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The Wikipedia notes the police acquired a sample of the suspect's DNA and confirmed a match to the crime samples

• deleted 8y ago
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• astura 8y ago
  Yes, and they even acquired a second sample after the first came back positive just to confirm.
  • fixermark 8y ago
    If anything, I'd expect people to have more concern about the fact that the police in California are allowed to steal your stuff and grab DNA off of it than the risks from them being allowed to submit your DNA to a privately-owned database full of voluntary DNA submissions.
    • haZard_OS 8y ago
      I agree that the use of a public genealogy database is problematic but the way in which the police obtained the genetic material is not. Once a person discards any material as trash in a public space, it's fair game. The police didn't begin doing this sort of thing when DNA tests were invented.
    • astura 8y ago
      "steal your stuff and grab DNA off of it" It's not stealing. First off, if you discard something in the trash you no longer are laying a claim to it and giving it up for the trash handlers. Secondly, it was established in California v. Greenwood that you don't have a privacy right to trash left out on the public curb for pickup; which obviously implies that you don't have a privacy right to trash placed in a public bin.
      • fixermark 8y ago
        Excellent; thank you for the clarification.
      • autokad 8y ago
        I dont think thats a good analogy. a better one is your neighbor discarded trash, and your trash is like your neighbors. I personally think privacy laws need to be set up right away. I think it should be illegal, even in cases of national security, to infer something from your DNA from others, such as relatives without the use of a warrant. you should not end up in what is effectively a police line up just because your brother submitted his dna to the public domain. people should not be able to use information about his dna, in any way imaginable to infer anything about you.
        • fixermark 8y ago
          Why? That seems like a broad restriction that we don't apply to other things like "Your fingerprints partially match some prints at a crime scene" or "You drive the same car as a suspect." People can and do end up in a police lineup for being the same gender and living in the same apartment complex as a perpetrator; I think that's reasonable, because a lineup isn't a conviction. There's a world of difference between evidence submittable at a trial and evidence making someone worthy of suspicion and further investigation. I agree the bar on the former should be high; the bar on the latter being low on average leads to faster perpetrator identification and a safer community.
          • autokad 8y ago
            our DNA is private. they should not be able to look at it without a warrant even if someone else slimier to you recklessly throws it in the public domain. Imagine I could read your mind by reading someone else mind. are you ok with me having access to your private thoughts just because someone gave me access to their mind?
            • fixermark 8y ago
• deleted 8y ago
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