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ACLU Objects to Request for DNA of All City’s Males

Civil rights advocates disagree with what one group is calling a “DNA dragnet” to find the man who raped and murdered a woman three years ago in a small seaside community in Cape Cod.

January 20, 2005
1 min to read


Civil rights advocates disagree with what one group is calling a “DNA dragnet” to find the man who raped and murdered a woman three years ago in a small seaside community in Cape Cod.

Police have asked the nearly 800 men who live in the town to voluntarily produce DNA samples—collected by swabbing cheek cells—to find a match for the semen found on fashion writer Christa Worthington’s body. They are approaching the men in public and have said they will closely watch those who refuse the test.

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Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachussetts, argues that the request coerces people into submitting to a DNA test and invades their personal privacy. She also notes that it is not known whether some or all of the samples might be entered into a state or federal DNA database without the donors’ knowledge.

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