Well, now, judges do force 'law enforcement' to obtain subpoenas in order to obtain information from the vendors. Judges have ruled in favor of restricting law enforcement, and I might remind you that the U.S. 4th Amendment protects citizens from unlawful search and seizure. That is, our Constitution says that no person can be arrested without just cause. Many laws stipulate regulations on what is private property and what is public property, what law enforcement can search without a warrant and what they cannot. There are very serious reasons for this, some intended to protect us from harm due to politics. It's just that law enforcement does not need a subpoena for GEDMatch.... What is missing here is a reference to how poorly DNA has performed in criminal cases. As genealogists, we always insist on citing our sources. Many have had their lives disrupted and spent time in jail, only to later be exonerated by improvements in DNA. Others have been falsely jailed when the jury put undue emphasis on poor DNA data, and ignored the remaining evidence. Wrong DNA analysis has disrupted innocent people's lives, for no other reason than bad DNA work. Nobody here has mentioned cases where the DNA analysis went terribly wrong. Until we have statistical information on poor DNA work can we make intelligent judgements regarding the use of autosomal DNA (for example). I lean more toward the privacy regulations - we don't have enough in order to protect us from law enforcement. My view is that law enforcement will be biased toward those who have tested for Y-DNA or autosomal DNA. As genetic genealogists, law enforcement will be looking at your relatives long before they figure out that they were looking at the wrong suspect. If you are retired, then good luck paying for the work necessary to defend yourself, and your court appointed public defender may not even know where to start. Finally, there are professional genetic genealogists that would profit from their analysis. I think we all know how privately owned prisons have caused a rise of incarcerations due to a profit motive, and I fear a similar pattern will come to pass as more genetic genealogists want to make profits from this type of work. One of the problems with that is that there are zero genetic genealogists assisting a court appointed attorney to defend against bad DNA work. A lot on this topic that this list has not even begun to look at or discuss.  - Dave Hamm RE: On 11/25/2018 12:27 PM, Wjhonson  wrote: > Yet you are The effect of your attitude is to do exactly that ... protect murderers and rapists  > In addition to that only logical meaning Your effect is completely worthless as a cops first reaction to your terms of service would be ... screw you  > Good luck suing them once they have found a murderer using your database No judge would rule in your favor  > > On Sunday, November 25, 2018, Andreas West <ahnen@awest.de> wrote: > > We’re not protecting murderers and it’s also not our task to apprehend them. We’re not an extension of the law enforcement.  > There are more than 30 million DNA samples kept by the US government organizations right now. One would think that is enough to not be dependent on another database that was never intended to be built for law enforcement use. > > Andreas 

Well said! Joan -----Original Message----- From: Dave Hamm via GENEALOGY-DNA [mailto:genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com] Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2018 12:58 PM To: genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Cc: Dave Hamm Subject: [DNA] Re: Use of familial search by law enforcement Well, now, judges do force 'law enforcement' to obtain subpoenas in order to obtain information from the vendors. Judges have ruled in favor of restricting law enforcement, and I might remind you that the U.S. 4th Amendment protects citizens from unlawful search and seizure. That is, our Constitution says that no person can be arrested without just cause. Many laws stipulate regulations on what is private property and what is public property, what law enforcement can search without a warrant and what they cannot. There are very serious reasons for this, some intended to protect us from harm due to politics. It's just that law enforcement does not need a subpoena for GEDMatch.... What is missing here is a reference to how poorly DNA has performed in criminal cases. As genealogists, we always insist on citing our sources. Many have had their lives disrupted and spent time in jail, only to later be exonerated by improvements in DNA. Others have been falsely jailed when the jury put undue emphasis on poor DNA data, and ignored the remaining evidence. Wrong DNA analysis has disrupted innocent people's lives, for no other reason than bad DNA work. Nobody here has mentioned cases where the DNA analysis went terribly wrong. Until we have statistical information on poor DNA work can we make intelligent judgements regarding the use of autosomal DNA (for example). I lean more toward the privacy regulations - we don't have enough in order to protect us from law enforcement. My view is that law enforcement will be biased toward those who have tested for Y-DNA or autosomal DNA. As genetic genealogists, law enforcement will be looking at your relatives long before they figure out that they were looking at the wrong suspect. If you are retired, then good luck paying for the work necessary to defend yourself, and your court appointed public defender may not even know where to start. Finally, there are professional genetic genealogists that would profit from their analysis. I think we all know how privately owned prisons have caused a rise of incarcerations due to a profit motive, and I fear a similar pattern will come to pass as more genetic genealogists want to make profits from this type of work. One of the problems with that is that there are zero genetic genealogists assisting a court appointed attorney to defend against bad DNA work. A lot on this topic that this list has not even begun to look at or discuss. - Dave Hamm RE: On 11/25/2018 12:27 PM, Wjhonson wrote: > Yet you are The effect of your attitude is to do exactly that ... protect murderers and rapists > In addition to that only logical meaning Your effect is completely worthless as a cops first reaction to your terms of service would be ... screw you > Good luck suing them once they have found a murderer using your database No judge would rule in your favor > > On Sunday, November 25, 2018, Andreas West <ahnen@awest.de> wrote: > > We’re not protecting murderers and it’s also not our task to apprehend them. We’re not an extension of the law enforcement. > There are more than 30 million DNA samples kept by the US government organizations right now. One would think that is enough to not be dependent on another database that was never intended to be built for law enforcement use. > > Andreas _______________________________________________ Email preferences: http://bit.ly/rootswebpref Unsubscribe https://lists.rootsweb.com/postorius/lists/genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com Privacy Statement: https://ancstry.me/2JWBOdY Terms and Conditions: https://ancstry.me/2HDBym9 Rootsweb Blog: http://rootsweb.blog RootsWeb is funded and supported by Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community