The Court ruled today [Maryland vs. King] that taking a DNA swap from someone who has been arrested is not an unreasonable search, even though it basically allows the government to go fishing for unrelated offenses. When the Court splits 5-4, and Scalia writes a disent joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan, you can be assured that the ruling is bad for civil liberties, and that the disent will be scathing (and quite humorous at times.):
Make no mistake about it: because of today's decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.
Volokh has some discussion here.
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