The NYPD's new DNA dragnet: The department is collecting and storing genetic information, with virtually no rules to curb their use
By Allison Lewis,
Daily News
| 02. 08. 2019
If you think clandestine DNA dragnets and secret databases are things of science fiction, I have some upsetting news.
From the same law enforcement playbook that brought you stop-and-frisk comes the latest form of racial profiling and policing: the knock-and-spit. We’ve learned that NYPD officers are willing to knock on doors to take New Yorkers’ DNA, whether by “consent” or at the precinct by offering people a cigarette or drink to collect their spit. And once again, as the city’s primary public defenders, we see this latest law enforcement sweep is happening mainly to New Yorkers of color.
Take as an extreme example the police investigation of the Howard Beach jogger case. Before they identified a suspect, the NYPD collected well over 500 DNA profiles from men in the East New York area. Imagine police knocking on doors, in uniform, with a cheek swab in hand, asking residents to prove they didn’t kill the jogger in the nearby park.
They were willing to do it in East New York. Do you think this would happen on Park Ave.? In Park...
Related Articles
By Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times | 02.17.2019
A Minnesota man was eating a hot dog at a hockey game when, the authorities said, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and tossed the remains in the trash.
It was the moment cold-case investigators had been waiting for....
By Marc Montgomery, Radio Canada International | 02.13.2019
CRISPR is a recent technological breakthrough in simplifying gene editing,
It’s potential is enormous and at the same time it raises great concerns. Those concerns exploded when a Chinese scientist edited the genetic sequence of an embryo (germline) to create twin...
By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 02.11.2019
As many people purchased consumer DNA tests in 2018 as in all previous years combined, MIT Technology Review has found.
Surging public interest in ancestry and health—propelled by heavy TV and online marketing—was behind a record year for sales of...
By Michael J. Joyner and Nigel Paneth, Stat | 02.07.2019
Twenty years ago, Dr. Francis Collins, who was then director of the National Center for Human Genome Research, made rosy predictions in his Shattuck Lecture about the health benefits sure to flow from the Human Genome Project. His paper on...
