[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 12, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14320-H14322]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           DNA IDENTIFICATION GRANTS IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 1995

  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 2418) to improve the capability to analyze deoxyribonucleic 
acid, as amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 2418

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``DNA Identification Grants 
     Improvement Act of 1995''.

     SEC. 2. DNA IDENTIFICATION GRANTS.

       Paragraph (22) of section 1001(a) of the Omnibus Crime 
     Control and Safe Streets Act is amended to read as follows:
       ``(22) There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out 
     part X--
       ``(A) $1,000,000 for fiscal year 1996;
       ``(B) $15,000,000 for fiscal year 1997;
       ``(C) $14,000,000 for fiscal year 1998;
       ``(D) $6,000,000 for fiscal year 1999; and
       ``(E) $4,000,000 for fiscal year 2000.''.

     SEC. 3. RESTRICTION ON GRANT USE.

       Section 210304 of the Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1994 is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:
       ``(d) DNA Profiles Prohibited.--In no event shall DNA 
     identification records contained in this index be compiled or 
     analyzed in order to formulate statistical profiles for use 
     in predicting criminal behavior.''.

     SEC. 4. TECHNICAL AMENDMENT.

       Effective on the date of the enactment of the Violent Crime 
     Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, section 210302(c)(3) 
     of such Act is amended by inserting ``(a)'' after ``Section 
     1001'' and after ``3793''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. McCollum] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer] 
each will be recognized for 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I introduced this bill, the DNA Identification Grants 
Improvements Act of 1995, at the request of the FBI and the American 
Society of Crime Laboratory Directors.
  Nearly everyone is aware by now of the tremendous utility of DNA 
identification to the Nation's criminal justice process. Some of the 
most horrendous crimes, the ones that scream out 

[[Page H14321]]
for justice, often involve few if any witnesses. Child abduction and 
violent sexual assaults are just two categories of crimes in which the 
identification of the perpetrator and proof of the crime is extremely 
difficult. DNA has proven to be a useful tool in establishing 
investigative leads and as admissible evidence of the commission of a 
crime.
  In addition, DNA analysis has proven to be a useful tool for those 
accused of committing crimes. In a limited number of cases, defendants 
have used DNA evidence to prove that they were not the perpetrators of 
particular crimes. Thus, the DNA identification process is a highly 
valuable, dual purpose, law enforcement tool.

  This is why last year's crime bill, while containing several features 
I opposed, wisely included a provision to encourage and assist the 
development of DNA identification procedures. H.R. 2418 will reorder 
the funding levels of the DNA identification grants authorized in the 
bill. Those grants provide funding to the FBI to operate its combined 
DNA index system and to the States to develop and improve DNA testing. 
H.R. 2418 would merely reorder the amounts authorized to be made 
available to States over the next several fiscal years so that funds 
are available to States sooner than is authorized in current law. The 
total amount authorized is unchanged by this bill.
  The FBI has requested that Congress front-load the funds to the 
States because of the significant start-up costs States incur in 
creating DNA testing programs and databases. As I have already stated, 
DNA analysis is an important and rapidly developing area of law 
enforcement. This bill will help States develop and implement DNA 
testing capabilities sooner. The result will be that more crimes will 
be solved, some who have been wrongly accused of crimes will be better 
able to prove their innocence, and many crimes will be solved sooner 
than would be the case without this bill.
  I hope that in next year's appropriations bill for the Department of 
Justice, we will be able to fully fund this effort. I realize that 
there are many competing priorities, but I believe we must be equipping 
ourselves with the most effective technologies if we are going to cope 
with the coming storm of violent crime. I intend to work with the 
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Rogers], who chairs the Commerce-Justice-
State Appropriations Subcommittee, to secure the necessary funding.
  I also want to point out that this bill contains a restriction on the 
use of the authorized funds with regard to the practice of criminal 
profiling. This language was offered successfully by the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Watt] in subcommittee. I supported this amendment 
because I agree with Mr. Watt as a matter of principle and because I am 
not aware of any attempts by law enforcement authorities to engage in 
the practice of using DNA data to identify genetic traits associated 
with criminal behavior. Such scientific endeavors may occur in other 
academic disciplines, but it is not the role of law enforcement 
authorities.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and I rise in support of this bill.
  (Mr. SCHUMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, this bill, as has been mentioned, amends 
the DNA grant program that was passed as part of the 1994 crime bill. 
The DNA grant program provides $40 million in grants to State and local 
law enforcement agencies to improve their ability to analyze DNA 
samples, and I am glad that the majority, in their headlong effort to 
repeal so many sensible parts of the crime bill, is still in favor of 
this one.
  The bill makes a sensible adjustment in the schedule under which the 
funds will become available for the grant program. Since startup costs 
are heavier in the early years, it redistributes funding to those years 
tapering off toward the end of the program. It does not change the 
total amount of funds available and as the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
McCollum] mentioned, it includes the amendment of the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Watt] about profiles using this DNA information.
  DNA information can be a serious tool in crime fighting, and one of 
our goals in passing the 1994 crime bill was to help the localities do 
better in fighting crime but not just give them an empty-ended block 
grant that would let them do whatever they want with the money.
  I do not want to get into the debate on the crime bill now. Well, I 
do, but I will not.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt] distinguished member of our 
Subcommittee on Crime.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
New York for yielding time to me.
  I rise in reluctant opposition to this bill, not because I feel that 
what I say is going to influence anybody to vote against the bill.
  When this DNA bank was set up several years ago, as I recall, I was 
one of two Members who voted against setting it up in the first place, 
and I doubt that there is any shift in the public sentiment on that 
issue since that time.
  I thought it would be helpful to use a little bit of time today to at 
least educate my colleagues about this issue and the potential for 
abuse related to DNA. Every day there is a new breakthrough in DNA 
identification technology. But DNA technology can be a classic double-
edged sword. It can cut either way, so to speak.
  I think my colleagues need to understand that and understand why I 
insisted in committee on offering an amendment to inhibit the use of 
DNA information that we are collecting to establish profiles for 
criminal conduct or any other kind of conduct.
  On the one hand, DNA can be used to identify people with the genetic 
predisposition for certain diseases, which can facilitate treatment. It 
can be used to prove the innocence of falsely accused persons and help 
set them free. Of course, the pending habeas corpus reforms which are 
coming out of the Committee on the Judiciary make such a release 
unlikely because even if under the habeas corpus reforms, even if you 
had DNA that conclusively, DNA results that conclusively found somebody 
not to have been the victim or not to have been the perpetrator of a 
crime, you still could not use that DNA for the purpose of getting the 
person out of jail. I do not think we are so intent on using DNA for 
positive purposes necessarily as much as we are intent on using it for 
negative purposes.
  If DNA technology is allowed to develop without certain safeguards 
put in place, it could have very, very negative consequences. That is 
what I have raised the prospect of by offering this amendment in 
committee and having the committee adopt it.
  I want to express my appreciation to the subcommittee chair for 
including the provision in the bill which makes it clear that the DNA 
information that the U.S. Government is collecting on our citizens 
cannot be used to set up criminal profiles that try to predict the 
propensity of a U.S. citizen to engage in criminal conduct.

