To Identify Suspect In Idaho Killings, FBI Used Restricted Consumer DNA Data (nytimes.com) 40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: As investigators struggled for weeks to find who might have committed the brutal stabbings of four University of Idaho students in the fall of 2022, they were focused on a key piece of evidence: DNA on a knife sheath that was found at the scene of the crime. At first they tried checking the DNA with law enforcement databases, but that did not provide a hit. They turned next to the more expansive DNA profiles available in some consumer databases in which users had consented to law enforcement possibly using their information, but that also did not lead to answers.
F.B.I. investigators then went a step further, according to newly released testimony, comparing the DNA profile from the knife sheath with two databases that law enforcement officials are not supposed to tap: GEDmatch and MyHeritage. It was a decision that appears to have violated key parameters of a Justice Department policy that calls for investigators to operate only in DNA databases "that provide explicit notice to their service users and the public that law enforcement may use their service sites."
It also seems to have produced results: Days after the F.B.I.'s investigative genetic genealogy team began working with the DNA profiles, it landed on someone who had not been on anyone's radar:Bryan Kohberger, a Ph.D. student in criminology who has now been charged with the murders. The case has shown both the promise and the unregulated power of genetic technology in an era in which millions of people willingly contribute their DNA profiles to recreational databases, often to hunt for relatives. In the past, law enforcement officials would need to find a direct match between DNA at the crime scene and that of a specific suspect. Now, investigators can use consumer DNA data to build family trees that can zero in on a person of interest -- within certain policy limits.
F.B.I. investigators then went a step further, according to newly released testimony, comparing the DNA profile from the knife sheath with two databases that law enforcement officials are not supposed to tap: GEDmatch and MyHeritage. It was a decision that appears to have violated key parameters of a Justice Department policy that calls for investigators to operate only in DNA databases "that provide explicit notice to their service users and the public that law enforcement may use their service sites."
It also seems to have produced results: Days after the F.B.I.'s investigative genetic genealogy team began working with the DNA profiles, it landed on someone who had not been on anyone's radar:Bryan Kohberger, a Ph.D. student in criminology who has now been charged with the murders. The case has shown both the promise and the unregulated power of genetic technology in an era in which millions of people willingly contribute their DNA profiles to recreational databases, often to hunt for relatives. In the past, law enforcement officials would need to find a direct match between DNA at the crime scene and that of a specific suspect. Now, investigators can use consumer DNA data to build family trees that can zero in on a person of interest -- within certain policy limits.
So the evident is inadmissible (Score:4, Insightful)
F.B.I. investigators then went a step further, according to newly released testimony, comparing the DNA profile from the knife sheath with two databases that law enforcement officials are not supposed to tap: GEDmatch and MyHeritage
Case dismissed.
eh maybe (Score:1)
Not adequately explained in the NYT opinion piece (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the Terms and Conditions of MyHeritage:
Any use of the DNA Services for law enforcement purposes, forensic examinations, criminal investigations, "cold case" investigations, identification of unknown deceased people, location of relatives of deceased people using cadaver DNA, and/or all similar purposes, is strictly prohibited, unless a court order is obtained. https://www.myheritage.com/ter... [myheritage.com]
And from the Privacy Policy of MyHeritage:
We will not provide information to law enforcement unless we are required by a valid court order or subpoena for genetic information. https://www.myheritage.com/pri... [myheritage.com]
The story in the NYT doesn't give enough information about the investigation to draw a conclusion. From the article: It was a decision that appears to have violated key parameters of a Justice Department policy that calls for investigators to operate only in DNA databases "that provide explicit notice to their service users and the public that law enforcement may use their service sites."
Does having a notice in both the ToS and Privacy Policy stating that law enforcement may request data with a subpoena or court order provide notice to the users of the service? And what was the exact wording in MyHeritage's ToS and PP back in December 2022? It is a valid question but the NYT opinion piece doesn't give enough details to adequately form an opinion of our own.
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The NYTimes article is paywalled.
It appears that the search was legal as long as the FBI agents had a court order or subpoena.
Did they?
If they didn't, then how did they get access to the DB?
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The FBI can issue investigative subpoenas. Whether they did so in this case is a fair question; I don't know the answer. Doing that might have violated DOJ policy, but that wouldn't save Kohlberger.
Re:So the evident is inadmissible (Score:4, Informative)
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that would not necessarily prevent them from using other evidence to get a conviction.
Not true.
