DNA testing

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It's that time of year again - a raft of new bills being readied for the new legislative session in Concord. This one attempts to collect DNA from every convicted felon to go into a national database. http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090104/FRONTPAGE/901040376

"Forty-seven states require all convicted felons to surrender DNA samples to law enforcement databases, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. New Hampshire is one of three states that doesn't, a fact that some prominent folks hope to change this year.

'My own personal belief is that if you commit a felony, just as you give up your fingerprints to go into a national databank, so should you give up your DNA to go into a national databank,' said Rep. Steve Shurtleff, a Penacook Democrat who is the incoming chairman of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

DNA testing is among the most powerful law enforcement tools available today. By taking a swab from the inside of a criminal's cheek, law enforcement officers can obtain enough genetic information to test against hairs or drops of blood left at crime scenes for decades to come. Under New Hampshire law, only a fraction of felons must submit to DNA testing, including some sex offenders and those found guilty of murder, kidnapping or robbery.

That could change this year. Shurtleff and Rep. David Welch, the former Republican chairman of his committee, are listed as co-sponsors of a bill that would require all felons to give a sample of their DNA prior to release. That information would be maintained by the state and could be transmitted to an FBI-maintained database called CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System. Expanded DNA testing has prominent backers, including Attorney General Kelly Ayotte.

But that doesn't mean the bill will necessarily be easy to pass in New Hampshire, where politics has a wide libertarian streak. Last year, the House voted down an effort to greatly expand the number of felons that could be tested."

[ancapagency]

Hell, I'm not convinced by the hype on how good fingerprint evidence is supposed to be.  I'm prepared to believe DNA evidence is (potentially) more accurate than fingerprints--but that doesn't mean I think it's a good idea to let the damned gooferment do this.

[Pat McCotter]

How much you wanna bet most of the "felons" in these databases are non-violent drug users?

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Them and tons of others all lumped together as "felons". It is just one more way of giving someone a scarlet letter just because they made one mistake in someone's twisted mind. I see it as a huge privacy issue, and violates the fifth amendment, the right to not testify against yourself, which is what your DNA would be doing.

[MTPorcupine3]

How much you wanna bet most of the "felons" in these databases are non-violent drug users?

I was just going to say: First they pass the law, then they keep expanding the criteria that constitute "felon". Similarly, they passed laws concerning "child abuse"... and "child abuse" can now mean allowing your children to climb trees, spanking, failure to train them on computers, breast feeding beyond an "appropriate" age, feeding them meat, not feeding them meat, etc.

[Kat Kanning]

Can't you become a felon just for Failure to Appear?