Here is another reason for innocent people to fear a government with free access to lots of information. They will use it to widen their dragnet and intentionally sweep up people they know are not involved in the crime they are investigating.
California (that pioneer of hairbrained legal shenanigans) has decided to use DNA evidence to round up family members of whoever's DNA they happen to find at the crime scene. I left DNA everywhere I went today. If a crime happens there later, does that mean the cops are going to go harrass my mother at her workplace in the hopes of finding a clue? Or will they simply use this circumstantial evidence as an easy way of pinning the blame on the first most likely suspect they can scrape up, in a horrifying combination of lazy police work and beureaucratic demands to justify an expensive test?
The practical problems I have with this new California program is that they will be spending millions on testing to answer a question that a simple records check could answer. Also, this law will only serve to create more costly criminal litigation as the courts hash out how it dovetails with the new federal law making its way through congress that forbids discrimination based on genetics.
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