Genealogy website leads to Golden State Killer

Wyatt Burp said:

One company refused to let the FBI and police look into the San Bernardino terrorist's phones.

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That was Apple and what they refused was one of the FBIs many attempts to coerce them in to writing software that would unlock any iPhone 6 or earlier.

SteveA said:

Interesting discussion on privacy. I do a lot of 4th Amendment litigation. What privacy right exists once you put data on the web? I suppose an argument could be made if one protected such information with firewalls etc, and made sure it was not dispersed beyond their person or that of their spouse (in order to invoke spousal privilege) or some other person such as their attorney, but my somewhat jaded view is that once its out there on the web, privacy is non-existent.

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Well, but it wasn’t the suspect himself (I’m assuming) who put his DNA profile in a public domain. If police registered on the site and represented the suspects profile as that of the registered user, it sounds like shaky legal ground to me.

But I’m no lawyer and never even played one on TV.

bushmaster1313 said:

It was not the murderer’s privacybthat was violated

They used the DNA to identify his relatives as being related to him.

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I can see where the police could upload DNA to a site where DNA was voluntary submitted, as described. A partial match with relatives then occurs. But to trace back to the relatives, the police would have to interview the discovered relatives to find the names of other relatives, and then proceed to them to obtain their DNA to test. It is not an easy or straight forward process.

If I sent my DNA for testing, I certainly would not want any other uses, except to provide me with my own DNA results. Selling it, or matching with others for any reason would not be acceptable. After all, I paid for the test for me. No one else!

Nightowl said:

If I sent my DNA for testing, I certainly would not want any other uses, except to provide me with my own DNA results. Selling it, or matching with others for any reason would not be acceptable. After all, I paid for the test for me. No one else!

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Anyone thinking of having DNA testing done, I say this: read the entire agreement. You will be surprised what you are actually consenting to. My wife and I both did it. We gave each other the kits as presents and didn’t think too much of it. It wasn’t until later that I actually read the fine print. I’m not really worried about it, after all, beyond 1998 or so all military service members have to submit a DNA sample to a national database anyway, and it’s not like I really have anything to hide.

Back in the days when all of this was “science fiction” and “in the future” I think we all thought it would be some shadowy government agency that would spend taxpayers money to slowly turn our nation into a police state. But in actuality, we are funding this slippery slope of slowly eroding anonymity and loss of liberty ourselves through social media accounts, the android and iPhones we become more dependant on daily, and the cataloging of our DNA samples. How ironic is it that we are spending our own money to subsidize our governments surveillance of our lives?

In a previous life, I murdered several people...then my wife sent my DNA to 23 &me, who turned me into the police.
Now I will be going to prison for life. I cant do life
must find a way to escape , because I was bitten by a vampire, and I am now immortal, I will live forever.

Tlawler said>>>Back in the days when all of this was “science fiction” and “in the future” I think we all thought it would be some shadowy government agency that would spend taxpayers money to slowly turn our nation into a police state. But in actuality, we are funding this slippery slope of slowly eroding anonymity and loss of liberty ourselves through social media accounts, the android and iPhones we become more dependant on daily, and the cataloging of our DNA samples. How ironic is it that we are spending our own money to subsidize our governments surveillance of our lives?[/QUOTE]You are correct. Mass murderer Timothy McVie thought the gov't put a tracking chip in him when he was in the military. No problem or need for that now as everyone voluntarily pours all their info out there for all to see. This and another gun forum is my only social media. I'm so glad I was born in the late 50s so I got to experience a big chunk of life without all this impersonal stuff.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought I heard that most of the DNA footwork in this case was done by armature private investigators. It's a new thing. Loose groups of unpaid hobbyist that work to solve cold case crimes for "fun".

Over months and years they did 99% of the work, found the guy, then turned over what they had to the police. So, in theory, if there were 5th amendment violations they technically weren't done by the police.

