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Woman sues after DNA from rape kit used to arrest her
- pwncake 4y agoThis person committed a crime and freely gave their DNA. If you have ever taken a 23andMe or other test, the government has your DNA.
- im3w1l 4y agoIn the not so distant future the government will have have a database with everyone's dna. It's just not possible to keep something secret that you literally shed everywhere you go.
- Supermancho 4y agore: Gattaca We aren't there yet. That's still an important fact, when determining the legality of how DNA is used.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoSuch an interesting movie… I confess as a high school kid when I first saw it I thought “imagine the possibilities“ whereas others were thinking “that’s sad and horrible“ …
- anonporridge 4y agoIt's quite a silly movie actually. There's no need to do that amount of genetic testing to determine a person's potential when the zip code they grew up in will suffice.
- cuttysnark 4y agoSo, Hunger Games?
- knorker 4y agoI feel like you don't actually remember the movie at all. It's an amazing movie. It's only the same in the way that "A stranger comes to town" is a description of every single movie ever made. If you want overt zipcode inequality then In Time is a better match. (but much lesser of a movie)
- anonporridge 4y agoOh I do. Gattaca is my favorite film of all time that I rewatch every other year. I was merely being tongue in cheek about the modern reality of class inequality.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoThere is nothing silly with characterizing a person's abilities, potential health issues, intelligence, and physical extents for purposes of the government via genetics. It's horrifying and very possible. Likely going on in some countries already. I'm not sure why you suggest otherwise.
- stjohnswarts 4y agodid you become a geneticist?
- anonporridge 4y agoEven if you didn't shed it everywhere, we really just need a database of a subset of people, which we can use to match close relations to and drastically narrow down the search. e.g. how the Golden State killer was finally found, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo#Arrest_and_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo#Arrest_a... Your DNA is fundamentally public information.
- tablespoon 4y ago> In the not so distant future the government will have have a database with everyone's dna. It's just not possible to keep something secret that you literally shed everywhere you go. There's an important difference between physically being able to keep something secret, and legally being able to keep something secret. For instance: today the government has the physical ability to break into my house and shoot me in the head for no reason at all, but they don't have the legal ability to do so. Likewise, they have the physical ability to illegally obtain evidence, but not the legal ability to use that evidence to convict someone at trial.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y agoGlad you highlighted "today", because tomorrow is much different as supreme court and FBI become more politicized. Rules seem to change on a whim. Or as in Canada gov't can declare an emergency an seize protester bank accounts. Another thing to point out is "today" should be in "today in some countries". Russian oil executives are mysteriously falling out of windows and boats all of the sudden.
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- giraffe_lady 4y agoI mean ever heard of fred hampton? That one blew up publicity-wise and is fairly famous now but there's no reason to think it was the only relatively recent example or that they've ever stopped doing things like that. The rules aren't meaningless but they also don't stop the government from assassinating you if they decide that works out best for them.
- im3w1l 4y agoI agree, but when it's this difficult to physically kept it secret, then someone will collect it. That someone will then tell the police in return for some favor and the police will cook up some parallel construction. The result is the same except more corrupt and expensive.
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- Overtonwindow 4y agoThis might sound far-fetched, but I believe The government already has genetic information on north of 50% of the population. However, inefficient distribution of data and legalities of its use have deeply slowed widespread use. The future we should fear is one with an efficient and interconnected government, capable of pulling a DNA match out of a database five government agencies removed, on the side of the highway…
- edgyquant 4y agoWhy should we fear this anymore than the current government?
- stjohnswarts 4y agoThey already have too much power and know too much about us. Governments are really just the elite in control and not to be trusted. Sure some countries have a bit more turn over that others (democracies) but in the end you should always be suspicious of government and very very careful about whatever power you allow them to have through your vote. In many countries it is already too late without armed rebellion (turkey, china, russia, venezuela, for example)
- edgyquant 4y agoI agree just stating that governments won’t be worse because of this.
