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Police Used a Baby's DNA To Investigate Its Father For a Crime (wired.com) 74

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: If you were born in the United States within the last 50 or so years, chances are good that one of the first things you did as a baby was give a DNA sample to the government. By the 1970s, states had established newborn screening programs, in which a nurse takes a few drops of blood from a pinprick on a baby's heel, then sends the sample to a lab to test for certain diseases. Over the years, the list has grown from just a few conditions to dozens. The blood is supposed to be used for medical purposes -- these screenings identify babies with serious health issues, and they have been highly successful at reducing death and disability among children. But a public records lawsuit filed last month in New Jersey suggests these samples are also being used by police in criminal investigations. The lawsuit, filed by the state's Office of the Public Defender and the New Jersey Monitor, a nonprofit news outlet, alleges that state police sought a newborn's blood sample from the New Jersey Department of Health to investigate the child's father in connection with a sexual assault from the 1990s.

Crystal Grant, a technology fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, says the case represents a "whole new leap forward" in the misuse of DNA by law enforcement. "It means that essentially every baby born in the US could be included in police surveillance," she says. It's not known how many agencies around the country have sought to use newborn screening samples to investigate crimes, or how often those attempts were successful. But there is at least one other instance of it happening. In December 2020, a local TV station reported that police in California had issued five search warrants to access such samples, and that at least one cold case there was solved with the help of newborn blood. "This increasing overreach into the health system by police to get genetic information is really concerning," Grant says.

The New Jersey lawsuit alleges that police obtained the blood sample of a newborn child (who is now elementary-school aged) to perform a DNA analysis that linked the baby's father to a crime. This was done using a technique called investigative genetic genealogy, or forensic genealogy. It usually involves isolating DNA left at a crime scene and using it to create a digital genetic profile of a suspect. Investigators can upload this profile to genealogy websites where other people have freely shared their own DNA information in the hope of connecting with family members or learning about their ancestry. Because DNA is shared within families, investigators can use relative matches to map out a suspect's family tree and narrow down their identity. According to the New Jersey lawsuit, police had reopened an investigation into a cold case and had used genetics to place the suspect within a single family: one of several adults or their children. But police didn't yet have probable cause to obtain search warrants for DNA swabs from any of them. Instead, they asked the state's newborn screening lab for a blood sample of one of the children. Analysis of this genetic information revealed a close relationship between the baby's DNA and the DNA taken at the crime scene, indicating that the baby's father was the person police were seeking. That was enough to establish probable cause in the assault investigation, so police sought a warrant for a cheek swab from the father. After analyzing his DNA, the suit contends, police found that it was a match to the crime scene DNA.
"Because there are no federal laws governing newborn screening programs, states set their own policies on which diseases they test for, how long samples are stored, and how they can be used," notes Wired. "Some states hold on to blood samples for months, others for years or decades. Virginia only keeps samples from infants with normal results for six months, while Michigan retains them for up to 100 years. New Jersey stores samples for 23 years before destroying them."
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Police Used a Baby's DNA To Investigate Its Father For a Crime

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  • Turns out it wasn't a case of when will it happen [slashdot.org], but when will we learn it already happened?

    We have doctor-patient privilege for a reason, but it turns out that in the US it's really already stone dead. No privilege as a matter of course will keep biting in ever newer and ever more exciting ways. Share and enjoy!

  • We can end this by making sure Republicans, GOP and Evangelicals believe this is how the "others" are able to continually attack and persecute them.

    "They are taking your Christian baby's blood so they can screen it for more woke, affirmative action! By the way, they already have yours!"

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Sounds like a plan. Although the terminally stupid sometimes behave in surprisingly smart ways.

  • police in California had issued five search warrants to access such samples

    Isn't the search warrant the proper method of obtaining (searching for) evidence protected by the 4th amendment?

    • by jbengt ( 874751 )
      Yes, but apparently in the NJ case, they didn't need or get a search warrant for the baby's DNA.
  • ... prove it's my kid.

  • by q4Fry ( 1322209 ) on Monday August 15, 2022 @06:18PM (#62792325)

    Here is a chart [cchfreedom.org] of retention policies for each State, 2001-2019.

  • If they had not overturned Roe v. Wade we wouldn't be in this mess.

    • What does Roe v. Wade have to do with authorities collecting genetic material?

      • According to Republicans, babies wouldn't exist if Roe v. Wade were allowed to stand. Therefore there wouldn't be any baby to collect DNA from.

  • Well done to the cops. Finding people who commit crimes and subjecting them to the judicial process is exactly what they should be doing. If what they do is unconstitutional or otherwise illegal then the courts are the place to determine this. Meanwhile: excellent!!!!!!

  • You are the FATHER

    and here is the warrant for your arrest

  • But really the genetic cats are out of the bag, the police can track down who you are through your DNA if you leave spit on a soda cup and throw it away, the Golden State killer. The best thing for now is to not commit crimes
    • What happens when almost everything is a crime?

      Read "Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent," by Harvey Silverglate. In it, he convincingly demonstrates that every American unwittingly commits, on average, three felonies every day of their adult lives.

      • Then the world becomes a place where anyone in power can prosecute anyone when they feel like it. Now all you have left is if you agree with when they deploy their hate/love or not.

        But shouldn't the response to this be to work on decreasing laws not try to make places for criminals to hide?

        • I wish I hadn't posted as I would have rather modded you up. The biggest challenge we have to sane laws/procedures in the US is that the most sophisticated people (often incorrectly) think that they have a way to "evade" getting caught and therefore otherwise bad law somehow doesn't apply to them.

          And to some extent they are correct at least for a time. Eventually, though, even those who are relatively good at sidestepping the rules get caught but by then the bad laws are entrenched and it's one of the t

  • by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Monday August 15, 2022 @09:40PM (#62792669)
    We have or will soon have the technology to allow near universal surveillance, and can probably use that if we want to eliminate virtually all crimes - except of course those committed by the government. We need laws to regulate that surveillance or we will end up in a world that would make a great Black Mirror episode.
  • In Soviet Russia, by guilt of association children suffer for what police found on their fathers.

  • I did a quick search for statute of limitations on sexual assault. They're 2-4, maybe 5 years. I didn't look at every one. New Jersey isn't more than 5 years. So why are they digging back for a 1990s case? Unless it's murder or they want to blame someone for an old case.

The best defense against logic is ignorance.

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