The same thing happenes with fingerprints. What's the difference?
People are fingerprinted for a lot of different reasons besides having been arrested. I've given a fingerprint at a notary public. I've been fingerprinted for a background check for a job - so I've no doubt my fingerprints are in a government database. It's not necessarily related to a criminal matter. So if your fingerprints are on file somewhere, there's not an assumption that you were arrested for something. The DNA thing does worry me, though. What's next? And no, I'm no fan of the ACLU.
Can you determine someone's medical predispositions to disease by their fingerprints? Or their gender? Or a million other very personal qualities?
Yep. I've never been arrested, and yet the government probably has 10-20 sets of my fingerprints.
When you take my fingerprints, the information you can gather is rather minimal... whether I could have been involved in past crimes... and how many fingers I have.
When you take someone's DNA, you have the potential to learn much, much more. I don't want to get all tin-foil-hatty... But what about when geneticists find a "violence gene"? You KNOW some freaky judge will say the presence of that gene alone is enough for a search warrant. Plus, what's to stop cops from arresting certain people when they know the charges are bogus? How long until you can pay a cop to arrest your fiance just so you can find out if your children will be healthy?
I know. I'm almost running out of Reynolds just on those two suggestions. But it's a slippery slope, my friend... so allow me to turn the question around. We know that the government does not have the right to search my home unless they can prove they have a reasonable basis for a belief that I committed a crime. So why should the government have the right to collect my DNA without meeting the same burden of proof? Certainly the intrusion of government into my body is worse than the intrusion of government into my home.