not even assured that they're unique...or at least unique enough to count in fingerprint evidence analysis.

Edited to add: I don't have time to find a link right now, but I remember reading about a man who was tried and convicted based upon fingerprint evidence (even though it was extremely unlikely that he was at the crime scene) and was later exhonerated.

Here's a link about their falibility, though: http://www.psmag.com/legal-affairs/why-fingerprints-arent-proof-47079/

posted June 05, 2013 02:53 PM            

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, I guess.

posted June 05, 2013 03:16 PM            

I also think that this ruling opens the door for others with different motives, even if those motives are only now beginning to reach potentiality.

posted June 12, 2013 10:56 AM            

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Originally posted by Randall:
I can see that in the distant future.

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posted June 13, 2013 05:10 PM            

Associated Press/Frank Augstein, -

In this June 4, 2013 file photo actress Angelina Jolie arrives for the film premiere World War Z in Berlin, Germany. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that companies …more cannot patent parts of naturally-occurring human genes, a decision with the potential to profoundly affect the emerging and lucrative medical and biotechnology industries. It throws out patents held by Utah-based Myriad Genetics Inc. on an increasingly popular breast cancer test brought into the public eye recently by actress Angelina Jolie’s revelation that she had a double mastectomy because of one of the genes involved in this case. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File) less
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously threw out attempts to patent human genes, siding with advocates who say the multibillion-dollar biotechnology industry should not have exclusive control over genetic information found inside the human body.

But the high court also approved for the first time the patenting of synthetic DNA, handing a victory to researchers and companies looking to come up with ways to fight — and profit — from medical breakthroughs that could reverse life-threatening diseases such as breast or ovarian cancer.

The decision "sets a fair and level playing field for open and responsible use of genetic information," said Dr. Robert B. Darnell, president and scientific director of the New York Genome Center. "At the same time, it does not preclude the opportunity for innovation in the genetic world, and should be seen as an important clarifying moment for research and the healthcare industry."

The high court's judgment, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, reverses three decades of patent awards by government officials and throws out patents held by Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics Inc. involving a breast cancer test brought into the public eye recently by actress Angelina Jolie's revelation that she had a double mastectomy.

Jolie said she carries a defective BRCA1 gene that puts her at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers, and her doctor said the test that turned up the faulty gene link led Jolie to have both of her healthy breasts removed. Jolie's mother died of ovarian cancer and her maternal grandmother also had the disease.

The high court's ruling immediately prompted one of Myriad's competitors to announce it would offer the same test at a far lower price.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the court's decision, said Myriad's assertion — that the DNA it isolated from the body for its proprietary breast and ovarian cancer tests were patentable — had to be dismissed because it violates patent rules. The court has said that laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable.

"We hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated," Thomas said.

However, the court gave Myriad a partial victory, ruling that while naturally-occurring DNA was not patentable, synthetically-created DNA, known as cDNA, can be patented "because it is not naturally occurring," as Thomas wrote.

rest here>>>>>>>>>>> http://news.yahoo.com/court-says-isolated-human-genes-cannot-patented-203425023.html

posted June 14, 2013 10:08 AM            

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Originally posted by mockingbird:
That seems incredibly naïve.

[b]There is so much that can be done and known with one's geneic code, and the speed and sophistication of he technology is only going to increase exponentially.

[/B]

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'wonder if that includes eugenics. Good thread!

posted June 15, 2013 09:11 AM            

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The court has said that laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable.

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I always chuckle when I read "abstract ideas"...

The term is too loose with myriad interpretations.