- gremlinsinc 4y agoMy biggest fear is footprinting tech that can literally follow us everywhere and even ID us if we're wearing a mask by our size+gait etc... Mix this with some dystopian social credit system where you get points for reporting the littlest offense to big brother, and some more spying tools to spy on our own people and we literally get thought police. Soon it'll be 1984 IRL. I don't plan on being criminal, but what's legal today could be criminal tomorrow, or what's legal in one city might not be in another, etc. I don't think we're there yet, but the future could turn all shades of bad if we don't get upset over privacy violations now.
- jupp0r 4y agoThere are lots of things that the government has technically been able to do but that laws are preventing it from doing. Society has a choice here. I'm not going to argue one way or another, but having an honest debates about trade offs either way and making an explicit decision would certainly be better than things like the case mentioned in the article silently creeping in.
- 323 4y ago> A prenatal test used worldwide sends gene data of pregnant women to the company that developed it with China's military. The U.S. sees a security risk. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-china-bgi-dna/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stjohnswarts 4y agothis should be illegal to even create unless you are 100% convicted of a crime. Government should not have access to such a databse.
- SkipperCat 4y agoI guess the legal question is "was her DNA medical records" or "was her DNA evidence". If it was the former, I'd say she has a case because of HIPAA. If the latter, not so much.
- zibby8 4y agoEven if the DNA was evidence as part of her domestic abuse / rape case, I think there is an argument to be made that using the same evidence for other cases is an unreasonable invasion of privacy (as defined by the 4th amendment). I should be able to have my day in court without giving the government carte blanche to do whatever they want with my personal effects in the future.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoIt is interesting because this type of protection doesn't really exist in other areas. If you let a cop into your house for domestic abuse and they see an illegal gun, drugs, ect, they can certainly use that evidence against you. And Yes, this IS a barrier to victims who are also criminals seeking help when they need it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- torstenvl 4y agoSomething you turn over to the government is not private from the government. Expecting otherwise is clearly not "reasonable." A criminal prosecution is not your day in court. A crime victim is not a party to a criminal proceeding. There are maybe a handful of cases where the concept was even contemplated, and it was on a motion to consider a victim's out-of-court admissions as evidence under R. Evid. 801(d)(2). New Mexico v. Vallejos (N.M. App. 2019) ("The State's Motion to Amend, containing Victim's statements, does not fall within the hearsay exemption in Rule 11-801(D)(2) because Victim is not a party opponent."); Ohio v. Ingram (Oh. App. 2016) ("We re-affirm our holding in Browning that an alleged victim who testifies as a witness for the state is not a party-opponent within the meaning of Evid.R. 801(D)(2).")
- jjcon 4y agoWeren’t charges in this case dropped in February? Why is this in the news again? http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/16/chesa-boudin-san-francisco-da-drops-charges-rape-kit-dna http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/16/chesa-boudin-...
- Steven420 4y agoBecause the victim is suing
- teachrdan 4y agoFrom the very first sentence of TFA: "A woman whose DNA from a rape kit was used by cops to arrest her for an unrelated burglary filed a federal lawsuit against San Francisco on Monday, alleging that police invaded her privacy." This is news because she just filed a federal lawsuit.
- crackercrews 4y agoRelated: [1] > If you were born in the United States within the last 50 or so years, chances are good that one of the first things you did as a baby was give a DNA sample to the government. > The blood is supposed to be used for medical purposes—these screenings identify babies with serious health issues, and they have been highly successful at reducing death and disability among children. But a public records lawsuit filed last month in New Jersey suggests these samples are also being used by police in criminal investigations. Previously discussed on HN last month. [2] 1: https://www.wired.com/story/police-used-a-babys-dna-to-investigate-its-father-for-a-crime/ https://www.wired.com/story/police-used-a-babys-dna-to-inves... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32473403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32473403
- jjcon 4y ago> chances are good that one of the first things you did as a baby was give a DNA sample to the government. This seems pretty disingenuous - yes you gave a blood sample (which has DNA in it) but no DNA genome sequencing is taking place - they simply check it for a series of disorders to make sure a baby is healthy and yes gather aggregate data on prevalence of disorders at the population level.
