Dana DiFilippo reports:
…. Bucks County officials announced the new database – the first of its kind nationally – at a news conference yesterday at the county courthouse in Doylestown, recounting case after case in which the new database solved crimes that might have gone cold with few other clues.
[…]
The new system – in which authorities can swab suspects for DNA even before they’re arrested – might raise the eyebrows of privacy-protective civil-rights advocates. The state database maintained by the Pennsylvania State Police, for example, contains DNA only from convicted offenders.
But Harran emphasized that suspects must consent to be swabbed, unless officers can persuade a judge for a court order.
“People think it’s ‘Big Brother,’ ” Harran said, referring to a character in a popular dystopian novel about government oppression. “It’s not. It’s an all-voluntary program. People can say no. Thank God criminals are stupid” and usually consent.
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Thanks to Joe Cadillic for this link.