Court's DNA ruling brings the U.S. a step closer to "Gattaca"

If Scalia’s distinction seems subtle, it shouldn’t. Fingerprints are generally used for bureaucratic identification and only occasionally to solve a crime — when the criminal has been careless enough to leave them behind. DNA, by contrast, hasn’t, thus far, been used for bureaucratic identification. It is useful primarily for solving crimes, since it is almost impossible not to leave some DNA behind wherever we may go and whatever we may do. To prove the point, Scalia demonstrated that King’s DNA sat around for weeks before being analyzed — and was eventually analyzed to solve a crime, not to keep track of the criminal.

What is remarkable, then, is that even Justice Scalia — joined by the liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — thinks there would be nothing wrong with sampling every arrestee’s DNA if the purpose really were just to keep tabs on them. The constitutional objection focuses on what the DNA is actually used for. However, these two functions — bureaucratic identification and crime solving — can probably never be fully separated in the real world. As technology improves, the DNA database could be employed to solve crimes even if its primary purpose were just to be for bureaucratic classification. The reason, again, is the nature of DNA itself, which is not only unique but also oozes from our every pore.