Aggregated News
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco rejected an American Civil Liberties Union request to halt enforcement of the law, which took effect in January, while a lawsuit that the group filed proceeds. He said the ACLU is unlikely to prove that mandatory DNA samples are an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
Police collect DNA by swabbing a person's inner cheek. A state laboratory analyzes the information and sends it to a national database that officers use when testing evidence from crime scenes.
Previously, the state collected DNA samples only from those who had been convicted of a sex crime or a violent felony. Proposition 69, approved by 62 percent of the voters in November 2004, extended the requirement to anyone arrested on a felony sex charge; starting this year, the measure required everyone arrested for a felony to provide samples.
According to state records quoted...