LttE - Prop. 69 goes too far

Submitted 02/04/2005 to the OC Register:

Jenn Stewart is correct in stating that Prop. 69 will require every felon in the state to submit a DNA sample to a state database - and if that's all the law was designed to do, it would have been a good and effective law.

Unfortunately, it also mandates that every single person even arrested for a felony also contributes a DNA sample to the database, whether or not they actually get charged, or whether or not DNA would help prove guilt or innocence in those cases.

Worse, the burden of removing the sample (and the data from its analysis) would fall completely on the innocent people who were arrested in error and forced to give the sample. Even then, discretion is given to a court to deny its removal, a decision completely unappealable by the innocent person.