It is interesting to consider a future where crimes like this will be nearly impossible to "get away with".
To be sure there will always be human ineptitude and bungling of cases but it does seem that DNA forensics, security cameras, the prevalence of cell phones, digital messaging surveillance, etc. have brought to justice many killers very quickly that might have gone on to kill again were this 50 years ago.
While there are a lot of nuances to privacy in the 21s Century, I am not so stalwart of a privacy advocate to disregard the utility of finding killers by means that are somewhat privacy invasive.
While I tend to agree, I hope we don't get lazy with the law and prosecute on DNA alone. DNA matching is not 100% accurate, and juries aren't the best at appreciating the nuance of statistics.
It is also a problem when the DNA isn’t obvious that it is connected to the perpetrator of the crime. Semen found inside a victim is very different than DNA found inside a room where a crime occurred, which is different than DNA found at a crime scene in a public or semi-public place. If you can just collect up a bunch of DNA and run it against everyone, with no initial justification of probable cause, you can get innocent people that are guilty of no more than leaving their DNA somewhere and not having an alibi being victims themselves of lazy police investigations.
What got me was, if it's not 100% accurate, how do you explain their ability to hunt down the golden state killer using his family tree? They narrowed the possibilities to 1,000 or so, then checked all 1,000. Straightforward police work. Then a final DNA match confirmed their hypothesis that they'd found him, which turned out to be true.
I don't know. I'm vividly aware that if the matching isn't accurate, innocents will go to prison. But the truth seems less simple than that.
It's the same thing with IAFIS. If you think you're going to trial and winning with just a fingerprint match in the database you're gonna be sorely disappointed. These tools are better understood as "lead generation" than any kind of proof.
The pessimistic side of me would like to point out that in this kind of future, criminals will know how to leave sufficient fake DNA at the crime scene, and random people will suddenly be thrown in jail, because some criminal deliberately used their DNA to cover their tracks...
I feel like this would be way more involved and many individuals have better more verifiable alibis with the things listed. Like I'm sure there will be drawback cases but it is seems in aggregate that this stuff is generally positive.
I think you are too optimistic WRT how forensic "science" is
generally applied in the US [1] (one prominent example is e.g. [2]). Now imagine this is you standing in front of a scientifically untrained jury trying to argue against junk-science presented by a "forensic expert" testimonial. Not sure an alibi is going to help you much in that case.
That's why you keep Google location history on at all times, and also post photos to Instagram/Facebook as much as you can so you have timestamped records of photos of what you were doing at all times.
That’s exactly why you would need Facebook or Google or your mobile network operator or all of them to serve as proof of your alibi.
If the finger is pointed at you with a deep fake, you can then counter with proof from large corporations which presumably haven’t all been compromised.
You might also be able to use proof of your location in other settings, such as civil suits or domestic disputes.
Lots of people are using dash cams in a similar fashion. Proof to protect themselves from being named the liable party in a collision.
Same with forcing communications over email so you can prove what was actually communicated in the event a legal or public relations matter arises.
No, to defend yourself just like the guy in your article did:
> Even then, Kenyon wanted to make sure police didn’t have lingering doubts about McCoy, whom they still knew only as “John Doe.” So he met with the detective again and showed him screenshots of his client’s Google location history, including data recorded by RunKeeper. The maps showed months of bike rides past the burglarized home.
I’m posting kind of tongue in cheek, because it’s almost a foregone conclusion that people have their mobile device on them, which means the mobile networks know where you are at all times. In that event, it’s more advantageous for you to have access to your location history (via Google/Facebook/Instagram) when the full force or the law starts coming down on you.
But everybody can give his/her smartphone to a 3rd party to carry around, right? Your Google location history only proves where your phone was, it doen't prove where you were.
You mean you're using online services to provide you with trusted timestamp? [1]. But you need to consider how a trusted timestamp merely proves that some photo was definitely taking at or before the attested time. It does not prove that a photo was not actually taken a day earlier and then merely submitted at the attested time. To prove something was not recorded earlier is a little trickier. Need something like a newspaper headline that would not have been available earlier. And then how do you defend against claims that you took the photo early, but photoshopped the newspaper headline at the time it was attested?
True, maybe Instagram can roll out a feature where it grabs the GPS data to verify location on the photo, or signals that the photo was not uploaded but rather taken.
