Hmm, Why Would Cops Be Reluctant To Submit Their DNA To A Database?

The good news is that across the country, police are putting their feet down and raising their voices in support of civil rights. They’re standing against the tyranny of the government retaining DNA records of citizens when those people aren’t being investigated for a crime. The bad news is that they only actually care about the rights of themselves and other police officers. Fuck all of you privacy-wanting jokers.

The Huffington Post reports that collecting the DNA on members of local police forces is necessary in many cases — to eliminate members of the police department in crimes where there is no known suspect and to identify material found at crime investigation scenes left by officers. Having this data on file with the department often expedites criminal investigations. But police are digging in their heels about the possibility of that information being retained or added to a national DNA database.

Oh, gee golly whiz, I wonder why that would upset some police officers?

Opponents say that requiring officers to submit DNA to a national database is unfair because there are no controls in place to limit the way the information can be used. Union leaders want to make sure police DNA isn’t analyzed to project future illnesses or, I don’t know, cloned by Lex Luther into another identical army of bizarro policemen.

While it’s understandable that no one would want their genetic material freely disseminated, it’s odd that a group so in favor of taking the DNA of people arrested but not charged with a crime without their consent wouldn’t see the cognitive dissonance inherent in crying “civil rights!” in this case, especially considering the number of recent high profile cases involving officers leaving their DNA in and around women who didn’t want it.

If this were a movie, a smart cop with a tough past and something to prove (as played by Kurt Russell circa 1984) would give us all a succinct summary of why, exactly, it makes sense to protect the DNA of police but not of non-arrested non-suspects. But it’s not, so we’ll have to settle for a collective eye roll over the police predictably only being interested in protecting their own. Again.