Intelligence and Privacy

Creating a Terrorist Identification Database

A proposal contained in the Justice Department's draft PATRIOT II bill with farreaching implications for privacy rights is the creation of a "Terrorist Identification Database." This proposal would authorize the administration to collect the DNA of anyone considered a suspect and of any non-citizens deemed to have any form of association with a "terrorist organization."¹ Even those merely suspected of terrorist involvement would be required to submit DNA samples for inclusion in the database. One could be labeled a suspected terrorist for association of any kind with a group designated as a terrorist organization. Non-compliance with requirements to surrender samples to the DNA database would be a crime punishable by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.²

Requiring individuals who have not been convicted of any crime to turn over their DNA, without a court order and without strict safeguards on data security is a particularly egregious invasion of privacy. Providing genetic information is far more invasive than a fingerprint, and provides personal information that is particularly subject to abuse by either government agencies or the private sector. DNA may, for example, disclose a predisposition to certain physical or mental illnesses.³ Requiring genetic information is troubling because it invades the privacy of not just individuals but entire families and their descendants.⁴ The DNA database provision of PATRIOT II would put information that comprises the very essence of personal identity into unregulated government control.