Each item isn’t meant to be foolproof, just to assist in creating third party verifiable data when combined with things like credit card transaction data or road toll timestamps to make it improbably for anything else to have happened.
There's a far easier alternative kingpins are using as we speak: they compartmentalize the criminal organization with the lowest in the hierarchy taking the highest risk. No DNA of kingpin in crime scene as they had their humble servant do the dirty work.
Privacy should always be first and foremost protection from government. However we must acknowledge just how stupid easy it is to find a judge to rubber stamp warrants and in some countries they don't even need that.
Privacy laws tend to focus on corporation's being tasked with protecting it but as stated before they already are handcuffed by the sheer fact government can get the records when it wants them. Worse sycophants within government and these companies will turn it over to prying eyes for financial and political benefit or just self determined moral justification
So in the end only protection we have is making it too costly for anyone to use the information they obtain illegally. This means going not just after the people who leaked/stole/etc the data but anyone with it.
People vastly over estimate how much privacy they have when in fact anything you do outside your home pretty much can be observed and any government agency will be able to get that information through the courts
As a counterpoint, the suspected murderer of Abigail Williams and Liberty German in Delphi ("The Delphi Murders") was captured on video by his victims[1] and remains at large three years later.
Some of this may be a corrective effect, DNA is more likely to exonerate and prevent false arrests than it is to identify criminals. Other situations, well, new technology doesn't guarantee that you have enough detectives to clear crimes, or that those detectives are well trained.
Then there's the whole class of violent crimes that happen on high traffic streets where DNA is not likely to be abundant or well preserved.
It would be very interesting to know what impact this will have on these preventing these types of violent rapes and murders in the first place. On one hand, if you've seen the progress made in the last few decades you'd have to think that if you leave even a trace of DNA around you stand an increasing chance of being caught in the future. On the other hand, does someone who is willing to commit a crime like that have enough sense to realize that at the point where they can avoid the crime?
Had the GSK been caught after his first rape/murder, there wouldn't have been any subsequent ones, simply because he'd be behind bars. So maybe he'd be a killer/rapist, but he'd have had way less victims, and every victim is one too many.
If the first time you take cocaine you roll over and die, then that’s the end of the abuse of your body. It’s only when you don’t die that you fulfill the meaning of abuse.
We may not able to stop the first murder, but we can stop the abuse on the first hit.
Probably not much of an impact given that anything that makes law enforcement more efficient in the US gets labeled either racist or orwellian by advocacy groups since equity is all that matters now.
If you're really reading the writing on the wall, it will be impossible to get away with kneejerk negative opinions about the Chinese.
I censor myself on Wechat and expect to be able to go to the next pool party in Wuhan. Not everything is about whats happening on the other side of the Gobi desert, also obligatory "Chinese territorial sovereignty and unity shall not be questioned". You'll catch on (or be indefinitely detained, or at least unable to board a plane lol.) I find this tolerable.
It looks like they got a confession out of a wheelchair-bound 75 year-old without a trial. I wonder about his mental state, and if it was even the right person.
Besides that, the two ancestry database sites said it was a breach of privacy.
The killer is definitely not wheelchair-bound – Sacramento County's DA's office released a video of him exercising in his cell and climbing all over the furniture on the same day as his sentence was handed to him. The use of a wheelchair was a cynical attempt to evoke sympathy.
He also has form for faking medical issues. He was caught shoplifting while still a police officer and tried to fake a heart attack in the hope that they would let him go/it would enable him to escape.
After the successful arrest of this killer, Swedish police applied a similar technique and were, this summer, able to solve one of Sweden's most mysterious murders that had been the second-largest investigation in Sweden's history.
Back in 2004, two people were stabbed in Linköping, in an apparently random attack. The first victim was an elementary schooler, the other a middle-aged woman, and it happened in a quiet residential side street. The police had the murder weapon, the killer's DNA and some witness descriptions, but were unable to find a suspect.
What they did this year was an impressive combination of genealogy research and forensics. The police got permission to query private companies in the US for a DNA profile, so they were able to establish that the killer and certain Americans had a common ancestor. Then they traversed those multiple trees upwards until finding a Swedish family circa 1800 that should be the ancestors of the killer. Finally they traced that family tree back down to modern day and identified a suspect who did in fact turn out to be the killer.
I think that was a fascinating investigation, in how it combined modern high-tech DNA forensics with going through 200 year old church records.
21500 men were (voluntarily) tested in the death case of Nicky Verstappen [1]. Case remained unsolved for 20 years, until a cold case team was put on it and the police decided to have one ultimate go at solving the case. Via a massive DNA harvest on all men who were age 12 and older at the time the crime was committed and who lived in the area of the crime (hence 21500 men). I was one of them who volunteered (though I feel reluctant about massive DNA harvesting). Because one male could discredit the entire male family tree this allowed the police to narrow down on a suspect who fled the area around the time the massive DNA harvest was announced. The suspect, Jos B., got sentenced to 12,5 years imprisonment a few weeks ago. It was sufficiently proven he raped the victim, and also he got convicted for owning child pornography. Given the impact the case had on the community (myself included, in various ways, such as being afraid to be near the vicinity of the crime scene due to being stalked there as teenager), I'm very glad it got solved. One of the heights of 2020 for me. Unfortunately prosecution and defense want to go to a higher court, and he did not get TBS (forced psychiatric treatment) [2]
See my other comment. The harvesting was done as a last resort, and the promise was that the data would only be used for this case, and that it'd be destroyed afterwards. Also, nobody was a suspect.
was there a lot of social pressure connected to the voluntary testing? Did they keep in anonymous? The suspect must have had a reason to run, instead of just refusing the test
Hmm, well, I didn't live in the region anymore, so I am not sure how it went from first-hand (I got some second-hand info though). Based on that my take is that there was some pressure for sure. You need to imagine a cold case got assigned, and people want to get this over with. At some point, I even saw my own mother on TV commenting on the story, how she wanted the case to be solved.
From the source, 15000 of 21500 people complied. It meant a lot of families (of men) could be excluded, narrowing the gap for the perpetrator (the police figured the perpetrator was from the region as he must have known the area).
I am one of these weird outliers. Not only did I not live in the region anymore, I am the only male still alive from that region who fit the profile (12+ male at time of crime, my father and uncle both passed away). Thing is, the family tree can go back multiple generations, including in ways you're not aware of. You might have a relative alive who you don't even know about. The other reason I'm an outlier is my family isn't originally from that region. Even though my family isn't originally from around that area, it might have helped, for the earlier mentioned reasons. Plus, I got myself off the list, too.
Its a bit twisting, how you know for sure you didn't commit a (rather serious) crime, but you cannot be sure about others, and if everyone says they didn't do it therefore don't want to cooperate the police cannot narrow down on a suspect. On top of that, my father and uncle were both alive at the time the crime was committed (my father was legally blind at that time though, couldn't even drive or walk alone).
So how did I eventually get tested? After initially there was no outcome from the samples of people who still lived in the region, the police announced they'd locate men who were 12+ at time of crime and who live elsewhere nowadays. This included me. I immediately called the hotline for an appointment to get it over with. At that time, our first born was only a few months old, and I wanted to get it over with. They (the police officer) understood this and she made an appointment with me. There were 2 police officers: a female who did the social aspects (talking), and a forensic male nerd. I spoke with them about the case even though I reported the stalking matter in a separate report to the police (because it might have been the same person as the perpetrator). They were as friendly as every police officer I met in my country (always reasonable and friendly, according to my experience). I was approx 15 y.o. when all of this happened.
As for anonymity, yes it was supposed to all remain anonymous. All the DNA samples were going to be destroyed when the case was closed. I'm not entirely sure when that is though, cause of higher court still have to rule.
Later on I learned NFI only test a very limited range of DNA, about 50 unique aspects. But in general, all of this increased my faith in this executive branch of the government. As always, YMMV.
With regards to your last remark: "The suspect must have had a reason to run, instead of just refusing the test" simply said, the shared theory is his feet got wet. They got DNA samples from his place. Then he got on national TV being sought a suspect, and someone in Spain recognized him. He never admitted the crimes, btw. He argued he found the body dead and put the body away in a nice way, even though his history as pedophile, as well as his DNA all over the place on the victim's underwear. He (or well, his defense) argued he was scared to talk to the police because of his history as pedophile. I don't know, got me quite angry cause it smelled like BS.
That sounds horrible, really horrible. We need better laws for our DNA.
You shouldn't have had social pressure to contribute, police shouldn't be able to broadly harvest data to find an answer like this.
You weren't even given the satisfaction of having your information protected and destroyed afterwards, and a copy is a copy, so even if the data is destroyed - your markers will always identify you, forever.
