HomeUploadUpload DirectHotlinkRandomAbouttheme toggle
Expand

How Detectives Caught the Golden State Killer—and Unleashed a Catastrophe for Civil Liberties

Views:1005
@ReasonVids

The methods used to catch the #GoldenStateKiller made it significantly easier to find suspects in horrendous cases. But it may be just as easy for the government to track innocent citizens via their #DNA.

0:00 - Police use genealogy database to find Golden State Killer
3:31 - A Crime Fighting Revolution: DNA enters criminal justice
8:25 - The Consumer DNA Revolution: 23&Me, Ancestry.com, MyHeritageDNA, GEDMatch
13:39 - Police catch the Golden State Killer
20:02 - The tricky world of crime scene DNA and databases
23:48 - A Threat to Civil Liberties: China targets its own people
29:42 - Guidelines for law enforcement

------------------
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?subconfirmation=1
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason

Reason is the leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
----------------

In 1980, Lyman and Charlene Smith were found bound and bludgeoned to death in their Ventura County home. Charlene had also been raped, and investigators managed to retrieve semen from the crime scene. It would take 38 years to find the killer.

"It was a sensational, godawful murder in a small town," recalls Jennifer Carole, Lyman Smith's daughter. The way they had been murdered "had a lot of feeling and emotion behind it," she recalls. "There was a lot of reason why you would think that someone they knew did this."

Carole would eventually learn that her father and stepmother had been victims of a notorious serial rapist and killer who had 87 individual victims at 53 separate crime scenes from 1975 to 1986.

Known as the Golden State Killer, the assailant avoided detection for decades.

In 2018, police finally identified and arrested the killer, a retired police officer and truck mechanic named Joseph James DeAngelo. They solved the case thanks to the advent of online genealogy databases, in which individuals voluntarily share their DNA online to obtain information about their personal health and heritage and to connect with family members.

These databases were what allowed investigators to bring DeAngelo to justice, and they went on to be used to name suspects in dozens of other cold cases across the United States, ushering in a new technological leap that the law is still catching up with.

The Golden State Killer story was told in magazines, books, podcasts, an HBO series.

But the capture of the Golden State Killer also has troubling implications for civil liberties. The use of genealogical databases for crime fighting makes it possible for the government to search through personal information of innocent citizens—their genetic code—in ways that violate privacy norms enshrined in the Constitution.

Police had DNA from the Smith crime scene genotyped in the same way customers would, using a single nucleotide polymorphism test. They compared the raw data with that of other people who had uploaded their data to genealogy websites, including YSearch, MyHeritageDNA, FamilyTree DNA, and GEDMatch. Connections between family members revealed a family tree that would lead to DeAngelo.

"The idea is not that the police are supposed to indiscriminately rummage through the lives of citizens looking for crime," says Erin E. Murphy, a law professor at New York University and the author of Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA. "They're supposed to have probable cause, targeted suspicion to believe somebody involved in criminal activity and then from that suspicion perhaps develop reason for arrest or prosecution."

According to the Los Angeles Times, investigators believed their genealogy searching was legal. "We were entirely confident that it would pass legal muster," former Golden State Killer investigator Paul Holes told the Times. "But we understood that there could be a fallout in terms of public perception."

"Rifling through the lives of thousands of innocent people, people you know are not the perpetrator of the crime, is a pretty serious thing to encourage law enforcement to do," says Murphy.

Shot, written, produced, edited, and motion graphics by Paul Detrick; additional camera by Zach Weissmuller.

Music credits: Kiss of Death by Kadir Demir; Hope and Heisenberg by Spearfisher; Psycho Bill by Jordan Hatfield; Speed Freak by Evgeny Bardyuzha; Null by Neshza

