Sensitive as we are to civil liberties, it’s hard to see any potential civil liberty infringement if police match crime investigation DNA with private companies’ DNA databases. From Ann Coulter at anncoulter.com:
This week, The New York Times reported on new laws in Maryland and Montana that restrict law enforcement’s use of genealogy databases to catch serial killers. (Maryland I can understand, but Montana? Has someone kidnapped Gov. Greg Gianforte?)
Some of the largest DNA databases — Ancestry, 23andMe and Helix — already refuse to share their databases with the police without a court order.
I’m sorry, but why? What is their argument? Ancestry doesn’t want to lose the business of skittish serial killers?
Everyone agrees that these pro-criminal rules were a direct response to the “controversy” of law enforcement catching the Golden State Killer in 2018.
Yes, it’s apparently controversial that the monster who terrorized California for decades, killing at least 13 people and raping dozens of women, was finally captured — with 100% accuracy — thanks to brilliant detective work and the miracle of DNA.
Sheriff’s investigator Paul Holes and FBI lawyer Steve Kramer created a fake profile on GEDmatch using DNA from a rape kit of one of the Golden State Killer’s victims. This produced distant relatives of the rapist, allowing them to build a family tree, leading to Joseph James DeAngelo, then living in a Sacramento suburb. Officers began surveilling DeAngelo, collected his DNA from a car door and discarded tissue and — bingo! — it matched the Golden State Killer’s semen sample.
