Vast DNA bank puts policing at odds with privacy

WASHINGTON -- Brimming with the genetic patterns of more than 3 million Americans, the nation's databank of DNA ``fingerprints" is growing by more than 80,000 people every month.

That database is giving police a crucial crime-fighting tool but is also prompting warnings that the expansion threatens constitutional privacy protection .

With little public debate, state and federal rules for cataloging DNA have broadened in recent years to include not only violent felons, as was originally the case, but also perpetrators of minor crimes and even people who have been arrested but not convicted.

Now some in law enforcement are calling for a national registry of every American's DNA profile, which police could use to compare crime-scene specimens. Advocates say the system would dissuade many would-be criminals and help to capture the rest.

``This is the single best way to catch bad guys and keep them off the street," said Chris Asplen, a lawyer in Washington and the former director of the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence. ``When it's applied to everybody, it is fair, and frankly you wouldn't even know it was going on."

Opponents, however, say that the growing use of DNA scans is making suspects of many law-abiding Americans and that it is turning the ``innocent until proven guilty" doctrine on its head.

``These databases are starting to look more like a surveillance tool than a tool for criminal investigation," said Tania Simoncelli of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.

The debate is part of a larger, post-Sept. 11 tug- of- war between public safety and personal privacy that has intensified amid recent reports that the government has been collecting information on personal phone calls. In particular, it is about the limits of the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from being swept into criminal investigations unless there is good reason to suspect that they have broken the law.

Once someone's DNA code is in the federal database, critics say, that person is effectively treated as a suspect every time a match with a crime-scene specimen is sought -- even though there is no reason to believe that the person may have committed the crime.

At issue is not only how many people's DNA is on file but also how the material is used. In recent years crime fighters have initiated ``DNA dragnets" in which people were asked to submit blood or tissue samples to help prove their innocence.

Also stirring unease is an increase in ``familial searches," in which police find crime-scene DNA that is similar to that of a known criminal, then pursue that criminal's family members, reasoning that only a relative could have such a similar pattern. Critics say that makes suspects of people for being related to a convict.

Such concerns have been amplified by fears that authorities would try to obtain DNA information beyond the unique personal identifiers.

The US profiling system focuses on just 13 small ``regions" of the DNA molecule. These ``regions" do not code for any known biological or behavioral traits but vary to give everyone who is not an identical twin a unique 52-digit number.

``It's like a Social Security number, but not assigned by the government," said Michael Smith, a University of Wisconsin law professor who favors the creation of a national database of every American's genetic identification.

Still, the blood, semen, or cheek-swab specimen that yields that DNA, and which authorities usually save, contains additional genetic information that is sensitive, including disease susceptibilities that could affect employment.

``We don't know all the potential uses of DNA, but once the state has your sample and there are not limits on how it can be used, then the potential civil liberty violations are as vast as the uses themselves," said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts.