DNA Privacy Goes to the Supreme Court
By Michael Risher, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California
This post has been updated and slightly modified from the original, which appeared on Feb. 1, 2013 here.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Maryland v. King, a case that raises the question of whether the police can take DNA from everybody they arrest, without a search warrant or any reason to think that the DNA sample will be helpful in solving a crime. The ACLU filed an amicus brief in this case to stop the government from invading the genetic privacy of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. We argue that the government cannot do this: under our Constitution, every one of us is presumed innocent unless we are actually convicted of a crime, either by a jury of our peers or because we admit to a judge that we are guilty. (Continues)
By Michael Risher, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California
This post has been updated and slightly modified from the original, which appeared on Feb. 1, 2013 here.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Maryland v. King, a case that raises the question of whether the police can take DNA from everybody they arrest, without a search warrant or any reason to think that the DNA sample will be helpful in solving a crime. The ACLU filed an amicus brief in this case to stop the government from invading the genetic privacy of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. We argue that the government cannot do this: under our Constitution, every one of us is presumed innocent unless we are actually convicted of a crime, either by a jury of our peers or because we admit to a judge that we are guilty. (Continues)
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