DNA testing technology can be abused by the government to turn the U.S. into a SURVEILLANCE STATE

 Things like genealogical DNA tests may seem interesting and harmless, but the government could be violating your privacy and eyeing your data for DNA technology and genetic profiling.

The police state could use your data to find any associations you may have with individuals on the government's most wanted lists. Even if you have nothing to hide, it will soon be harder to stay under the radar.

In the hands of government officials, DNA technology can be abused to turn the country into a complete surveillance state, where prison walls are disguised within the seemingly harmless trappings of technological and scientific progress, national security and the need to protect against terrorists, civil unrest or pandemics.

With access to your DNA, the government will find out everything about you, such as your family chart, your ancestry or your inclination to follow orders.

Using access to DNA databases amassed by private sector genealogy companies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with hospital newborn screening programs, police can use forensic genealogy to match up an unknown suspect's crime scene DNA with that of any family members in a genealogy database. The data can be used to solve cold cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

Police now investigating genetic data of innocent people to look for suspects

Reports show that forensic genetic genealogists have already begun checking the genetic information of innocent people "in search of a perpetrator."

Once you submit your DNA to a genealogical database like Ancestry and 23andMe, you're giving the police access to the genetic makeup, relationships and health profiles of all your relatives, whether or not you have agreed to be part of the database.

By abusing a loophole in a commercial database called GEDmatch, genetic genealogists can sidestep privacy rules that allow users to opt out of sharing their genetic information with police.

This means the police can now identify and target people who explicitly asked to keep their DNA results private. By choosing to exercise your right to privacy, you become a suspect and put yourself in the police state's crosshairs.

With the proliferation of DNA databases, the police can easily find you even if you've never shared your own DNA.

Companies like Ancestry only need a spit sample or a cheek swab to help you learn your ancestral makeup, where you came from and who is part of your extended family.

And while a DNA print reveals everything about your past and future, it can also be used to predict the physical appearance of potential suspects.

This is what the police call a "modern fingerprint," and police are now using the development of this technology as a reason to support unrestricted access to genealogy databases – and they even have "success stories" to prove that it works. 

David Sinopoli, a 68-year-old man from Pennsylvania, was arrested and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a young woman almost 50 years ago.

Data from genealogical research suggests that the killer had ancestors from a small town in Italy and investigators narrowed their findings down to a man whose DNA, obtained from a discarded coffee cup, allegedly matched the killer's.

Police can legally get hold of your "abandoned DNA" without your consent

Even though much of the public debate, legislative efforts and legal challenges in the last few years have focused on the protocols concerning when police can legally collect a suspect's DNA with or without a search warrant, the question of how to handle "shed" or "touch" DNA often remains without debate or opposition.

According to Leslie A. Pray, a scientist, all humans shed DNA and leave traces of their identity "practically everywhere" they go. Even your trash could be full of this sort of material.

All shed or "abandoned DNA" is free for the taking by local police investigators who want to crack unsolvable cases. Shed DNA can also be freely included "in a secret universal DNA databank."

Why is this alarming? If you leave your DNA traces near where a crime has been committed, you may already have a file in some state or federal database, temporarily nameless but still taken without your consent.

In time, government agents will know where you are and how long you've been there simply by following your shed DNA. This isn't impossible because scientists can already track salmon across hundreds of square miles of streams and rivers using DNA.