Opinion ID: 787362
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Scope of the DNA Act and the Combined DNA Index System

Text: 94 The federal program which for all practical purposes is approved today is not nearly as limited as the one initially enacted by Congress. The federal DNA database at issue in this litigation, the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), 2 contains more information about vastly more individuals than it did when it was first created. A brief examination of the origins and development of CODIS helps demonstrate why further limitless expansion of the scope and reach of this nationwide database is inevitable, and helps explain why I find it so unlikely that today's decision is good for this day and train only. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 669, 64 S.Ct. 757, 88 L.Ed. 987 (1944) (Roberts, J., dissenting).
95 Even a brief glance at the manner in which the federal government has developed and expanded CODIS makes plain that the scope of the system is broad and that future growth is inevitable. CODIS began in 1990 as a pilot program serving just 14 state and local laboratories. See CODIS Mission Statement and Background. Its enlargement began shortly thereafter and has not stopped since. Congress made CODIS a program with nationwide reach in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which authorized the FBI to create a national database of DNA samples collected from crime scenes and crime victims, convicted offenders, and unidentified human remains. See DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000, H.R.Rep. No. 106-900(I), at 8[hereinafter DNA Act House Report]. It was not until passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), Pub.L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996), however, that Congress authorized the FBI to expand CODIS to include federal crimes. DNA Act House Report, at 8. Despite this legislation, the Department of Justice concluded that Congress had not yet provided the executive branch with sufficient legal authority to collect DNA samples from federal offenders. Consequently, Congress enacted the DNA Act of 2000, which states that the probation office responsible for the supervision under Federal law of an individual on probation, parole, or supervised release shall collect a DNA sample from each individual who is, or has been, convicted of a qualifying Federal offense. 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(a)(2). 96 The DNA Act requires samples 3 from all individuals who have been convicted of certain federal crimes. See ante, at 816 & n. 1. And, as the plurality rightly notes, the DNA Act of 2000 contained a narrow list of qualifying offenses, including crimes such as arson, voluntary manslaughter, and murder. What the plurality and concurring opinion fail to mention, however, is that the most recent list of qualifying offenses, contained at 28 C.F.R. § 28.2, includes a laundry list of federal crimes that is vastly more expansive than the list approved by the 2000 DNA Act. 4 97 The current list of qualifying crimes is so broad and eclectic that it is difficult to name, absent an intimate familiarity with the intricacies of the federal criminal code, any discernible categories of criminal activities that remain beyond the reach of the DNA Act. The list of qualifying offenses includes crimes compiled from more than 200 separate sections of the United States Code, resulting in countless possible permutations of qualifying crimes. For example, one's DNA could be stored on file with the federal government forever upon a conviction for willfully injur[ing] or commit[ting] any depredation against any property of the United States, such as spray painting graffiti on a government building or tearing apart a $1 bill in protest against a perceived arbitrary governmental policy. See 18 U.S.C. § 1361. Similarly, an individual might have a DNA sample forcibly taken if he interferes with a mailman in the course of his duties, or forcibly opposes a federal employee on account of his performance of official duties. See 18 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1) (making it illegal for any person to, inter alia, oppose or interfere with any officer or employee of the United States while engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties); see also 18 U.S.C. § 2116 (criminalizing the interference with any postal clerk in the discharge of his duties in connection with a postal car or steamboat). If an owner of a boat destroys his vessel in order to obtain an insurance payment, he may be forced to provide a DNA sample, see 18 U.S.C. § 2272, and any non-owner of a boat who maliciously cuts, spoils, or destroys any cordage, cable, buoys, buoy rope, head fast, or other fast, fixed to the anchor or moorings belonging to any vessel will suffer a similar fate, 18 U.S.C. § 2276; cf. 18 U.S.C. § 2281 (criminalizing violence against maritime fixed platforms). 