Fascinating article. I admire the balance Professor Rosen brings to this very complex subject.

I myself am torn in two directions, as I suspect many thinking people will be. On the one hand, investigating people not suspected of a crime appears to be a violation of Constitutional rights. And we all know "eugenics is nasty."

On the other hand, just how *is* DNA different from a fingerprint?

That fingerprints are collected at arrest and not after conviction - or even when you apply for a job - is, of course, significant. It means we have already slipped over a moral line. Those prints will be searched millions of times to see if they match those found at a crime scene. In a very broad sense, people who have been fingerprinted are permanent suspects, never ruled out of any crime until their fingerprints are excluded by checking for a match. Their privacy is diminished.

Yet we, as a society, have accepted this state of affairs because of the benefits it brings to us. We catch more criminals. I suspect a very similar future lies ahead for DNA testing.

The science of genetics is advancing rapidly, and the more we learn, the more useful DNA could be in protecting members of society. Wouldn't you like to know that sociopaths can be identified and treated before they can commit a crime? Wouldn't you prefer that sociopaths be kept out of high elected office? Wouldn't you like to know that your intended spouse is just pretending to feel empathy for other people? How about your business partner?

And that's just the tip of a very large iceberg. We could find genetic links to a lot of behaviors. Narcissism. Bad driving. Violence. Schizophrenia. We don't know yet what science will find, but whatever there is to find in our genetic code, they will find it.

Then what? How will we use that information?

I have the feeling we're on a slippery slope, and it's going to be tricky to decide where to stop the slide. If it can be stopped at all.