An open letter to Greensboro City Council

GREENSBORO, NC -- There is a theme quickly coming into focus about the current Greensboro city council: that they are not very good exerting management when they need to over city policies, especially those that might affect the civil liberties of Greensboro's citizens. No directives on public records, no directives on surveillance, no procedures for handling complaints against top-city staff, and now, it appears, no control of what the police may do with DNA it collects from Greensboro's citizens.

The following has been submitted to the Greensboro city council:
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Dear Mr. Mayor and City Council.

The News & Record reports today of the Greensboro Police Department about to build a "regional DNA database," through the use of a private company. I have some questions:

Has the city council made themselves aware of what laws or policies may govern the collection, storage, sharing and disposition of DNA collected from Greensboro citizens by the police for this database?

The State of North Carolina has laws strictly governing the handling of DNA collected for the state lab that address some of these matters, but Travis Fain, author of the News & Record article tells me that local law enforcement is of the opinion that those provisions only apply to the state lab.

With that in mind:

1. What laws or policies will guide the circumstances under which the Greensboro Police collect DNA for use in their regional database?
2. With whom and for what purposes may it be shared? Has the city examined and found acceptable the laws or policies governing the handling of DNA at agencies with which the Greensboro Police may share DNA?
3. Is the private lab free to use DNA provided to it for other purposes? Can it share or otherwise use the DNA of Greensboro citizens for its own purposes? If not, what measures, if any, have been put into place to compel the private lab to handle DNA collected from Greensboro citizens in a manner that comports with our expectations?
4. State law provides for specific notification be made to people who are having their DNA put into the State database. Are their any provisions governing such notification by the Greensboro Police when they collect DNA for their database?
5. State law provides for specific means by which people may have their DNA expunged from the state database. Are there procedures, laws or policies in place to govern expunction from the regional database? Is the private lab bound by these provisions?

I'm sure I don't need to tell you the importance of this matter. DNA is not just a better fingerprint. It is our blueprint, our complete physical being in a digital record. Posession and use of it have implications far beyond simple identity. It can be used to make predictions about our health, develop medicinal treatments and trace our ancestry. Has the City of Greensboro taken the steps necessary to confidently assure its citizens that DNA collected from them will not be missused?

I look forward to hearing your answers to these questions.

Sincerely,
Roch Smith, Jr.