98 If the above examples do not sufficiently demonstrate that the federal government has not simply chosen to collect DNA samples from the most hardened criminals or most likely recidivists, consider the following non-exhaustive sample of enumerated crimes listed at 28 C.F.R. § 28.2: resisting arrest, 18 U.S.C. § 2231; various forms of civil disorder, 18 U.S.C. § 231; participation, promotion, or incitement of a riot, 18 U.S.C. § 2101; advocating the overthrow of the United States government, 18 U.S.C. § 2385; interference with access to reproductive health service facilities, 18 U.S.C. § 248; interference with an aviation flight crew member or flight attendant, 49 U.S.C. § 46504; interference with or intimidation of federal meat, poultry, or poultry products inspectors, 21 U.S.C. § 461(c), 675; the harming of any animal used by law enforcement officials, 18 U.S.C. § 1368; the receipt of kick-backs from public works employees, 18 U.S.C. § 874; personal theft and robbery, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2111-12; conspiracies to threaten, or intimidate any person, 18 U.S.C. § 241; interference with the right to vote, 18 U.S.C. § 594; attempts to intimidate or command any employee of the federal government to engage or not engage in political activity, 18 U.S.C. § 610; various forms of extortion and mailing threatening communications, and making extortionate extensions of credit or collecting extensions of credit by extortionate means, 18 U.S.C. §§ 875-78, 892, 894; being a felon-or a member of the Armed Forces who has been dishonorably discharged-in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g); computer fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1030; attempted manslaughter, 18 U.S.C. § 1113; incest committed by an Indian in Indian country, 18 U.S.C. § 1153; the use of a hazardous or injurious device on federal land or an Indian reservation, 18 U.S.C. § 1864; tampering with a witness, 18 U.S.C. § 1512; piracy under the law of nations, 18 U.S.C. § 1651; the obstruction or delay of the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 1951; various racketeering crimes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1952(a)(2), 1958-59, 1962; breaking and entering into a post office, 18 U.S.C. § 2115; cruelty to seamen on a vessel in the jurisdiction of the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 2191; Shanghaiing sailors by force or threat, 18 U.S.C. § 2194; misuse of a vessel by a person in command of the vessel within the territorial waters of the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 2274; tampering with, or breaking and entering into, another person's vessel, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2275-76; destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure, 18 U.S.C. § 2232(a); any action designed to impair a federal court's continuing in rem jurisdiction over a particular property, 18 U.S.C. § 2232(b); production of sexually explicit depictions of minors, 18 U.S.C. § 2260; the transfer of any obscene material to a minor, 18 U.S.C. § 1470; interstate stalking or violation of a protective order, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A, 2262; persuading or enticing any individual to travel across state lines to engage in prostitution, 18 U.S.C. § 2422; importation of any alien to the United States for any immoral purpose, 8 U.S.C. § 1328; and the removal or alteration of the serial number on a firearm, or the receipt of a firearm with a removed or altered serial number, 26 U.S.C. § 5861. The Act even applies to several sections of the federal criminal code that have long been repealed. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 2031, 2032. And, in case the provided list is insufficient, the DNA Act is also triggered by the catchall attempt or conspiracy provision, which covers [a]ny offense that is an attempt or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing offenses. 28 C.F.R. § 28.2(I). 99 The power to assemble a permanent national DNA database of all offenders who have committed any of the crimes listed above has catastrophic potential. If placed in the hands of an administration that chooses to exalt order at the cost of liberty, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 374, 47 S.Ct. 641, 71 L.Ed. 1095 (1927) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), the database could be used to repress dissent or, quite literally, to eliminate political opposition. Many of the qualifying offenses in the DNA Act are crimes that involve conduct closely related to the exercise of First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly, such as incitement, civil disorder, and the various forms of interference crimes listed above. Other offenses are so vaguely or broadly described that they cover almost any conduct that can be described as unlawful. Even if the list of qualifying offenses in the DNA Act remains static, future governments might use the Act's already wide reach to monitor, intimidate, and incarcerate political opponents and disfavored minorities. 