- bombcar 4y agoBut do they keep it somewhere for further analysis later (very useful medically if you want to backtest things) or do they programmatically destroy it?
- jjcon 4y agoIn nearly every western country (EU countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc) the samples are securely stored indefinitely - in the US it depends on the state but many do keep the samples there as well. That does not mean they are readily accessible- there have been cases of misuse but it is extremely rare. From a DNA perspective one can only use the Guthrie test samples for about a decade after collection so yes, in a worst case abuse scenario we have cards that could be mined for DNA across a bunch of <10 year olds.
- causi 4y agoOther more important aspects aside, I'm curious how they got DNA from a burglary case. Did she poop in the toilet and not flush it? Cut herself breaking a window?
- kristofferR 4y agoOr simply just dropping a little hair.
- pxeger1 4y agoLeave a hair follicle behind?
- stjohnswarts 4y agoAs pointed out by wahern above see this: https://www.genomebc.ca/blog/forensics-breakthrough-dna-extracted-from-rootless-hair https://www.genomebc.ca/blog/forensics-breakthrough-dna-extr...
- mikeryan 4y agoMost likely just hair.
- yellow_lead 4y agoIt doesn't have to be something overt as leaving a log of DNA in the toilet. There could be skin cells left near stolen merchandise.
- whatshisface 4y agoSo what you're saying is, if a burglar can find a hair on a sidewalk on their way to commit the crime, the prosecutor will tell the jury that there is a scientifically proven 99.999999999% chance that it wasn't them...
- freshpots 4y agoNo because hair itself contains no DNA.
- mikeryan 4y agoTo be fair to the parties involved the SF DA at the time refused to prosecute the case, the SFPD stopped the practice pretty much immediately, and the date of California is passing legislation to prevent this. Everyone seems to have acknowledged that this was wrong and have seemed to put in efforts to stop it. It’s an interesting federal case for how it can impact other states law and raises the awareness of other “rogue” DNA databases that could be misused.
- mistrial9 4y agoit is utterly naive to accept such statements at face value ; deception is a daily tool in politics and in court
- awinder 4y agoYeah but so is incompetence…
- gopher_space 4y agoI think everybody is going to be super cool about this while they find out who set things up to record victim DNA. It's a nice little powder keg that's been just sitting there for a while.
- wyldfire 4y agoIt might make some practical sense to have a system that keeps some record of victim DNA. During an investigation and analysis of a sample, victim DNA can be used to rule out sources of unique DNA. It makes yet more sense to sequester victim DNA into another database and have a policy to destroy the data once it's no longer necessary.
- mitchdoogle 4y agoSure, but they aren't just statements. Sooner or later, in the face of mounting evidence, you have to put aside your cynicism and admit that sometimes people do things that they say they will do.
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- Karawebnetwork 4y agoThe worrying part of this story is that it might lead to victims being afraid of seeking help.
- inglor_cz 4y agoThere are more victims in this story: namely, the people whose dwelling was burglarized. Do they not deserve justice, too?
- kayodelycaon 4y agoThe good of society needs to be considered. Rape is a far more serious crime than burglary. Deliberately using someone’s rape to collect DNA so they can be later prosecuted for minor crimes is absolutely unconscionable in my opinion.
- hajile 4y agoIf she had raped or murdered someone, would looking at her DNA then be justified?
- gremlinsinc 4y agoOnly if ascertained as a criminal in the justice system. In America we are innocent until proven guilty, which means unless we've been prosecuted for another crime, our DNA should be completely inaccessible in a court of law. DNA should be scrubbed from govt records if it doesn't belong to someone with a felony. Even misdemeanors I'd say shouldn't qualify people for a permanent DNA record on file.
