California Proposition 69
by Janie G.

Bob Barr's piece on California's Prop 69 raises some pertinent issues. As it is currently written, Prop 69 seems to give law enforcement many powers and few, if any, reasonable civil and privacy rights protections.

Specifically, it seems that law enforcement has the power to force people to yield their DNA and have it included in a database for real criminals. Yet the requirement applies to: people who have nothing or very little on their record, people who are simply arrested and are not the perpetrators; people who are later found innocent, people who have their charge reduced to misdemeanor, people who have a past encounter or two as juveniles (who are long since law abiding citizens/have grown up with a good record thereafter), people who have perhaps a single infraction occurring and reduced to misdemeanor twenty, thirty, or more years ago.

None of these people seem to be able to challenge the taking of their DNA; or at least it is made extremely difficult to have their DNA removed from the database after the fact.

If the proposition accomplishes these things, it represents an attack on the basic civil and privacy rights of thousands, perhaps millions of good California citizens. I understand that it may be sound to apply certain fundamental aspects of proposition 69 to avert real menace, but not without regard for just and fair limitations, and law-abiding citizens' basic rights and dignity.

Despite crime problems and terrorism, America remains the land of liberty and justice for all. We should not allow criminals and terrorism to coerce us into unsound, unwell-thought out actions that translate into unjust basic civil and privacy rights violation. If we do, we simply contribute to weakening America.

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