With their recent return to Raleigh, North Carolina legislators will soon consider a pair of bills that have serious implications for the privacy rights of everyone in our state.

The first is an expansion of the “DNA Database Act of 2010” that allows police officers to take a DNA sample from individuals upon arrest without a warrant – and before they have been convicted of any crime. About half the states in the country now have some type of law requiring the collection of DNA samples from people who are arrested for various crimes but not yet convicted.

As the ACLU of North Carolina argued during consideration of the 2010 act, such a policy is unnecessary because law enforcement officers already have the authority to take DNA samples from suspects during an investigation if they can show probable cause to obtain a warrant. The only purpose for these so-called “DNA upon arrest” laws is to allow police to circumvent the Fourth Amendment’s protection against warrantless and unreasonable searches and seizures. The proposed bill, which has already been passed by North Carolina’s House and is now being considered in a Senate Judiciary Committee, would expand the 2010 law to allow police to search thousands of additional North Carolinians by adding dozens of additional crimes to the list of those for which police can take an individual’s DNAwithout a warrant.

Similar laws have been ruled unconstitutional by various state courts across the country, including Minnesota and Maryland, where Gov. Martin O’Malley tried to justify his state’s policy by arguing that “a DNA swab [is] no more intrusive than a fingerprint.” The reality, however, is that unlike fingerprints, DNA contains an individual’s entire genetic blueprint, including information on thousands of genetic conditions such as ancestry, personal traits, and susceptibility to disease and mental illness.

As science continues to advance exponentially, it is quite possible that even more information will be gleaned from DNA samples in the future. In a legal system that presumes people are innocent until proven guilty, North Carolinians should seriously consider whether police should have the power to possess such detailed and extensive biological information about individuals without a warrant and before they have been convicted of a crime. And if we continue to expand the list of those from whom police can legally take DNA, what guarantee is there that you or your family member won’t be next in line for a cheek swab?

The Fourth Amendment’s guarantee that all people will be secure in their persons and papers will also be tested this session by a bill that would give local sheriffs and deputies access to the state-maintained pharmaceutical database that contains most drug prescriptions written in North Carolina. Again, this law only serves to circumvent the established process by which sheriffs can already obtain information in the pharmaceutical database – by making a request through the State Bureau of Investigation. Under this new bill, sheriffs can search through an individual’s prescription records without securing a warrant or even having to demonstrate probable cause for the search.

The state’s pharmaceutical database was created to help identify patients who are at risk of prescription drug addiction or overdose – a very real health care concern. But by expanding the list of government officials who can access this information without a court order, the bill makes private medical information less secure. Knowledge that local law enforcement could be monitoring the database could cause doctors to second-guess their health care recommendations and ultimately have unintended consequences for their patients. For example, people seeking proper pharmaceutical treatment for a variety of illnesses would have greater cause for concern that their medicines or condition could become public or leaked to an employer.

Our Constitution establishes checks and balances in order to prevent the abuse of power by rogue government officials. By eliminating warrant requirements for law enforcement to obtain information as private as our personal genetic code and medicinal history, these two bills could erode the constitutional right to privacy that protects all North Carolinians against unreasonable searches.

New laws should seek toprotectindividuals’ privacy rights in the face of emerging technology – not diminish them. As the Supreme Court has ruled countless times, the protections of the Fourth Amendment apply only when an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy. If we allow lawmakers to continue rolling back privacy protections, that reasonable expectation becomes harder to reclaim and will become significantly reduced for future generations.

Mike Meno is the Communications manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.