New York Governor Wants State to Take DNA Samples from More People Convicted of Crimes

January 5th, 2012

Via: AFP:

New York’s governor on Wednesday proposed making the state the first in the country to take mandatory DNA samples from anyone convicted of a crime, including relatively lesser offenses.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, in an annual “State of the State” speech to the New York legislature, said currently DNA was collected in less than half of crimes on the books.

“I will propose a bill requiring the collection of a DNA sample from any person convicted of a felony or Penal Law misdemeanor,” said Cuomo, a former federal prosecutor and New York state attorney general.

Cuomo said that applying DNA collection to all criminals would both help law-enforcement bodies fight serious crime and protect against wrongful convictions.

2 Responses to “New York Governor Wants State to Take DNA Samples from More People Convicted of Crimes”

  1. LykeX says:

    As I’ve been saying for years:
    I’ll happily support such laws, as long as it also calls for mandatory DNA registration of all elected officials. However, if they don’t want to give up their DNA, then neither do I.

  2. pessimistic optimist says:

    talk of this sort of thing has been really spooking me ever since i heard about it several years ago. the potential for abuse here is staggering, and my mind goes to dark places thinking how cheap testing has become very recently, w/ the ion torrent sequencer about 50k$. i can say w/ some certainty that there are target populations where something like a genetic test for disease or mental health predisposition would be very usefull, but the potential to abuse that same information would undoubtedly be to great to resist. illegal drug testing would undoubtedly become commonplace, and thats just whats obvious. more outthere ideas like hormonal testing and sti presence seem farfetched, but there is evidence suggesting small minority populations recieve “extra” attention from local law enforcment, at the behest of less obvious state agencies. perhaps paranoid, but the clear track record of the fbi targeting of mosques for infiltration and subversion shows that something resembling this is already occurring out in the open, and with the explosion of little brother private intelligence gathering and collusion w/ local law enforcement, it has come to many workplaces as well.

    i guess im just trying to say the potential for abuse goes way beyond just using dna evidence in court, wheither justified or not. blood testing at pullovers would be a game-changer, and i can only guess at the implications. this is not that, but its only gonna get worse, and probably MUCH more so than even most of the readers here are willing to admit to themselves, or anyone else. heaven help us all.

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