libertarian
,
reason magazine
,
reason.com
,
reason.tv
,
reasontv
,
golden state killer
,
true crime
,
joseph deangelo
,
dna
,
crime
,
genealogy
,
23&me
,
ancestry
,
myheritagedna
,
myheritage
,
gedmatch
,
familytreedna
,
civil liberties
,
civil rights
,
uighurs
,
china
    Thumbnail for Will the Spike in Murder and Violence Undermine Criminal Justice Reform?12:04
    Will the Spike in Murder and Violence Undermine Criminal Justice Reform?
    ReasonVids
    1027 views
    Thumbnail for Are Shovels spoons? (objection.lol) | A Person Who Likes The Color Red5:36
    Are Shovels spoons? (objection.lol) | A Person Who Likes The Color Red
    invidious
    434 views
    Thumbnail for Don’t worry that many of the ballots have the same signature and don’t appear to even have a crease in them just keep counting2:10
    Don’t worry that many of the ballots have the same signature and don’t appear to even have a crease in them just keep counting
    AOU
    2895 views
    Thumbnail for Simpsons la la la la la I'm in love with lovely Johnny0:14
    Simpsons la la la la la I'm in love with lovely Johnny
    clips
    1028 views
    Thumbnail for The Most Remote Places on Earth | Thomas Mulligan0:56
    The Most Remote Places on Earth | Thomas Mulligan
    invidious
    250 views
    Thumbnail for What's inside a .EXE File? | Inkbox8:27
    What's inside a .EXE File? | Inkbox
    invidious
    120 views
    Thumbnail for More pandering to the jews by none other than Javier Milei1:37
    More pandering to the jews by none other than Javier Milei
    AOUisgay
    510 views
    Thumbnail for Kent's People - Frank Grimes1:41
    Kent's People - Frank Grimes
    clips
    947 views
    Thumbnail for Al Sharpton knocked on his ass by  Roy Innis9:20
    Al Sharpton knocked on his ass by Roy Innis
    bestofvoatxyz
    642 views
    Thumbnail for No One Is Above The Law1:29
    No One Is Above The Law
    bestofupgoat
    162 views
    Thumbnail for Jumbo Tomahawk for David Beckham | Max the Meat Guy0:56
    Jumbo Tomahawk for David Beckham | Max the Meat Guy
    invidious
    120 views
    Thumbnail for Brosix for the Financial Sector | Brosix Instant Messenger1:15
    Brosix for the Financial Sector | Brosix Instant Messenger
    invidious
    208 views
    Thumbnail for The BEST WAY to STOP Random Playing (and Instantly be More Musical) | Mark Zabel6:53
    The BEST WAY to STOP Random Playing (and Instantly be More Musical) | Mark Zabel
    invidious
    566 views
    Thumbnail for The Simpsons Larry Burns3:07
    The Simpsons Larry Burns
    clips
    951 views
    Thumbnail for ReasonTV Stimulus Plan0:53
    ReasonTV Stimulus Plan
    ReasonVids
    877 views
    Thumbnail for Godzilla vs Darth Vader | Nick Eh 30 Shorts0:36
    Godzilla vs Darth Vader | Nick Eh 30 Shorts
    invidious
    151 views
    Thumbnail for Making a fart juice developed by the U.S. government | NileBlue22:34
    Making a fart juice developed by the U.S. government | NileBlue
    invidious
    76 views
    Thumbnail for The Simpsons : Chief Wiggum Files3:31
    The Simpsons : Chief Wiggum Files
    clips
    913 views
    Thumbnail for How to Make An Enemy Chase The Player in Unity | BMo6:45
    How to Make An Enemy Chase The Player in Unity | BMo
    tech.topic
    755 views
    Thumbnail for Shitskin FAFO0:41
    Shitskin FAFO
    bestofupgoat
    436 views
    Thumbnail for City Caught Scrapping Cars for Unpaid Parking Tickets3:52
    City Caught Scrapping Cars for Unpaid Parking Tickets
    IJvids
    839 views
    Thumbnail for Every Mr.  Burns Forget Homer Simpson Scene2:26
    Every Mr. Burns Forget Homer Simpson Scene
    clips
    1051 views
    Thumbnail for I Let Twitter Make a Game... (and it's really weird) | Dani12:25
    I Let Twitter Make a Game... (and it's really weird) | Dani
    invidious
    329 views
    Thumbnail for Richard Riordan on Unions and Dysfunctional LA (Extended Interview)40:42
    Richard Riordan on Unions and Dysfunctional LA (Extended Interview)
    ReasonVids
    977 views
    Thumbnail for silent2:42
    silent
    bestofvoatxyz
    881 views

points

Permalink
Reply
libertarian
,
reason magazine
,
reason.com
,
reason.tv
,
reasontv
,
golden state killer
,
true crime
,
joseph deangelo
,
dna
,
crime
,
genealogy
,
23&me
,
ancestry
,
myheritagedna
,
myheritage
,
gedmatch
,
familytreedna
,
civil liberties
,
civil rights
,
uighurs
,
china
TOS  •  Add Keywords  •  Donate  •   Analytics  •   DMCA  •   Puzzle