Kuwait’s new DNA collection law is scarier than we ever imagined

Horrible laws often follow major terrorist attacks. After 9/11, the U.S. Congress passed the Patriot Act. After the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris last year, European powers contemplated sweeping, strikingly bold internet surveillance laws. Following a July attack in Nice, French officials have passed laughably absurd laws against Muslim women wearing burkinis at public beaches.

But after an ISIS-linked man ignited a bomb in a Shiite mosque in Kuwait last year, killing 27, the mother of all troubling laws was rushed through the country’s Parliament. The law requires that all citizens, residents and visitors to the country submit DNA samples to enter or stay in the country. It was passed in the name of national security and in helping identify victims of large scale attacks.

Only recently are we starting to understand just how powerful and potentially intrusive the new DNA law, which is expected to fully go into effect late this year, will be. In a wealthy nation where citizenship is passed down by bloodline and is extremely restricted, officials have been letting on about a mission creep...