She Said-TOPIC: Obtaining DNA evidence-Expanded DNA program further erodes civil rights

In case you missed it, Tennessee is one of a number of states drastically expanding DNA sampling. No longer do you have to be a convicted felon to be compelled to give a DNA sample for local and federal DNA databases ‘ you just have to be arrested as a felony suspect.

I’ll be the first to admit that being arrested for a violent felony is not a good thing. It means the state believes it has evidence to obtain a conviction. But I’ve been around long enough to know not all folks arrested for a crime are guilty. Juries find folks not guilty every day. And let’s not forget politics, which rears its ugly head even in the administration of justice.

And, as Project Innocence has proven, not all folks convicted of heinous crimes are actually guilty. Judicious use of advanced DNA forensics has freed more than a few people wrongly convicted.

But beyond those circumstances, what happened to ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty,’ the very premise on which our judicial system is founded?

Even Lawrence Kobilinsky, chairman of the department of sciences at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and an advocate of the use of DNA in law enforcement, sees the expansion of DNA sampling of accused felons as an ‘unnecessary invasion of privacy rights,’ as well as a waste of time and money.

What concerns me most is the wider issue of the whittling away of our civil rights.

Let’s think about it. We can’t even carry nail clippers on airplanes. Government tells us what we can or cannot do with our own property. In fact, if someone else convinces the powers-that-be our property could be more valuably developed (supposedly for the greater community good), then our land can even be taken away under new laws of eminent domain.

How far a stretch can it be to see the dystopia of ‘1984’ becoming reality? How long till we’re all tagged with a computer chip that contains all our info, from bank accounts to Social Security numbers to insurance coverage and who knows what? Till DNA profiling is done at birth, with our future avocations decided based on genetics?

When you look at the potential, the day-by-day erosion of our civil liberties is pretty scary when you start thinking about it.

Taking DNA from accused felons is simply a bad law.