100 Giving us a concrete sense of how broad the reach of the current Act is, the plurality opinion notes that CODIS currently contains over 1.6 million DNA profiles drawn from offenders. But that population is certain to rise even without statutory assistance. With nearly 6.9 million individuals under some form of correctional supervision in recent years, see Lauren E. Glaze & Seri Palla, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Probation and Parole in the United States, 2003, available at http:// www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ppus03.pdf, CODIS has the immediate potential for exponential growth. It is no secret, incidentally, that minorities are disproportionately represented in this population and that many whites receive no sentence at all when they commit offenses for which blacks or Hispanics receive prison time or probation. See generally MARC MAUER, RACE TO INCARCERATE (1999). 101 CODIS' potential for expansion, however, is not limited to the population of convicted federal offenders. Even before passage of the 2000 DNA Act, all fifty states had adopted some form of legislation mandating the collection of DNA samples for inclusion in CODIS. See Nancy Beatty Gregoire, Federal Probation Joins the World of DNA Collection, 66 FED. PROBATION 30, 30 (2002). Today, Mississippi is the only state that does not provide its DNA profiles for inclusion in the national database, NDIS, via CODIS. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, NDIS Participants, available at http:// www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/codis/partstates.htm (last visited June 20, 2004). The FBI has noted approvingly that the states are rapidly expanding the scope and size of their CODIS databases and has stated its hope that eventually, all 50 states will include all felony offenses in their lists of qualifying crimes. Federal Bureau of Investigation, The FBI's Combined DNA Index System Program: A Federal/State Partnership Fighting Violent Crime, available at http:// www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/codis/ brochure.pdf (last visited June 20, 2004). 102 Recent legislation in several states has authorized the federal government to store and access DNA profiles of individuals who have been convicted of run-of-the-mill non-violent crimes such as felonious possession of food stamps, see Br. of Amicus Curiae Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia [hereinafter: PDS Brief], at 6 (citing Ala.Code §§ 36-18-24, 13A-9-91 (2003)). CODIS also contains profiles of individuals who have been convicted of no crime whatsoever but have merely had the misfortune of being arrested in Louisiana, Texas, or Virginia. See id. at 7 (citing La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15:609(A) (West Supp.2003); Tex. Gov't Code Ann. § 411.1471(a)(2) (West 2003); Va. St. § 19.2-310.2:1 (2003)). California will likely be next in this group-a popular and well-funded ballot initiative is on the November ballot that would expand the State's collection of DNA samples to include arrestees. See John Wildermuth, Proposition to Take DNA at Arrest Stirs Privacy Fears, S.F. Chron., June 12, 2004, at A1. California's propositions frequently are emulated by other less imaginative jurisdictions. 5 If the expansion of the DNA Act's reach continues to follow its current trajectory, it will not be long before CODIS includes DNA profiles from misdemeanants, arrestees, and other suspected criminals throughout the nation. See Mark Hansen, DNA Dragnet, ABA Journal, May 2004, at 43 (noting that Congress is soon likely to approve legislation authorizing DNA profiling of juvenile offenders and adult arrestees). And, once that step is made, there will undoubtedly be pressure to expand the database even further to include profiles of individuals who wish to obtain drivers licenses 6 or federal passports, applicants for federal jobs or admission to public universities, children who attend public elementary or secondary schools, all newborns, and ultimately, under the rationale adopted by the plurality, the entire population. 7 The increasing use of DNA dragnets, in which police officers encourage all individuals in a particular community to provide DNA samples to local law enforcement officials in order to assist an ongoing criminal investigation despite the absence of any individualized suspicion, serves as a concrete example of the type of practices which may shortly become commonplace unless the gradual erosion of Fourth Amendment protections now set in place is reversed. See id. at 42-43 (noting that DNA dragnets have become increasingly common since the early 1990s and questioning the efficacy of these suspicionless searches). Unfortunately, given the plurality's ill-considered holding that the government interest is monumental and the infringement on privacy rights is minimal, that erosion is simply the beginning, not the end.
