San Diego Police Targets African American Children for Unlawful DNA Collection

eff.org

30 points·DiabloD3··7 comments

In 2013, SDPD paid $35,000 to settle a lawsuit involving a 2011 incident where officers improperly collected DNA without cause from five family members of a parolee.

But what happens to the collected DNA? Deleted from the database?

And this DNA collection campaign is not just happening in San Diego, CA, but in other areas of the country. Florida, I've heard, is very active in this area.

By the way, this is similar to how cops gave young, black men criminal records in the years after civil rights victories.

Edited: DNS to DNA.

It's DNA, not DNS. Yes, this is terrible. I'm sure the police would be happy to get the DNA of everyone.

> By the way, this is similar to how cops gave young, black men criminal records in the years after civil rights victories.

Can you expand on that? What were cops doing right after civil rights victories.

Going around black neighborhoods arresting young, black men on spurious charges just to give them criminal records.

But I think the effects of this will be much worse, because a rouge cop with someones DNA is really bad news. How do you prove it was not your DNA at the crime scene?

Minor nitpick: rouge is a color. I guess you meant rogue.

Yep, I have some French me. That and not double-checking what I wrote before posting.

The collected DNA is almost never destroyed, and may be shared with any number of state, local, or federal agencies as part of an opaque network of databases.

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