Refusing DNA collection not an option

Thirty-year-old Grace Cooper was also in the designated “free speech zone” when she was arrested in a clash that she described as “the most terrifying 90 seconds of her life.”

It was her first time at a Broadview protest, and Cooper didn’t know what to expect. On that day, Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino allegedly arbitrarily ruled that the designated area was suddenly a “free arrest zone,” then ordered protesters to move quickly from the area or else face arrest.

Although Cooper immediately turned to comply, an agent grabbed her from behind and “slammed her to the ground.” After her arrest, no agents could tell her what her crime was, and she even reported overhearing agents debating what her crime might possibly be.

Of the protesters suing, Cooper was the only one to refuse the DNA sample. Such refusal is a crime, the complaint noted, and agents did not allow her to decline. After hours, agents released her without charging her, dropping her off at “a nearby gas station” and refusing to give her any information about whether her case remained ongoing.

Like the others, Cooper’s “most immediate fear” after her arrest was “what the government will do with her DNA.”

“She worries the government will use her DNA to place her on a ‘domestic terrorist watchlist’ and track her movements—at airports, during traffic stops, and in ways she cannot anticipate or contest,” the complaint said.

Carey R. Dunne, a founder of the Free + Fair Litigation Group, which is representing Briggs in the lawsuit, told The New York Times that the protesters’ litigation addresses “a constellation of constitutional violations that needed to be challenged.”

The unchecked DNA collection “puts you and your family in a surveillance state database of people who’ve criticized this administration,” Dunne alleged, while suggesting that on an “authoritarian scale of one to 10, this is a 10.”

Briggs told the NYT that the lawsuit could clarify the DNA Act and potentially restore privacy for countless Americans who may be increasingly affected by the allegedly unconstitutional DNA collection.

“If we don’t have a right to our own selves, everything is going to break down,” Briggs said.