The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision this week that police are justified in taking DNA samples from anyone who’s arrested. “Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote. But conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, in a sharply worded dissent joined by liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, said the express purpose of DNA collection was not to identify a suspect, but to link him to other crimes. “Make no mistake about it,” he said from the bench. “Because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.”
DNA is just “the 21st-century equivalent of fingerprinting,” said The Washington Post in an editorial. Police routinely run database checks of arrestees’ fingerprints to match them with past crimes. How is this different? It’s more accurate, that’s all, said The Baltimore Sun. Not only can DNA link suspects to unsolved crimes, it can also “help exonerate the innocent and free the falsely convicted.” And swiping a cotton swab on the inside of the cheek is arguably less invasive than inking a suspect’s fingers.
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Antonin Scalia shines brightest “when he serves as the Court’s liberal conscience,” said Walter Olson in TheDailyBeast.com. And he’s right to worry about a slippery slope. “How long before you’ll be asked to give a DNA swab before you can board a plane,” or just drive your car?