Illegally obtained evidence is not admissible, and any otherwise legal evidence obtained as a result of the illegal evidence is also inadmissible.
Fruit of the poisonous tree [wikipedia.org]
Since he wasn't even a suspect until the DNA match, everything was a result of it.
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Issuing a subpoena or getting a warrant that violates policy is not illegal or unconstitutional. The exclusionary rule is also married than you think: https://www.law.cornell.edu/su... [cornell.edu]; from the syllabus:
Despite its broad deterrent purpose, the rule does not proscribe the use of illegally seized evidence in all proceedings or against all persons, and its application has been restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are though most efficaciously served.
In that case, a grand jury could hear questions based on illegally obtained evidence, and the witness was required to answer those questions. So even if the DNA results were illegally obtained in this case, they would simply not be admissible at trial.
that sounds like fruit of the forbidden tree get a (Score:2)
that sounds like fruit of the forbidden tree get an good attorney to fight for your rights.
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that sounds like fruit of the forbidden tree get an good attorney to fight for your rights.
They did. They lost. This was already litigated [usatoday.com]. The standard American decision, that if you share your data with another commercial entity you have no reasonable expectation of privacy was applied. This is why Americans have to avoid giving private data to cloud providers.
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This is why Americans have to avoid giving private data to cloud providers.
Especially if they're planning a murder.
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In this case, the murderer's relatives were the ones who uploaded their data. One presumes that they were not planning murder; they merely made it possible to identify him.
Re:So the evident is inadmissible (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost. That piece of evidence is inadmissible. The question is if their method of parallel construction produced enough "evidence" that would be admissible if the primary evidence is thrown out.
That's the corrupt bullshit here. On the one hand you have a system that says such evidence is inadmissible in a court, but on the other you can still use that to zero in on a subject of interest and build a case focusing only on that subject. In the worse such scenario you load the court with so much circumstantial bullshit that a jury thinks it's beyond a reasonable doubt.
Re:So the evident is inadmissible (Score:4)
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You should be concerned anyway. I read that only like 15-20% of the planet need submit their DNA in order to reverse engineer the entire population. So its inadmissible. Think that will stop an extralegal execution if someone deemed it a matter of national security? All you have to do is use the words national security and every rule or law flies right out the window.
Looks guilty to me (Score:1)
Policy is wrong, judge is right (Score:2)
The policy is wrong:
Justice Department policy that calls for investigators to operate only in DNA databases "that provide explicit notice to their service users and the public that law enforcement may use their service sites."
What next? Even if they have a warrant, can investigators only ask phone companies about a suspect number if they "provide explicit notice to their service users and the public that law enforcement may use their service sites."
It's a war with evil. Use the tools you have as long as they don't harm the innocent.
The judge sees it the same way:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]
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All it'll take is one unsolved child kidnapping or similar and suddenly all DNA databases will be accessible in perpetuity without limits to the FBI, CIA, NSA, TSA, DHS, FEMA, INS, and DOGE.
Which is why my DNA is on file as J.Blues, 1060 West Addison, Chicago, ILL.
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You may want a world where everyone is fingerprinted, DNA registered etc automatically and that all phone activity is logged and available to law enforcement automatically; plenty of other people see this as a massive risk to civil liberty because you can't control how that information will be used or misused once it is collected. You want to bet someone like Trump or Nixon wouldn't be happy t
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This is really a mixed bag.
Should governments be permitted to query genetic data? Yes. What should they get? A YES/NO if there is a match, and confidence in the match. No Name's or locations without further legal queries with a "is it ____ of _____?" No dragnetting. As soon as you even open a crack in the door of dragnetting, you'll start getting corrupt governments using it to harass and threating people's family because they want to keep them from public participation.
That's it. Customers have a reasonabl
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Why would you not want to help law enforcement with a cold case?
Its going to be restricted until its not (Score:3)
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They could also save a TON of money and man-hours currently being wasted on investigation if we'd just give police the right to enter and search any house they please at any time.
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There is no generic right to privacy in the US, and the third party doctrine is still alive and well. If you want to change that, advocate for that kind of change in federal law. Until then, this kind of disclosure is legally on a fundamentally different basis than warrantless searches of homes.
