Mary Ruwart, Libertarian for President

Feds Want Your Blood
by Mary Ruwart

The Federal government wants the power to forcibly collect DNA samples from any citizen they arrest or any non-citizen they detain, pounding yet another nail in the coffin for the Bill of Rights. They have no more right to take a DNA sample from you than they do to search your home or car without permission. But the Bush Administration doesn't recognize any limit on its power.

President Bush is obviously missing the meaning of the "unreasonable searches and seizures" clause of the Fourth Amendment. It's unreasonable to perform invasive medical procedures on anyone, especially someone who may been arrested by mistake and poses no threat to society.

This expansion of Federal law enforcement power was authorized by Congress as an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act. The law was supposed to help track down serial rapists and murders. Now it appears Congress and the Executive Branch want to take your blood even when you are presumed innocent. If you're arrested by mistake, you'll now suffer the indignity, not only of being falsely accused, but of having your lifeblood forcibly taken and your bodies violated with needles.

Once again, instead of checking Executive power, Congress is an accomplice to the shredding of our rights.

I know the value of DNA in clearing the innocent very well. Forensic DNA testing over the past decade has proven more than 60 death row inmates were innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. But use of DNA to prove someone innocent is far different than giving the police blanket authority to forcibly collect DNA from anybody they can arrest. After all, these days they can arrest just about anyone.

We already have police forces that suffer from severe cases of seizure fever, taking property and money from suspects without due process. We allow police to conduct warrantless searches and wiretaps, and set up roadblocks to check our papers in the name of driving safety. We allow the Federal government to detain people without due process for years. Where does it end?

We don't need to feed that fever even more by giving them the power to seize our blood.

According to media reports, Federal agents will begin taking DNA samples from anyone arrested for a Federal crime, as well as from any immigrant detained by Federal authorities. These samples will be added to a national database. Over one million people could be added to the database every year.

The authority extends to all federal agencies with the authority to arrest or detain. That would be all of them. Even national park rangers carry guns.

Supposedly, the data won't be kept if a person is found innocent, just as certain arrest records are expunged to protect the innocent. Yet somehow such records frequently reappear, even though they were supposedly destroyed. We'll see the same thing with DNA data taken from the innocent. Wouldn't it be more efficient to wait for a conviction rather than to waste taxpayer money testing everyone's DNA?

The Justice Department claims samples would be subjected to the same privacy laws which apply to data already collected by the Federal government. I'm sure those millions of veterans who had their private medical data on that notebook computer which went missing will be pleased to hear that.

Let's be clear. This is a power that will be abused. Indeed, even proposing such a violation is already abuse!