I was being told my data would be stored securely and deleted when the case was closed. The investigation is closed, but because both the prosecutor and culprit/perpetrator are going to a higher court, I am not sure its already destroyed. Given the nature of my profession I don't feel like I need to fear about my DNA, but I understand YMMV.
Just to add: Before this breakthrough, Police had gathered the DNA from about 6000 people via voluntary interrogations without any match. They even collected DNA form mothers of men who had killed themselves (and matched the description/profile etc) in the years after the murder.
In fact, they had actually sent a letter to the murder asking for a sample in the months before starting the new approach, but he didn't show up and they hadn't gotten to taking it further.
So in the end, they might have had a chance of solving it the traditional way. But at the same time, it takes a lot of evidence in Sweden to forcibly collect a DNA sample, which probably is not so easy for a 16 year old case.
Right, this is also important info. They did, early this year, ask the murderer for a voluntary DNA sample, and they had received a tip that placed the murderer on the police radar. It's possible they would have solved it eventually, but it's unlikely the police would have been allowed to forcibly collect DNA based on a vague tip that amounted to "he owned a similar hat and had discussed violence in his teens".
To forcibly collect someone's DNA, the authorities need to establish the person as a reasonable suspect (skäligen misstänkt), which requires a preponderance of evidence and isn't that easy to establish. In this case, the police would have definitely needed more than the person fitting the same vague profile as thousands of others, and it was definitely hard to obtain any extra evidence given that the murderer indeed lacked any connection to the victims or to the crime scene.
"when there is no such privacy debate about adoptees and the children of sperm donors using the same methods [ie, DNA searches] to find their parents"
I'm actually as concerned with the moral implications of children of sperm donors. I'm not a sperm donor, it just seems wrong to open up doors that were never agreed to under the original terms of the sperm donor agreement.
And regarding using the technology to search for criminals - it's a classic slippery slope issue. Many of us are happy that a serial killer or other murderer/rapist was found using the technology, but already police have used it to find a burglar. I'm assuming that they'll use it for non-violent drug crimes next.
> And regarding using the technology to search for criminals - it's a classic slippery slope issue. Many of us are happy that a serial killer or other murderer/rapist was found using the technology, but already police have used it to find a burglar. I'm assuming that they'll use it for non-violent drug crimes next.
My big concern is that when the new thing that whittles down the 4th amendment is talked about, it is almost always with a slam dunk case that is also an incredibly serious case. But the average investigation rarely ends in a slam dunk. Allowing police to bypass protections of privacy and checks and balances to their scope of investigation also destroys lives. Semen found inside a person is pretty obvious, but what about just DNA found at a crime scene. If someone is stabbed in a back alley and police just sweep up DNA and run a massive database and tie it to a homeless person without an alibi. It might not matter that the homeless person slept there a week before, in the absence of a better lead, they might push for a conviction. Or just sweeping up all phones in the area during the crime. Maybe someone was in the neighborhood but was completely unrelated. In the absence of a better lead, an innocent person could be targeted.
An innocent person railroaded by the police is as much a victim as the original victim of the crime. There is a reason police need “probable cause”. To prevent wide net fishing that can be used just to turn up something to tie someone to a crime, guilty or not.
Right now we're in a transitional phase where DNA data is integrated with traditional police work, where there may be a priori reasons to suspect someone before invoking DNA data to strengthen the case. Even this raises serious questions about privacy (the BTK killer even moreso than this case: they found him using his daughter's pap smear).
What is more worrying is the incentive to go straight to DNA in the future, entangling lots of innocent people in DNA dragnets because of the birthday problem at scale.
The article was published this morning and contains new journalism about the specific methods employed by the FBI, and some legal analysis of those methods. Previous discussions are based on the false, simplified account presented by the prosecution.
> Rae-Venter also said she encountered efforts to revise the account of how DeAngelo was captured when she was asked to omit references to the “match lists” — names of genetic relatives to the killer — she had seen during the investigation.
To be sure there will always be human ineptitude and bungling of cases but it does seem that DNA forensics, security cameras, the prevalence of cell phones, digital messaging surveillance, etc. have brought to justice many killers very quickly that might have gone on to kill again were this 50 years ago.
While there are a lot of nuances to privacy in the 21s Century, I am not so stalwart of a privacy advocate to disregard the utility of finding killers by means that are somewhat privacy invasive.