Last week a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that police can routinely take your DNA. It can do so if you have been arrested (but not convicted)

and use that DNA to see if it matches any samples in a national database. This procedure is certain to become routine since more than twenty-eight states

and the federal government already employ DNA testing for anyone arrested.

Supporters argue that it is merely the 21st century version of a fingerprint. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of

the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

Justice Antonin Scalia disagrees. He wrote: “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.”

Both sides of this debate acknowledge that collecting DNA will help solve crimes, but Justice Scalia does not believe that is sufficient justification for

the practice. If this is the legal justification, Scalia say we could just a easily justify “taking the DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the

Transportation Security Administration needs to know the identity of the flying public), applies for a driver’s license, or attends a public school.”

John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute writes about such overreach in his new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police

State. He paints a chilling portrait of a country where surveillance cameras, drug sniffing dogs, SWAT team raids, roadside strip searches, blood draws at DUI

checkpoints, drones, and GPS tracking devices become common place. Each day we move another step closer to a police state in America. Taking your DNA

and adding it to a national database is one more incremental step.