Feds to Collect Millions of DNA Profiles Yearly, Stay Out if You Can

Feds to Collect Millions of DNA Profiles Yearly, Stay Out if You Can
By Ryan Singel May 12, 2008 | 5:15 pm | Categories: Uncategorized

The feds will soon be collecting about one million DNA samples a year under a new program that lets federal agents collect cheek swabs from citizens merely arrested for any federal crime or from any non-citizen detained by federal agents — including visitors to the country who have visas.

The intent is build a massive database of DNA samples (.pdf) that police can use to catch rapists and murderers, but even the innocent should fear being in the database, due to the vagaries of how cold case DNA searches can easily pinpoint an innocent person.

Thanks to an amendment in the Violence Against Women Act of 2005 that was sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), the feds now have the authority to immediately take DNA from any arrestee or ‘detained’ non-citizen and immediately upload it to the FBI’s CODIS database. That database is currently fed by federal law enforcement agencies and all 50 states, a few of which collect and upload DNA samples from people arrested, but not convicted of a crime.

DNA profiles are composed of 13 genetic markers that are meant not to reveal genetic makeup or disease. Like fingerprints, DNA are very powerful and scientifically sound evidence, when used to connect a known suspect to evidence found at the scene of the crime. Jurors are easily persuaded to accept the DNA link for someone who had already been suspected of a crime scene when told the odds against a false identification are 1 in millions or billions.

But DNA is far less certain when you compare one sample against all of the profiles in the database typically known as one-to-many. In that case the chances that a match between a DNA sample — especially an incomplete one — and a person in a DNA database could nab an innocent person has different math. Very different math.

So if you have a probability of 1 in 1.1 million chance of people having a certain sequence of DNA markers and you have a database of 550,000 people, you have a 50% chance of making a match. That’s great, if you know that the perpetrator is in that database. But what it also means is that as you start testing DNA profiles against more and more people, the chances that you will match an innocent person to a DNA profile from a crime scene gets higher.

A recent L.A. Times story about a cold case prosecution of a 1972 rape and murder in California, where 30 years later, police matched a DNA sample from the scene to that of a convicted rapist in its 338,000 profile strong DNA database. Given the number of markers that were used there was a one in three chance that some profile in the database would match. In this case, it matched John Puckett, who lived in the same city.

The jury however, wasn’t told about the probability that someone in the database would match against the profile (The L.A. Times story erroneously says that there was a 1/3 chance that someone innocent would be fingered in such a search. If one knew for a fact that every person in the database were innocent, then there was a 1 in 3 chance that an innocent person would get fingered, but in Puckett’s case, one simply knows that there was a one in three chance someone in the California criminal database would be fingered.)

And that’s a problem when the government starts collecting millions of DNA samples, sticking them in a massive database and finding ‘cold hits.’

Imagine the innocent man facing down a jury of his peers, hoping that they understand something about statistics.

The Justice Department is taking comments on the proposed DNA rules until Monday, May 19.

Posted by: Mike O'Brien | 05/12/08 | 6:24 pm
Ryan,

Thanks for the heads up. I sent in a comment to ask for better protection against false positives.

Mike

Posted by: david b | 05/12/08 | 7:14 pm
..well it used to be that you fled europe and came to the new world for a chance at freedom. Looks like we’re about to reverse that trend. ..more and more security, more and mor monitoring. Its really not worth it. ..but we do it anyway.

Enjoy life without your big brother.. your kids wont have the same luxuries of privacy and freedom that we have. They will be very secure within the silicon curtain.

Posted by: David Gunnells | 05/12/08 | 10:52 pm
It’s good to see there are a few more days to add comments. Thanks for the link.

Want some ideas on what to say?

1) DNA matching is not a 1 in a million science, as portrayed in movies and CSI. With a growing database, the already low odds drop even further.

2) Innocent people do not belong in a criminal database.

3) DNA contains sensitive medical information about a person and is not the same thing as a fingerprint (which, ironically, are often misidentified).

4) Allowing 3rd parties to collect DNA will introduce even more errors and increase the chance for abuse of sensitive, private genetic information.

Please add your comments so this proposal will not go through as is.

Posted by: v | 05/13/08 | 12:50 am
Well, if you identify someone based on 13 markers, than you can subsequently confirm / exclude them based on a bigger marker set. The 13 markers can be used just to narrow down on the suspect. Puckett’s DNA was in a state database after he was convicted of the rapes at knifepoint of three other women in the years following the 1972 killing that yo mentioned above.

