Attorney General Cooper Wants to Expand DNA Sampling

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by Asheville Now
on Thursday, February 04, 2010

North Carolina's Attorney General is interested in adding more DNA samples to the state's database as a means of improving the justice system. However, many North Carolina citizens are worried that this will infringe on their rights to privacy. Dale Neal from the Asheville Citizen Times reports:

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper wants to expand the state's DNA database by taking swabs from anyone arrested on a felony charge.
With more data, police officers could get leads to cold cases where they have no suspects, putting more offenders behind bars, Cooper said.

"DNA is rock-solid evidence that we want to get into the database as soon as we can," Cooper said Monday at the winter conference of the N.C. Association of Police Chiefs at the Crowne Plaza resort in Asheville.

Cooper said he would press the General Assembly in the upcoming short session for additional funding. "When you ask people how they want their tax money spent, public safety is high on the list," Cooper said.

"Obviously, there are some hurdles. Anyone who is cleared of the charges or has the charges dropped could have the DNA sample removed from the database," Cooper said.

Currently, every convicted felon has DNA collected by a blood test and placed into the database, which has grown from 18,000 samples in 2000 to 180,000 today.

Civil libertarians say expanding the database would be a constitutional violation, posing major privacy issues and giving the police too much genetic information.

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Content Source: www.citizen-times.com/article/20100125/NEWS01/100125025/1009