The Supreme Court&squots 5-4 decision upholding Maryland&squots arrestee DNA testing law is a serious blow to genetic privacy. The ruling allows the police to seize the DNA of innocent Americans who have never been convicted of any sort of crime, without a search warrant. And as Justice Scalia makes clear in his scathing dissent, the majority opinion goes against decades of precedent that makes it clear that the police cannot search an individual for evidence of a crime (and that&squots clearly what they are doing here) without a specific reason to think that the search will actually uncover some evidence.

The majority opinion also largely ignores the real-world technological limits on the way that the police can actually use DNA. For example, the police identified Mr. King using fingerprints as soon as they arrested him, but it then took them more than three months even to upload his DNA into the state database these types of delays are common because of huge evidence backlogs (the government admits that the average delay is about a month). But the Court says that the police are using arrestee testing to determine who they have arrested. This, in Justice Scalia&squots colorful words, "taxes the credulity of the credulous." And the Court supports its conclusion that taking DNA at arrest, instead of getting a search warrant or taking it from people who are actually convicted of a crime, is useful by citing law enforcement press releases dressed up as "studies," even though any inspection of these so-called studies shows that they do not support the government&squots own claims, as the ACLU pointed out in its brief to the Court(see pp. 26-31).

Finally, it refuses even to acknowledge that letting the police stick a swab into your mouth to take a sample of your DNA, to be analyzed and included in a massive criminal databank, is any different from taking a fingerprint or even looking at a gang member&squots tattoos. But as we all know, DNA is fundamentally different &ndash it is our genetic blueprint. We can only hope that a future Court will do what Justice Scalia suggests in his dissent, and overturn this unfortunate decision.

What does this mean for California and other states?

But, for now at least, King is the law of the land, and Maryland&squots statute stands. But it is important to remember that Maryland&squots law is very different from the laws of other states. As the Court repeatedly emphasized, it only allows the police to seize DNA from people who have been arrested and charged with very serious crimes, and the government can only test the DNA samples of those people who have actually been charged with a crime and only after a judge has found that there is probable cause to think the person has actually committed a crime. Other states&squot laws, in contrast, allow the police to take DNA from people merely arrested for much less serious crimes (in California, simple drug possession, joyriding, or intentionally bouncing a check are enough the federal government can take your DNA if you get arrested for letting your dog off-leash on federal land). And these laws also allow the government to analyze that DNA sample even if you are never charged with a crime or if a judge decides that there is no reason to think you have ever committed a crime in the first place.

The ACLU of Northern California will press ahead in Haskell v. Harris, our challenge to California&squots much-broader law. We hope that the Courts will recognize that, despite today&squots unfortunate decision, these much broader laws violate our fundamental rights to privacy and the Fourth Amendment&squots command that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." A single police officer&squots decision to arrest a person for a minor offense should not justify this intrusion into genetic privacy.

最高法院的裁決  打掉遺傳隱私

最高法院的5-4決定堅持馬里蘭州被捕DNA檢測法，基因隱私是一個嚴重的打擊。這項裁決允許警察抓住的DNA無辜的美國人從來沒有被定罪，任何形式的犯罪​​，沒有搜查證。並作為法官Scalia使得明確他的嚴厲的持不同政見者，多數人的意見去對抗幾十年的先例，使得它清楚，警方可以不搜索個人犯罪的證據和那就是清楚是什麼，他們都做在這裡沒有特殊原因需要認為搜索會發現一些證據。

多數人的意見，也在很大程度上忽略了現實世界的方式，警方其實可以利用DNA技術限制。例如，警方認定金先生使用指紋，盡快為他們逮捕了他，但然後他們花了超過3個月，甚至上傳自己的DNA數據庫的狀態，這些類型是常見的，因為大量的證據積壓延誤（政府承認的平均延遲大約一個月）。但法院說，警方使用的是誰，他們已經逮捕了測試，以確定被捕者。斯卡利亞大法官的豐富多彩的話說，這&ldquo徵稅輕信輕信。&rdquo法院支持其結論，即DNA在逮捕，而不是搜查令或誰是真正的犯罪定罪的人，是有用的執法新聞稿援引把自己打扮成&ldquo研究&rdquo，即使任何檢查這些所謂的研究表明，他們不支持政府自己的債權，作為美國公民自由聯盟指出，在​​其短暫的法庭（見第26-31頁）。

最後，它拒絕甚至承認，讓警方堅持用棉籤放進嘴裡來採取的樣本DNA，來進行分析，並包含在一個龐大的犯罪數據庫，是任何不同採取的指紋或即使找一個幫派成員紋身。但是，大家都知道，DNA是根本不同的 - 這是我們的遺傳藍圖。我們只能希望，未來法院將做什麼，斯卡利亞大法官建議在他的異議，並推翻這個不幸的決定。

加州和其他州的這是什麼意思？

但是，至少在目前，國王的土地法律，馬里蘭州站規約。但重要的是要記住，從其他國家的法律，馬里蘭州的法律是非常不同的。由於法院一再強調，只允許警察抓住DNA從誰已經被捕並被控非常嚴重的罪行，政府只能測試的DNA樣本，這些人究竟是誰被指控犯罪，只有經過人法官已發現有可能的原因，認為人實際上已經犯了罪。相比之下，其他國家的法律，讓警方採取DNA的人，只是不太嚴重罪行被捕（兜風，或故意拒付支票是不夠的，聯邦政府可以把你的DNA，如果你在美國加州，簡單的藏毒，讓你的狗牽繩在聯邦土地上）被逮捕。這些法律也讓政府的DNA樣本進行分析，即使你從來沒有被控犯罪的，或者如果法官決定，也沒有理由認為你曾經犯了罪，擺在首位。

北加州ACLU將提前在Haskell訴哈里斯，我們面臨的挑戰加州的多少更廣泛的法律。我們希望，法院會承認的是，儘管今天的不幸的決定，這些更廣泛的法律違反了我們的根本權利隱私和第四修正案的命令&ldquo的人的權利，以成為安全的人身，住宅，文件和財物不受無理搜查和扣押，不得侵犯。&ldquo一個警察逮捕一個人的決定，輕微罪行不應該證明這種基因隱私的侵入。