ACLU says California DNA law violates privacy

Challenging a California law that requires police to collect the DNA of all suspected felons, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer told a federal appeals court Tuesday that the government should not be allowed to take the "genetic blueprint" of someone who hasn't been convicted of a crime.

One-third of the 300,000 Californians arrested on felony charges each year are never convicted, but the state now can "seize, search and analyze the DNA of everyone," attorney Michael Risher told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

He said the voter-approved law allowing DNA testing after all felony arrests sacrifices privacy in exchange for questionable gains in identifying criminals.

The three-judge panel questioned whether DNA sampling is a major invasion of privacy, but indicated that the California law may be vulnerable because of a year-old ruling in another case.

Judge Milan Smith said DNA testing, taken with a swab from the inner cheek, is no more intrusive than fingerprinting and is "a really good way of identifying people." He said Risher was asking government officials to be "Luddites...