EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
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Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#2Although I agree with the EFF, I question the legal argument, and whether or not the case will be in their favor.
(1) Although DNA should be protected in the sense the government cannot take it from you, without a warrant (or claims your a terrorist). It's difficult to argue that if some hair falls off my head in public, should it not be considered "fair game"? Picking up papers out of the trash has always been fair game for law enforcement, so why should the hair be different?
(2) Unreasonable search and seizure is relative, it's not reasonable to pluck a hair off someones head. The same way you cannot go through someones office without reason. However, if someone disregards the hair, then it does seem reasonable to take the hair, because it is not invading a persons time/space/property/anything.
(3) It is a powerful tool to fight illegal activity. I have trouble believing a judge doesn't/wont (to some point) empathize with this and have a slight bias.
I find mass DNA collection very scary, but I don't know if this is fully valid or winnable case.
Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#3Although I agree with the EFF, I question the legal argument, and whether or not the case will be in their favor. (1) Although DNA should be protected in the sense the government cannot take it from you, without a warrant (or claims your a terrorist). It's difficult to argue that if some hair falls off my head in public, should it not be considered "fair game"? Picking up papers out of the trash has always been fair…
Yea the EFF doesn't really have a very compelling argument here.
I'm not even sure what the downside is in a policy sense. The only way this has any effect on anyone's lives is if it is used to catch you for a crime you committed.
Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#4Although I agree with the EFF, I question the legal argument, and whether or not the case will be in their favor. (1) Although DNA should be protected in the sense the government cannot take it from you, without a warrant (or claims your a terrorist). It's difficult to argue that if some hair falls off my head in public, should it not be considered "fair game"? Picking up papers out of the trash has always been fair…
I don't see how this would be different from lifting fingerprints from a discarded cup. Does that happen in real life or is that just a movie/tv thing?
Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#5Although I agree with the EFF, I question the legal argument, and whether or not the case will be in their favor. (1) Although DNA should be protected in the sense the government cannot take it from you, without a warrant (or claims your a terrorist). It's difficult to argue that if some hair falls off my head in public, should it not be considered "fair game"? Picking up papers out of the trash has always been fair…
I don't see how this would be different from lifting fingerprints from a discarded cup. Does that happen in real life or is that just a movie/tv thing?
I think the argument (correct me if I am wrong) is that DNA actually contains encoded information, where a finger print is just a unique pattern.
Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#6Although I agree with the EFF, I question the legal argument, and whether or not the case will be in their favor. (1) Although DNA should be protected in the sense the government cannot take it from you, without a warrant (or claims your a terrorist). It's difficult to argue that if some hair falls off my head in public, should it not be considered "fair game"? Picking up papers out of the trash has always been fair…
I don't see how this would be different from lifting fingerprints from a discarded cup. Does that happen in real life or is that just a movie/tv thing?
The difference is that lifting fingerprints can only tie you to a crime scene. In this case the DNA evidence tied him to the actual crime.
Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#7Although I agree with the EFF, I question the legal argument, and whether or not the case will be in their favor. (1) Although DNA should be protected in the sense the government cannot take it from you, without a warrant (or claims your a terrorist). It's difficult to argue that if some hair falls off my head in public, should it not be considered "fair game"? Picking up papers out of the trash has always been fair…
If the DNA is just used for uniqueness identification like finger prints then I don't see the argument.
People have learned to wear gloves in crimes to avoid finger print collections. With DNA, they will need hair nets, exfoliate and more skin coverage to avoid detection.
Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how this would be different from lifting fingerprints from a discarded cup. Does that happen in real life or is that just a movie/tv thing?
I think the argument (correct me if I am wrong) is that DNA actually contains encoded information, where a finger print is just a unique pattern.
But law enforcement is not using the encoded information, they are just taking a unique pattern from the information and using it for identification purposes.
Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#9Although I agree with the EFF, I question the legal argument, and whether or not the case will be in their favor. (1) Although DNA should be protected in the sense the government cannot take it from you, without a warrant (or claims your a terrorist). It's difficult to argue that if some hair falls off my head in public, should it not be considered "fair game"? Picking up papers out of the trash has always been fair…
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Re: EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how this would be different from lifting fingerprints from a discarded cup. Does that happen in real life or is that just a movie/tv thing?
The difference is that lifting fingerprints can only tie you to a crime scene. In this case the DNA evidence tied him to the actual crime.
What about the DNA tied him to the crime as opposed to the just the crime scene? The article doesn't really go into that.
If they're just comparing the DNA that was left behind at the police station to DNA they found at a crime scene, I don't see any issue.