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“ALEC”
NEWShas long been a
secretive collaboration
between
BigLegislation
Business and
Model
“conservative”
politicians.
Civil Justice
Behind closed doors, they
Commerce,
Insurance,
ghostwrite
“model”
bills to
and Economic
be introduced
in state
Development
capitols
across the country.
This agenda--underwritten
Education
by global corporations-Energy,
includes
majorEnvironment,
tax
and Agriculture
loopholes
for big industries
and the
superRelations
rich,
Federal
proposals to offshore U.S.
Health
Human
jobs and
gutand
minimum
wage,Services
and efforts to
weaken
public health,
International Relations
safety, and environmental
Public Safety
andmany
protections.
Although
Elections
of these
bills have become
law, until
now, their origin
Tax and Fiscal Policy
has been largely unknown.
Telecommunications
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forInformation
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Democracy
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changing the
legal
rules
and undermining democracy
across the nation.

ALEC’s’Corporate Board
--in recent past or present

• AT&T Services, Inc.
• centerpoint360
• UPS
• Bayer Corporation
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Energy Future Holdings
• Johnson & Johnson
• Coca-Cola Company
• PhRMA
• Kraft Foods, Inc.
• Coca-Cola Co.
• Pfizer Inc.
• Reed Elsevier, Inc.
• DIAGEO
• Peabody Energy
• Intuit, Inc.
• Koch Industries, Inc.
• ExxonMobil
• Verizon
• Reynolds American Inc.
• Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
• Salt River Project
• Altria Client Services, Inc.
• American Bail Coalition
• State Farm Insurance
For more on these corporations,
search at www.SourceWatch.org.

By the Center for
Media and Democracy
www.prwatch.org

Home

work as “equals” in “unison” with politicians to write laws to govern your life. Big
MODEL LEGISLATION
ALEC INITIATIVES
PUBLICATIONS
Business
has “a VOICE TASK
and aFORCES
VOTE,” according
to newly exposed
documents. DO YOU?

Model Legislation

Public Safety and Elections

ALEC Resolution on DNA Testing Standards
Summary

Did you know the
NRA--the National
Rifle Association-was the corporate
co-chair in 2011?

A Resolution supporting the FBI effort to “re-evaluate existing policies, standards,
and protocols, including requirements for outsourcing DNA analysis to private
laboratories and review of their results by public law enforcement laboratories”
that ensures continued quality in forensic science.

Resolution

WHEREAS, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the nation’s
largest individual membership organization of state legislators, dedicated to
advancing the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government,
federalism and individual liberty; and

WHEREAS, on March 23, 2010 the FBI announced that it is re-evaluating the “FBI
Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories;” and

WHEREAS, the efficient use of DNA technology is paramount to helping law
enforcement identify the guilty and to preserving and protecting victims' rights to
justice and due process; and

WHEREAS, the DNA testing backlog is estimated to be 100,000 cases despite
several hundred million of taxpayer dollars invested through the Debbie Smith Act
to eliminate it, with an additional hundreds of thousands of rape cases in police
storage that have not even been submitted to the crime lab for testing; and

WHEREAS, private labs must meet the exact same accreditation as public labs
(including accreditation site visits) and quality assurance standards (including two
reviews of all results) but FBI guidelines require that public labs must conduct their
own site visit of private labs and must perform a third review of private lab data
which is costly and consumes valuable resources; and

WHEREAS, there are numerous examples where this incremental burden placed
on public labs results in law enforcement being denied the ability to use private
labs when the public lab is capacity constrained because public labs do not have
the resources to perform the additional required quality controls; and

WHEREAS, large private lab users such as the Los Angeles Police Department
have testified that they do not find errors during these third technical reviews and
there is a complete lack of empirical evidence comparing public lab and private lab
error rates that would justify this requirement; and

WHEREAS, due to an incentive to remain competitive in the market, private labs
perform testing at as little as half the cost of public labs and are constantly
seeking new technology and more efficient practices; and

WHEREAS, private laboratories are an underutilized cost-effective resource and
creating guidelines that facilitate public-private partnerships is an inexpensive

creating guidelines that facilitate public-private partnerships is an inexpensive
mechanism to ease the backlog that will help law enforcement do their job, bring
justice to victims, and protect taxpayer dollars;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that ALEC supports the current FBI effort, as
stated in their March 23 press release, to “re-evaluate existing policies, standards,
and protocols, including requirements for outsourcing DNA analysis to private
laboratories and review of their results by public law enforcement laboratories”

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that ALEC supports revised policies
that ensure continued quality in forensic science while holding public and private
lab DNA analysis to the same standards, auditing, and review process.

Adopted by the Public Safety and Elections Task Force at the Annual Meeting,
August 7, 2010. Approved by the ALEC Board of Directors, September 19, 2010.

Related Files

ALEC Resolution on DNA Testing Standards (Microsoft Word Document)

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News

This Resolution supports the use of private labs in DNA analysis and forensic testing (as opposed to using public labs).
Private labs have come under fire for mistakes or losing DNA, and many states have been moving towards testing DNA
in-house as DNA banks are created for felons. Another argument for public labs is that their costs will come down as the
technology continues to evolve, expanding the ability of law enforcement to use DNA testing without straining their
budget. By outsourcing testing to private labs, the price of DNA testing may remain high and cannot be utilized in as
many cases. The outsourcing requires taxpayers to subsidize CEO pay and profits that would not be required if the
testing were conducted by publicly owned labs.