Feds out for hacker’s blood
After pleading guilty to breaking into the paper’s internal computer network in January 2004, the terms of Lamo’s probation had confined him to the eastern district of California, which includes his parents’ home near Sacramento where he is living. That probation, which included mandatory “computer-monitoring software and filtering equipment,” expired Monday.
What isn’t over is Lamo’s refusal to give federal authorities a sample of his blood, which he says violates his religious convictions. He has offered to give a cheek swab as an alternative, a practice used by a number of states including California — but not the federal system.
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A 2000 federal law called the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act required that DNA samples be taken from anyone convicted of or on probation for certain serious crimes. This was challenged in court on Fourth and Fifth Amendment grounds, but a federal appeals court upheld (click for PDF) the DNA collection requirement as constitutional.
Requiring DNA samples for nonviolent crimes is simply horrific. While I am perfectly happy to have the authorities lock up hackers and throw away the key, that does not justify an appalling personal invasion.
I think it shows how far we have fallen in this country that testing and analysis one’s bodily fluids is not just accepted, but has become commonplace, even for people who have never committed a crime, much less a violent one. It’s a violation of the most personal sort. It’s rape. It’s an outrageous injustice, and the rest of you are just sitting there and accepting it. You ought to be ashamed.