Los Angeles Escorts: The Grim Sleeper and DNA: There’s much to be concerned about
The third use of DNA in the investigation is unlikely to receive much fanfare; it wasn’t successful. Yet it is equally dangerous to civil liberties. Two years ago, LAPD vice officers arrested a number of suspected johns not as part of a crackdown on prostitution but rather for the purpose of collecting their DNA. (Many of the Grim Sleeper’s victims were prostitutes.) Such a technique is known as a DNA dragnet. As of January 2009, Proposition 69 allows the state to collect DNA not just from those convicted of felonies but also from all people who have simply been arrested on suspicion of committing felonies. Attorney General Jerry Brown’s formal approval of familial searches is still limited to searching profiles of convicted felons in special cases, but it’s not hard to imagine an expansion to all cases regardless of severity, and to arrestee profiles as well.
See the full article from “Edmond Sun”