That's not how it's supposed to work. (Score:2, Interesting)
Unlike fingerprints, two people, even unrelated, can have the same set of DNA markers, just as they can have the same color skin, hair, eyes, and the same height, so simply by searching a DNA database, you can easily find false matches. It's all circumstantial, like the time the police questioned a family who did a Google search for pressure cookers around the time of the Boston Marathon bombings. [theatlantic.com]
But once you've narrowed down a list of suspects, DNA is effective at incriminating and exonerating. That's all
Nah - DNA matching isn't like that (Score:3)
'you can easily find false matches'
There's been ONE known example of a problematic match in a court case. DNA matches don't look at 'the same color skin, hair, eyes, and the same height', they look at specific bits of genetic code which means that the probability of a false match is very low.
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There have been many, many problematic DNA matches in the UK.
One of the suspects in the Omagh bombing was acquitted after doubts were raised over the DNA evidence against them. It lead to a number of other cases being reviewed due to the use of "low copy number" DNA evidence. https://www.theguardian.com/uk... [theguardian.com]
There are other cases where it was just police stupidity at fault. One man was accused of interfering with a postbox, but it turned out his DNA was there because a letter he was sending was in it.
DNA is
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The DNA matching technique used in that case was quickly re-validated and is still being used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The concerns about that technique are because it uses many PCR cycles to amplify trace amounts of DNA for sequencing. Is that the true of the evidence in this case?
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As well as the technique itself being questionable, the match was weak and there were many other matches in the police database, let along among the general population.
The British justice system is poor at properly examining these technologies. Once a certain level of testing has been done, it is hard to challenge them. Typically the accused doesn't have the resources to get their own research done.
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The British justice system is poor at properly examining these technologies. Once a certain level of testing has been done, it is hard to challenge them.
At the risk of stating the obvious, this article isn't about the British justice system. You can ride your hobby horse right back across that ocean. Someone else [slashdot.org] pointed out that the defendant in this case already tried to argue against this evidence, and lost on legal grounds -- he had no basis to argue on scientific grounds.
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Yes, they look for specific markers: to process a lot of DNA quickly.
And those markets match YOU with 30 or 40 people on the planet (slightly increasing with population increase).
That only later might help for a real DNA test, as in comparing blood with a hair, or blood with sperm, etc.
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Depends on what you get out of the database. If it's just some simple generic stuff sure, it's circumstantial. On the flip side actual DNA matching has so far only produced a single case where its been thrown out, and the problem was the police couldn't identify conclusively which of the *twins* comitted the crime.
Add to that if you have a decent DNA sample you can test for mutations which often is able to tell even identical twins apart (something you can't do with fingerprints) and you have a pretty damn
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You know, you make good arguments, except they're irrelevant to this case.
The police used the DNA markers found from testing the blood left in knife sheath and found a strong connection to the defendant's father using those databases.
Once the connection was established, they did a cheek swab test and the DNA found on the knife sheath on the crime scene was confirmed to be his [abc7ny.com].
I'd say that was pretty good detective work, and anything but circumstantial.
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I'd say that was pretty good detective work, and anything but circumstantial.
Basically anything other than an eye-witness or a photograph is circumstantial evidence. We often casually assume that circumstantial evidence is weaker than direct evidence, but it's not. Often fingerprints are stronger clues than an eye witness.
What go's around, comes around (Score:2)
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I've watched a long interview with a forensics guy and (from what I understood and remember) he pointed out the same thing... that modern fast DNA tests only look at small specific areas of genetic data. And can only give a degree of certainty.
Plus there are many ways a DNA sample can get onto a crime scene via contamination.
If it's not illegal... (Score:5, Insightful)
GEDmatch does allow law enforcement access (Score:2)
It has an opt-in policy for people who contribute their DNA.
https://www.gedmatch.com/join-... [gedmatch.com]
I don't understand why the article claims law enforcement was "not supposed to tap" GEDmatch.
MyHeritage is a more clear-cut case, prohibiting Law Enforcement use. https://www.myheritage.com/pri... [myheritage.com]
Re:GEDmatch does allow law enforcement access (Score:5, Informative)
We will not provide information to law enforcement unless we are required by a valid court order or subpoena for genetic information.
Quoted from the MyHeritage policy linked in the parent. Emphasis mine. As long as LEOs had a warrant, everything above board. No matter what any company policy says, all data of any kind must be released if there is a valid court order to do so. That's literally the purpose of court orders. If it exists, it can be subpoenaed.
Should a warrant be allowed to give access? (Score:2)
That's the question we need to consider. Allowing the police to go trawling through data seems problematic from first principles. But it gets results - apparently.