Disquiet: search without warrant?

[marsden_online]

On the one hand it's good that the police have solved a 9 year old murder. But the Herald article includes this snippet about their methods.

The new technology enabled police to run a familial DNA search which isolated two relatives of Jarden and revived interest in a man who had previously been regarded as a suspect.

Detectives began tailing Jarden again, and picked up a cigarette butt he discarded on the street.

The DNA from his saliva closely matched the evidential sample, and a voluntary sample which he gave confirmed the match.

I don't have a problem with using familial DNA matches to narrow or expand a list of suspects. I do have a problem with the method used to collect the second DNA sample (the cigarette butt). Seems awfully like search-without-a-warrant to me.

Even if they did get some form of formal authority, it's still "we can acquire and test your DNA without your consent or knowledge on suspicion only".

Also another really good reason not to smoke.

Comments

[pepperbeast.livejournal.com]

I believe the prevailing legal opinion is that you can't both throw something away and claim that it's "yours".

[marsden-online.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can get away with saying 'the DNA wasn't mine guv, I threw it away'.

It's not a question of ownership. There are laws specifying when the police may require you to submit a DNA sample. They were recently expanded to, as the article notes, after a person is convicted of offences such as theft, rape and arson. This seems like an end-run around those laws.

When the laws were expanded the civil libertarians kicked up a stink about the possibility of having your DNA added to the national database for minor crimes like shoplifting - which you'll note is exactly what the police used to force Jarden to submit a DNA sample that they could use as evidence.

For a more visceral understanding, compare it to the police entering your house and going through your computer without your knowledge (which they can also do on suspicion that you have illegal material. How many people do you know that they couldn't claim suspicion of that under copyright laws?).