The Blooding of America: Privacy and the DNA Dragnet
![handle is hein.journals/cdozo23 and id is 2299 raw text is: THE BLOODING OF AMERICA:
PRIVACY AND THE DNA DRAGNET
Jeffrey S. Grand*
INTRODUCTION
Imagine a city has fallen prey to a serial rapist. A police
investigation has failed to identify any viable suspects. However,
biological evidence recovered from the victims has provided a
DNA profile of the perpetrator. Unfortunately, other than this
profile and a general description of the assailant provided by the
victims, police have little else to go on. While this narrative may
sound all too common, police departments around the United
States have begun to employ a rather uncommon investigative
tool: the DNA dragnet.'
* Executive Editor, Cardozo Law Review; J.D. 2002, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of
Law. The author would like to thank Professor Kyron Huigens and Jocelyn Santo for
their guidance and enthusiasm, as well as Professors Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and all
those at the Innocence Project who lended their valuable insight and assistance-
particularly Jason Lloyd Miller and Anne Phelps. The author is indebted to members of
Cardozo Law Review, without whose hard work this Note would not have come to
fruition. Finally, but not least importantly, the author would like to thank his wife Lisa,
his parents, and Linda Markowitz for their tireless support and encouragement.
The term dragnet traditionally refers to the questioning, seizure, or search of a
group of individuals without any reasonable suspicion to believe any of the individuals is
the perpetrator. See Emily G. Sack, Note, Police Approaches and Inquiries on the Streets
of New York: The Aftermath of People v. De Bour, 66 N.Y.U. L. REV. 512, n.173 (1991);
see also Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721 (1969) (describing a police round-up of several
Black youths on the basis of victim's description of rapist as young Black male). The term
DNA dragnet has been coined by critics to describe the mass collection of biological
samples from individuals whom the police have no reason to suspect committed the crime
under investigation. These samples are used to create DNA profiles that are compared to
the profile of the perpetrator. See Dateline: Blood Simple; Law Enforcement Agencies in
the United Kingdom and the United States Using Mass DNA Testing to Solve Crime (NBC
television broadcast, July 19, 1998) [hereinafter Dateline]; Fred W. Drobner, Comment,
DNA Dragnets: Constitutional Aspects of Mass DNA Identification Testing, 28 CAP. U. L.
REV. 479 (2000); Richard Willing, Privacy Issue Is the Catch for Police DNA 'dragnets,'
USA TODAY, Sept. 16, 1998, at 1A. The DNA dragnet has grown to be very popular
among law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom, where it is alternatively referred
to as blooding. See JOSEPH WAMBAUGH, THE BLOODING 138-40 (1989); see also
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The Blooding of America: Privacy and the DNA Dragnet
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