103 CODIS's potential to expand is not confined to its likely future inclusion of more and more categories of persons to be subjected to DNA profiling. The system also has the ability to identify an increasing amount of information about each of its profiled subjects as our understanding of DNA continues to develop at lightning speed. The plurality is correct that the DNA profiles currently on file in CODIS are based on analyses of junk DNA. See ante at 818-819. It takes comfort in the fact that scientists have long assumed that junk DNA is non-genic, that junk DNA samples taken contain only an identifying fingerprint, and nothing else. Id. That understanding of junk DNA has been disputed for some time. See Justin Gillis, Genetic Code of Mouse Published; Comparison With Human Genome Indicates Junk DNA May Be Vital, WASH. POST, Dec. 5, 2002, at A1 (noting that studies in 2002 revealed that junk DNA contains valuable information about how the body uses genes and that the instruction set [contained within junk DNA] is at least as big as the gene set, and probably bigger). Moreover, new discoveries are being made by the day that challenge the core assumption underlying junk DNA's name-regions of DNA previously thought to be junk DNA may be genic after all. See Clive Cookson, Regulatory Genes Found in Junk DNA, FIN. TIMES, June 4, 2004, at 11; Function Found for Junk DNA, L.A. TIMES, June 5, 2003, at A14. 104 The fact that scientists currently lack the capacity to comprehend the full significance of the data stored within junk DNA samples is irrelevant. As Judge Gould notes in his concurrence, CODIS retains individual DNA profiles forever — even if convicted offenders have completed their debt to society. See Gould concurrence, at 842. Moreover, the FBI encourages all laboratories to retain portions of the evidence samples they collect, see Federal Bureau of Investigation, Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Labs, at ¶ 7.2, available at http:/www.fbi. gov/hq/lab/codis/forensic.htm, affording the federal government the opportunity to re-test and re-analyze a virtually limitless number of samples as science progresses. See also PDS Brief, at 10 (The Act also neither requires, nor even recommends, destruction of samples after analysis.). Thus, as Judge Gould perceptibly observes, DNA stores and reveals massive amounts of personal, private data... and the advance of science promises to make stored DNA only more revealing in time. See Gould concurrence, at 842 n.3. 105 What type of information might the government eventually be able to extract from samples of junk DNA? Even today, as the plurality admits, DNA profiles derived by STR may yield probabilistic evidence of the contributor's race or sex. Ante at 818. Yet that seems to be a dramatic understatement. The DNA fingerprint entered into CODIS likely has the potential to reveal information about an individual's genetic defects, predispositions to diseases, and perhaps even sexual orientation. See Harold J. Krent, Of Diaries and Data Banks: Use Restrictions Under the Fourth Amendment, 74 Tex. L.Rev. 49, 95-96 (1995) (cited in Br. of Amicus Curiae Protection & Advocacy, Inc., at 6 [hereinafter Protection & Advocacy Br.]). DNA analysis can reveal the presence of traits for thousands of known diseases, and countless numbers of diseases which are currently unknown. Protection & Advocacy Br., at 6. More ominously, some have predicted that the DNA profiles entered into CODIS will someday be able to predict the likelihood that a given individual will engage in certain types of criminal, or non-criminal but perhaps socially disfavored, behavior. Id. at 7-8 (citing studies raising the specter that DNA profiles might be used to study the links between particular genes and the propensity for social deviance). 106 To say that CODIS profiles might actually be used for such purposes is hardly far-fetched. A report by the Office of Technology Assessment [hereinafter: OTA] of the U.S. Congress has warned that the possibility exists to test DNA acquired specifically for identification purposes for disease information in a database, and worse, that [t]his option may become more attractive over time, especially as the number and types of probes for genetic orders increase. OTA, Genetic Witness: Forensic Uses of DNA Tests, July 1990, at 10 (cited in Protection & Advocacy Br. at 12-13). The pressures will only increase as CODIS produces more hits, linking unsolved crime scene evidence to newly entered DNA profiles. The permanent maintenance of this type of information about untold millions of Americans, if not indeed about all of our citizens, affords the government monumental powers to intrude into the core of those intimate concerns which lie at the heart of the right to privacy. 107 It is true, as some of my colleagues argue, that today we are confronted only with the question of the constitutionality of the program before us. Yet the current CODIS database, when it is compared to its modest beginnings, represents an 108 alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by [ ] imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen — a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of man's life at will. 109 Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 343, 87 S.Ct. 429, 17 L.Ed.2d 394 (1966) (Douglas, J., dissenting). And when such a policy's constitutionality is determined merely by whether it seems reasonable under the totality of the circumstances, we all have reason to fear that the nightmarish worlds depicted in films such as Minority Report and Gattaca will become realities. This is especially the case given the potentially endless duration of our current war on terror, in the course of which we have already seen that war-time government seeks rapidly to expand its law enforcement powers and to increase its authority to take action against its citizens free from the ordinary rigors of judicial supervision. See, e.g., The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA-PATRIOT) Act, Pub.L. No. 107-56, 115 Stat. 272, §§ 206 (roving wiretaps), 215 (library records searches), 213 (sneak and peak searches) (2001). In such times, the pressures to expand CODIS further than ever before are certain to increase.