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".

[pepperbeast.livejournal.com]

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

No, you're missing my point. There are restrictions on police going through my house or my computer without because those things are actually *mine*. If you throw something away, *you don't own it*. You can't claim that you're being subjected to an unreasonable search when someone does some analysis on something *that isn't yours* and that they found in a public place.

As for DNA samples being *required*-- I'm not sure I'm 100% comfortable with it, but on the other hand, I suspect that from a police standpoint, it's not that much different from their existing fingerprints database. (And in the case of fingerprints, they take them from *everyone* they arrest, for any reason.)