Muss Muggins said:

Almost anything is accessible by the police with either consent or the proper search warrant or investigative subpoena . . .

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Identifying the killer through a relatives DNA via a website...and then stealing the suspects DNA from an item, through trickery or whatever...is one thing. Whether or not that evidence will be admissible in court is another. Having done the AncestryDNA thing myself, I was careful to read the fine print. The police cannot just waltz in and access a persons DNA...regardless of their "noble cause" of trying to catch a killer. This isn't about the Golden State Killer...the issue of concern is the privacy of "the rest of us". AFAIK one cannot access a single persons DNA off of such a database...without simultaneously accessing multiple other individuals, or the entire database itself. It would be like looking through a jar full of pennies for a specific date, you cannot just grab the correct one without accessing all the others in the process. It specifically states on AncestryDNA's website that your data could be made public and also available to police IF THEIR DATABASE IS HACKED. My first thought at the time was "yeah, that'll be interesting when the prosecution presents stolen evidence against a defendant." The most solid evidence in the world is worthless if it wasn't properly obtained. And I suspect that when this Golden State Killer's attorney's have their day in court, their first challenge will be to have the evidence declared inadmissible. Such tactics of using "backdoor" approaches in gathering evidence need to be squashed right now, or else they will spiral out of control.

Trash pulls (which is how I'm reading that the suspect's DNA was ultimately obtained) are very common and effective ways to gather evidence. It is well settled law that once your trash hits the curb, it's been abandoned, and it is further well settled law that most anything can be obtained via search warrant. Your bank hasn't warned you that your bank records may be subpoenaed during an investigation, but they certainly may . . .

500SNW said:

Identifying the killer through a relatives DNA via a website...and then stealing the suspects DNA from an item, through trickery or whatever...is one thing. Whether or not that evidence will be admissible in court is another. Having done the AncestryDNA thing myself, I was careful to read the fine print. The police cannot just waltz in and access a persons DNA...regardless of their "noble cause" of trying to catch a killer. This isn't about the Golden State Killer...the issue of concern is "the rest of us". It specifically states on AncestryDNA's website that your data could be made public and also available to police IF THEIR DATABASE IS HACKED. My first thought at the time was "yeah, that'll be interesting when the prosecution presents stolen evidence against a defendant." The most solid evidence in the world is worthless if it wasn't properly obtained. And I suspect that when this Golden State Killer's attorney's have their day in court, their first challenge will be to have the evidence declared inadmissible. Such tactics of using "backdoor" approached in gathering evidence need to be squashed right now, or else they will spiral out of control.

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We'll see what happens when the case goes to court. I've had strangers walking the sidewalk throw stuff in my trash bin while it was on the curb. Since I don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" regarding my trash bin, I also don't have assurances that others won't throw drug related paraphernalia, stolen items, criminal tools or other contraband into my trash bin. Correct?

500SNW said:

We'll see what happens when the case goes to court. I've had strangers walking the sidewalk throw stuff in my trash bin while it was on the curb. Since I don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" regarding my trash bin, I also don't have assurances that others won't throw drug related paraphernalia, stolen items, criminal tools or other contraband into my trash bin. Correct?

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Correct. However, you're forgetting that clearly, those items tossed in your trash by others won't bear your fingerprints or DNA. The proper investigative technique, once the DNA is matched from the trash pull, is to use that info to obtain a search warrant to take a DNA sample directly from the suspect. I know you think you've got this beat, but these techniques for determining probable cause have been well settled law for years . . .

They probably took DNA from the crimes and looked for others with similar DNA markers. This greatly narrowed the field. Then used more markers against the narrowed field. Then eleminated people by age and sex looking at relatives.

True you can not control who throws what in your trash once it hits the curb, but once something is found in your trash the police could apply for a warrant using DNA found in your trash matching crime seen DNA as probable cause for a warrant. Probable cause does not mean absolute causes and can be fairly broad.