- altruios 4y agoHard line on privacy, so no. It is (almost) never correct to violate someone's privacy. Privacy is paramount. there are exceptions to (almost*) every rule...
- orthecreedence 4y ago
- samatman 4y agoWell there's an enormous can of worms. I share the common emotion that this is awful and shouldn't happen, but I have trouble justifying it intellectually. Let's say, instead of DNA, it was an outstanding bench warrant. It seems pretty clear to me that the victim should have the help of the police in apprehending the rapist, but should also be arrested for the bench warrant. You might disagree, but there's no solving the problem of both needing the help of the police and being wanted for crimes. Waiting a day to serve the warrant, out of respect? Does that help? This is different, yes, but how different? What changes to the database should be made here? Completely separate victim and suspect lists? It's burglary this time, what if it was homicide? Not that you can separate victim and suspect when processing rape kit DNA! Eliminating common subsequences reduces the entropy and makes matches harder, we share a lot of SNPs in common. My complete disgust that this happened remains, but this is one of the gnarliest ethical dilemmas I've seen.
- Majromax 4y ago> I share the common emotion that this is awful and shouldn't happen, but I have trouble justifying it intellectually. Incentives. The justification would be that sexual assault is a serious crime that goes underreported. If victims are afraid to come forward because they fear arrest for other, pettier offenses, then predators are even more likely to escape justice and commit more assaults.
- xapata 4y ago> pettier offenses Really, any offenses. We could imagine that there's some method for abusing a policy of disallowing use of a victim's evidence to prosecute that victim for unrelated crimes, but until it happens, it's reasonable to ignore that possibility.
- listless 4y agoThe most shocking thing in this article is that SF actually prosecuted a retail theft case and went so far as to get DNA? This is not the SF Fox News has been telling me about.
- progre 4y agoIn Sweden the "blood bank" sample taken on all newborn children was used to identify the murderer of foreign minister Anna Lind in 2003. This was very controversial at the time. When my first child had her blood sample taken a few years later they assured me that it was used for screening purposes and for annonymous medical research only. I reminded the nurse of the Anna Lind case and she got extremly upset with me.
- casefields 4y agoAll newborns in California since 1966 have also had their DNA stored. You can request the destruction as a parent or for yourself here: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CFH/DGDS/Pages/nbs/nbsconsentforms.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CFH/DGDS/Pages/nbs/nbsconse...
- sidewndr46 4y agoHow did the nurse get upset?
- progre 4y agoShe got very huffy and flat out denied that the blood bank dna was used to identify the murderer. He wans't covicted using that DNA, true, but the identification was no secret. The police had made 2 arrests of persons they later had to release at that point, so I guess they didn't like to take any chanses with the third. It should be said that the general opinion outside of medical reserarch was supportive of the police.
- sidewndr46 4y agoThat's interesting, almost like the nurse was personally invested in this somehow. Not financially, but maybe morally?
- progre 4y agoI guess she had some integrety and loyalty to her proffesion. She like everyone else had been told that this was a registry for research and screening, and absolutely not the first step in some police state wet fantasy. She hated that they had made her into a liar. The registry is an enourmously valuble asset for the medical community but parents have to consent to the blood sample, so the police getting access was problematic to say the least.
- monksy 4y agoThe frustrating thing here seems to be the miss of justice. It takes extreme examples before anyone will correct a wrong. The police are cross referencing DNA from alternative database, 23and me, etc, .. but there is very little protection to stop them. Yes, this is a case where the police are checking the dna collect from a police action (where she's the victim) to a police database of a prior crime. (Less bad than 3rd parties) However, this still brings up the question of rights to privacy and limitations of police through third parties. (Police have been found to use data aggrigators to find and track people without warrants) Not a lawyer but a big question: How do you assert your rights if you don't know if they've been violated. (I.e. you're been investigated due to what a third party has collected) We need privacy protection laws. My understanding is without them you have to be an aggrieved party to protect yourself.