                              {time}  1730

  I think that would be a dangerous, dangerous level of activity by the 
U.S. Government. But the reason I have some reservations about this, 
this bill, is that this DNA bank really is creating a bank of people's 
blood. If someone gets convicted of a crime, and they go to prison, 
their DNA is going into this DNA bank. Whether their blood is needed 
for proof of their guilt or innocence in the case for which they are 
being tried or not is irrelevant, and I think we have gone beyond the 
pale of invasion of individual rights when we start taking people's 
blood unrelated to the case that they are being prosecuted for, and I 
think in some cases we are abusing our individual rights of our 
citizens in this country.
  The second concern that I have is that we really have not developed 
in this country a clear way of using DNA. There is a lot of debate, 
ongoing debate, in the public about how reliable DNA is, how probative 
it can be in criminal cases, how much of a determining factor it should 
be. I guess the classic case of that was in the O.J. Simpson case where 
people started to 

[[Page H14322]]
understand more and more the whole concept of DNA testimony in criminal 
cases.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a long, long way to go in developing an 
understanding of the effective and reliable use of DNA as evidence in 
medicine, in criminal cases, the whole range of cases, and the thing 
that concerns me is that by spending $40 million we are getting 
ourselves way out in front of this issue before we have any reliable 
information about how this DNA information ought to be used.
  The final point I want to make, and then I will sit down because I do 
not want to prolong this debate and I know that the outcome of this 
vote is already programmed, is that $40 million is a lot of money, and 
if I have the set priorities about how I were going to use $40 million, 
the establishment and the expansion of a Federal DNA bank and the 
granting of funds to States and local governments to further expand 
their DNA capacities, I would tell my colleagues would be way, way down 
on my list of priorities, and so in a sense I am concerned about the 
priorities we are setting by setting aside $40 million over this 4- or 
5-year period to do this when we have such other critical needs in our 
country.
  With that I will just leave this alone because again I know the 
outcome of the debate and the outcome of this vote. It would not be on 
the Suspension Calendar if a substantial number of people did not think 
this was noncontroversial, but I think we should understand that there 
is a level of controversy about the reliability of DNA testimony, the 
potential abuse of individual rights when we start taking the blood of 
people who, even though they have been convicted of some crime, even 
though their blood is not needed in that particular case, and we should 
always be concerned, when we are talking about spending the taxpayers' 
dollars, about the priorities we are setting for the Federal Government 
in the spending of those dollars.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to make one comment. I want to remind 
everybody that this is simply a bill which would reorder the priorities 
of spending in legislation that has already become law. We are not 
enacting anything new here, but we are reordering the priorities.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ewing). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 2418, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas 
and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 5, rule I, and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

                          ____________________