On a recent NPR story on this subject they mentioned that Virginia does not do matching DNA to relatives. In a rape case, the lab knew the rapist was related to Somedarnbody, but state policy prevented the police from acting on that.
That also creeps me out.
As I said, I am on the fence on this.
If your footprints can be a matter of public record, available to anybody without a search warrant, why not your gene-code?
I don’t like the idea, personally.
I have no doubt that [since i was in the SCA and have borrowed sleeping space all over the eastern US] my dna can pop up in the darndest places, and I would seriously resent being implicated in some crime that occured simply because they found some hair roots or blood spatter in someones bathroom that I may have stayed at 2 years ago.
Just as a hoot, stop and think about how much blood gets spattered around inadvertantly. We had a dog in the living room that spattered a fair amount of wall and floor when he started coughing up blood, it looked like an axe murder took place. mrAru is a klutz and has wandered around bleeding from various injuries over the 15 years we have lived in this house, as have I. I have absolutely NO doubt that you could hose the livingroom down with luminol and it would absolutely glow blue from all the cleaned up bloodspatter. I know for a fact [thanks to a diva cup learning incedent that almost an ounce of freshish blood dumped in the bathroom and got smeared around during the cleanup, human blood on the kitchen counters and a few knives [and one particualrly beastly can opener]
I have cut myself working in assorted kitchens, shed hairs all over the place, dropepd off skin flakes and dandruf flakes, sat in innumerable cars that have either been sold or junked out, visited friends of friends and left hair and skin residue at their homes … used assorted public facilities, public transportation … shudder Who knows what crime scenes I may inadvertantly be found as tech gets better and better so even more minimal samples are needed. 