- hajile 4y agoThis whole story sucks. She would never have been charged or prosecuted if she weren’t robbing people. There’s a general idea that evidence you provide about one crime can be used to prosecute you or someone else for another crime. Why is this a special exception to that rule? If she called the cops about a rape and they recognized her as having outstanding warrants, should they let her go? What if the warrants are for murder? What possible legal exception would apply here, but not apply across the system to a huge number of other cases?
- jakelazaroff 4y agoPolice obviously already have access to outstanding warrants. Police should not have access to a victim's rape kit DNA except for use in solving that rape. The reason is that you don't want to discourage rape victims from reporting.
- xigoi 4y agoHow is that different for other crimes? If a murderer is a victim of burglary and the police find a dead body in their house when investigating the burglary, should they not do anything?
- jakelazaroff 4y agoThe rape report was from six years ago. You really think it’s a good idea to say “you can report your rape, but we’re going to store your DNA in perpetuity to use against you”? You don’t see a difference between then and finding a dead body when investigating a burglary?
- xigoi 4y agoAlright, let's improve the analogy. You report a burglary, and one of the stolen things is a very unusual sword. You tell the police that no one else has a sword like this, which makes it very valuable. Six years later, you commit murder with the sword; when the police investigates it, one officer remembers that you're the only person with this type of sword. Do they have a right to mark you as a suspect?
- asdff 4y agoYou are fingerprinted to get a drivers license in california. If the cops find prints at the scene and use this database to see who it is, thats no reason to sue. This should be considered in the same light as its essentially the same data, just a unique marker for an individual.
- rolph 4y agoi think this incident, and the 5th amendment, are siddleing up next to each other ready to have a very intimate discussion.
- mrozbarry 4y agoI can't believe I am the minority on this, but I don't see a problem. This woman volunteered her DNA. She has committed a crime in the past. Is it a misuse of DNA if a criminal is brought to justice, where that DNA was literally volunteered? This does not undermine the fact this person was raped, and that is horrible, BUT justice will be carried out in that case. The justice system cannot overlook a reported crime when there is evidence to persecute because a criminal involved in that crime has been hurt.
- byteduck 4y agoIt’s a matter of not disincentivizing victims from cooperating with law enforcement. If there’s the possibility that some information you give the police could be used to prosecute you in the future, that could deter people from going to the police or seeking justice in the first place. In terms of DNA specifically, it’s kind of a weird power play to say “if you want us to convict the person who raped you, we’ll have to put your DNA into our database to make it easier to convict you in the future”.
- mrozbarry 4y agoI think that's a bit of a bad argument, maybe a strawman. The whole point of the law is to make good citizens so we can all live together. It is in the best interest of both individuals and a community as a whole to not break the law. Breaking the law has consequences. It is the job of the police and justice system to find criminals and punish them. Finding criminals requires the justice system to find evidence and proof. Let's make another scenario: someone's home was burglarized, and the family who lives in the home submits DNA so the police/investigators can flag finger prints/DNA not left by the family. It turns out the father of the house raped and killed several women 30 years before. The DNA submitted by the family has effectively convicted their father by volunteering his DNA for crimes he committed 30 years ago. Would you be equally upset that this rapist and murderer has been caught?
- mixmastamyk 4y agoYes, you can scale the offense up to the point where most would answer yes to allowing this. It’s interesting that in the past I wouldn’t have been extremely worried about it. But times have changed. Asking for consent is now considered old-fashioned. Law enforcement has been taking every technological shortcut offered as soon as it is in budget. It’s a dangerous time we’re heading into. Well, already arrived in. Big brother panopticon is a reality. In this environment I see the precedent in a new light. Reminds me of the movie Gattaca, which is not a feel-good film.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoAll I can think of is "no, not like that" meme
- 1letterunixname 4y agoGive your DNA or personal deets to any organization, and you've immediately lost control over your privacy in perpetuity (no pun intended) in unknowable ways, possibly even after you cease being amongst the living.