Kimel on DNA Profiles, Computer Searches and the Fourth Amendment

Catherine W. Kimel has published this article, based on her note at , 62 DUKE L.J. 933 (2013), at The Legal Workshop. In part:

Courts have allowed the reasonableness and minimal invasiveness of DNA seizures to shield from constitutional scrutiny CODIS searches’ intrusions upon privacy expectations. But the Fourth Amendment discussion of DNA-collection statutes should begin at the point of comparison—not at the point of extraction—because CODIS searches are the point at which the government invades truly weighty privacy expectations in the absence of individualized suspicion. Further, because current CODIS search procedures so closely resemble unreasonable, general-warrant computer searches, courts should apply computer search requirements to CODIS searches to remedy CODIS’s current constitutional shortcomings