The Department of Justice and Janet Reno have opened the door for another assault on the Constitution.

Reno has commissioned a study into the plausibility of genetic sampling on everyone arrested in the United States.

While Reno is quick to explain that this effort exemplifies her commitment to enforcing the law of the land while remaining sensitive to the issues of privacy, I choose to remain suspicious and ever-pessimistic about where this will lead.

Last year, 15.3 million people were arrested. Fingerprints and police reports are readily available to any investigative unit in the United States.

What is not available is genetic information, medical history, physical material — private things sheltered from all of society.

Such a protocol would violate much of what we hold reasonable under the Constitution. To have on call far more than identification for all members of the citizenry ever arrested is beyond unconstitutional — it is dangerous.

The state of Louisiana will begin testing everyone arrested in September. The city of New York is considering the same plan. The financial burden of such an effort is staggering.

Although the chief concern should not be the finances, the estimated $18.25 million it would cost the city of New York should be noted.

Who pays for this? The person arrested? The citizens? What exactly would justify charging an individual money to take material from their person that they are not willingly providing (as in an effort to exonerate themselves) for the purposes of blanket discovery and elimination?

I don’t expect to have to pay the police for driving around looking for drunk drivers and speeders.

Perhaps the most dangerous effect of DNA testing would be the strain put on the Fourth Amendment.

By sampling genetic material from millions, the FBI and other organizations would be destroying the constitutional guarantee against illegal search and seizure.

The courts readily uphold the right of policing organizations to collect fingerprints, as they aid in the investigative process.

One would pray the judiciary branch can distinguish between retaining material for identification and seizing data capable of exposing predisposition, condition and tendency.

One might counter that there is no reason to suspect law enforcement agencies would not ensure that information of such potential magnitude would not find its way into the public forum.

But examine such a premise from the converse perspective. Insurance companies, the media and lawsuit hungry attorneys would all have a want for such material.

An example: Driving home from dinner with you’re significant other, your pulled over for speeding.

Unaware you have eight unpaid parking tickets with the city, you protest vehemently as you are placed into a squad car and taken off to the police station for processing.

Upon your arrival at the station, your prints, picture and blood are taken. Posting $200 bail, you grab a cab home.

Six years later, your 23-year-old son calls you from wherever he got a job after graduation.

His new employer’s HMO has denied him coverage, because they’ve acquired genetic information that indicates your predisposition to any of hundreds of genetic disorders that you do not have but could have passed on to your son or any one of his children. Wanna guess where that information came from?

Do not dismiss this example as far-fetched. Ask yourself how often the media and anyone else who really wants it can get “private” investigative material.

The fact that such data is in existence anywhere poses a significant threat to us all.

The nature of scientific research and discovery dictates that during some moments, man’s capabilities will exceed his comprehension.

Staggering advances and unimaginable breakthroughs must not be allowed to exist outside the realm of justice as the masses have defined it.

Technological quick fixes can not be instituted as a means to control crime and dissension.

We all know that to protect the rights of the few is to protect the rights of us all, but we must also remember that lowering the expectations of any is to dial back the freedoms we all require.

Any technological advantage gone unchecked has the ability not to undermine the enemy and bolster the hero, but to further arm the enemy and remove the essence the hero carried.

Taking from anyone who may have broken the law in the name of investigation is a blurring of lines that must remain explicitly clear and defined.

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Zuri Jerdon is a graduate student in English from Cincinnati.