Databases Ripe for Abuse: Opposing View
by Timothy Lynch
August 21, 2000
Timothy Lynch is director of the Cato Institute\'s Project on Criminal Justice.
The federal government is constantly trying to expand its purview over every aspect of American life. And wherever the feds go -- whether it be health care or education -- they inevitably demand information about people. Sooner than you think, the feds will want your DNA to be stored in an FBI database.
Congress unleashed a runaway train in 1994 when it established a program called Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). The CODIS program offered state officials federal funds if they assisted the FBI with DNA-sample collection. By 1998, all 50 states had passed laws requiring local police departments to collect DNA samples. At first, the demand for DNA collection seemed innocuous and uncontroversial. Only convicted sex offenders would be required to give DNA samples. Such a database would enable the authorities to track down serial rapists. Who could oppose that?
Once the DNA database was established, however, the police quickly realized that they could increase their chances of catching criminals by expanding it. We've been sliding down the slippery slope ever since.
The second stage was to get a sample from all convicted felons, not just sex offenders. In New York, Gov. George Pataki is pushing to require anyone convicted of a misdemeanor to submit to DNA profiling. The former police commissioner of New York City, Howard Safir, goes even further. He says that any person arrested should be included in the database. According to Safir, "The only ones who have anything to worry about from DNA testing are criminals." Then why stop with arrestees? Why not obtain samples from every single American?
There is, of course, cause for concern. Federal officials have abused their powers in the past, such as by throwing Japanese-Americans into detention camps, by conducting barbaric experiments on black men in Tuskegee, Ala., and by deliberately exposing GIs to atomic blasts, to name just a few.
If we believe that tomorrow's political leaders will somehow be incapable of abusing their power over a fully centralized DNA database, the next generation will never forgive us -- and rightly so.
This article originally appeared in The USA Today on August 21, 2000.