There was a very recent newspaper story about a man in France who was searching for his real father (who was an American serviceman stationed there in the 1960s). He knew nothing other than what his mother thought was his father's name (but she wasn't certain about that). He couldn't find out any information through the U. S. military personnel records channels. I don't remember the details, but he did go through one of the DNA services and found some close matches to his own DNA there. After that he was able to track down some people who were relatives of his father living in Texas, and from them he found out who his father was. His father was not alive at that time, having been killed in an auto accident many years earlier.

The fact that someone was able to do that completely on his own and without court orders or any other legal procedures means to me that there is absolutely no protection of DNA records. He wrote a book about it: [ame]https://www.amazon.com/How-Found-My-Dad-Texas/dp/1543434398[/ame]

Here's a local (to me) news story about the genealogy company and how they got the guy.
East Area Rapist genealogy link is a ‘legal Wild West’

mrmike7189 said:

In a previous life, I murdered several people...then my wife sent my DNA to 23 &me, who turned me into the police.
Now I will be going to prison for life. I cant do life
must find a way to escape , because I was bitten by a vampire, and I am now immortal, I will live forever.

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Look on the bright side. It should be easy to secape from the prison yard (just fly away). and authorities have no mug shots.

DWalt said:

The fact that someone was able to do that completely on his own and without court orders or any other legal procedures means to me that there is absolutely no protection of DNA records.

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I'd say the real issue isn't privacy, nor is it protection of DNA data. We all know hackers exist, and we all have grown accustomed to giving up privacy to technology. The real issue here is - what is admissible or inadmissible in court. The cops can get all the evidence they want, through any and all means...even illegal...but it is worthless if it is inadmissible in a court case. In a similar topic, I've always been disturbed when I hear of somebody getting busted because of internet activity, or something they downloaded. How the Hell do you obtain INTANGIBLE evidence and present it in a courtroom? How does a defendant prove that he/she DID NOT have the intangible evidence in their possession? Lots of people boast about how rapidly evolving technology is aiding in the fight against crime...but IMO it is just as quickly creating new ways of violating virtually foolproof protections which have been in place for almost 250 years.

I had my DNA profile done by both Ancestry and 23 & Me. The results were pretty much the same, with a few surprises. My anti-gun, New York City cousins refuse to have the DNA profile done. I suspect that they do not want any documentation that they are related to me.

There was a newspaper story with more detail, and a program about it will be on Dateline tonight.

Apparently the FBI sent in the DNA material from one of the crime scenes to one of the genealogy sites (I was not familiar with the name but not Ancestry or 23andme) under a made -up name. whatever, the site was able to search for similar DNA which led to the arrest. I have to wonder - why couldn't the FBI do such a search themselves?

Cheaper the other way. You got something against the government trying to save money?

DWalt said:

There was a newspaper story with more detail, and a program about it will be on Dateline tonight.

Apparently the FBI sent in the DNA material from one of the crime scenes to one of the genealogy sites (I was not familiar with the name but not Ancestry or 23andme) under a made -up name. whatever, the site was able to search for similar DNA which led to the arrest. I have to wonder - why couldn't the FBI do such a search themselves?

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500SNW said:

No I don't "think I've got this beat"...but, what I am certain of is that if law enforcement officials had their choice, they'd love to be able to detain anyone at any time without PC, and they'd like to be able to enter peoples homes at any time without probable cause and without notice or constraint. Thankfully, we still have a system that protects against this. This latest "Golden State Killer" case is introducing a new and problematic issue...which hasn't been "well settled for years" to use your words, as DNA technology is relatively new.

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I imagine there are people who want dictatorial, police-state, unbridaled power. However, in 22 plus years on the job, I never worked with or for one.

The system has a lot of problems, everyone I knew had ideas on what could or should be changed. If those I worked with and for were typical, your LE types are more respectful and supportive of your constitutional protections than the average citizen.