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Anybody who has watched a crime drama knows the trick. The cops need someone's DNA, but they don’t have a warrant, so they invite the suspect to the station house, knowing some of the perp’s genetic material will likely be left behind. Bingo, crime solved. Next case.

A human sheds as much as 100 pounds of DNA-containing material in a lifetime and about 30,000 skin cells an hour. But who owns that DNA is the latest modern-day privacy issue before the US Supreme Court. At its core, the issue focuses on whether we must live in a hermetically sealed bubble to avoid potentially having our genetic traits catalogued and analyzed by the government.

The Supreme Court's justices will meet privately on February 27 to consider putting a case with this science-fiction-like question on their docket. The dispute blends science, technology, genetic privacy, and a real-world, unspeakable crime against a woman.

The unidentified woman in the case was raped at her Maryland residence in 2006. Over the course of two years, the authorities interviewed as many as 20 suspects. They all voluntarily gave the Maryland...