Posted by: Staying in Blighty | 05/13/08 | 2:38 am
Well, that’s one more reason for me not to visit the USA (you know they’ll “check” as many people as possible as being “terror suspects”).

Posted by: exoteric | 05/13/08 | 5:12 am
@David Gunnells
I think the point of this article is that even whilst DNA is a 1-in-a-million science, it would need to be a 1-in-6 billion science in order to have approximately one match per person on the planet. Of course, probabilities tell us that you would need a much, much lower probability of a false positive occurring for it to be “reliable”.

Posted by: C. F. R. | 05/13/08 | 10:29 am
The Feds keep trying to be like the East German Stasi and always end up looking like the Keystone Cops they can’t even handle finger prints right, how can they handle DNA? Maybe the reason they fail is because their best agent ever was a transsexual, pedophile lying freak named J. Edgar Hoover? Who knows? Sincerely, C.F.R.

Posted by: Kim | 05/13/08 | 8:16 pm
Comrade Chertoff of Homeland Security hired Marcus Wolf (ex-head of the communist east German Stasi — now dead and burning in hell– along with communist Russian ex-KGB head Yevgeni Primakov) to set up our new fangled police state. Surprised?

Posted by: Art | 05/13/08 | 8:37 pm
Considering how many people play the lottery, I’d have absolutely no confidence in “a jury of my peers” deciding my innocence or guilt.

I mean, just look at the hit TV show “Deal or No Deal”, so many people actually think there is a winning strategy to that, or mistake it for the Monty Hall problem.

Posted by: JJ | 05/13/08 | 9:35 pm
don’t flee to the UK!

..well it used to be that you fled europe and came to the new world for a chance at freedom. Looks like we’re about to reverse that trend. ..more and more security, more and mor monitoring. Its really not worth it. ..but we do it anyway.

Posted by: Josie Wales | 05/13/08 | 11:40 pm
That freak of a man named J.Edgar Hoover would privately laugh to his comrades about the innocent people being convicted and sent to prison on his faulty finger print idea.
This is provable, and he is or was a known thug of a man.
Now, DNA is 100% accurate.
Anyone that tells you it is usually works for the US Government or the Government controlled media.
DNA evidence, from my studies, show about a 78% accuracy rate.
If you live in Europe, please stay there and fear America and its policy and fiat currency.
This is the new “German Stazi”.

Posted by: DU | 05/14/08 | 5:00 am
WWQD?

I wonder “What Would Quantrill Do”?

Can I see any of my heros or mentors accepting this type of tyrrany? Robert E Lee? Nathan Bedford Forrest? Alexander Hamilton Stevens? Watson Jennings Bryant? Thomas Jefferson? Benjamin Franklin? How about Jesus Christ? I think he would take an assault weapon and run them out of the roadblock…….

Posted by: karkat | 05/14/08 | 11:17 am
This whole thing would be laughable, if it wasn’t so sad. The Supreme Court has already struck down Violence Against Women Act. Applicable in the several states of the union.
UNITED STATES v. MORRISON et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit
No. 99-5. Argued January 11, 2000–Decided May 15, 20001

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&court=US&case=/us/000/99%2D5.html

Here’s an excerpt from the decision;
<<<<<

Posted by: C. F. R. | 05/14/08 | 3:58 pm
OK, The FBI, DIA, NSA, OSI, NCIS, CID, State Dept. Intel all have Usama Bin Laden’s DNA is this helping them

Posted by: meggie | 06/1/08 | 11:23 am
DNA can be a great thing in some instances. We recently had a DNA sample of a male in our surname group trying to match because our surname is unique, taken when the immigrant came to this country. We got a 25/25 match but the person is absolutely not connected to our group. SO YOU SEE WHAT CAN HAPPEN. Interperting DNA is very complicated and this type of data base is a threat to innocent people more than a help

Comment

I have always thought DNA evidence to be 100% accurate. Maybe it isnt. maybe the initial test can be used as a screening device, since it only measures 13 factors. If the 13 factors match, then the more complete testing should be done. I admit I dont understand all the statistics but it does seem to me that the larger the database the more possibility of finding a match. Once a match is found further testing could confirm the match, or not. Put it together with fingerprints and other evidence to see if a case can be made.