A seemingly harmless drink of water inside a police interrogation room could surrender the most intimate blueprint of your body.
Civil liberties groups have issued an urgent warning over a tactic allegedly used by officers to collect DNA without obtaining a warrant or asking permission.
The warning emerged in a federal court battle over New York City‘s ‘Suspect Index,’ a DNA database containing more than 34,000 searchable profiles.
The index allegedly includes children, people never charged with crimes and individuals who were acquitted, exonerated or explicitly ruled out as suspects.
According to court filings, officers allegedly bring people into specially prepared interview rooms and encourage them to drink from a cup, bottle or straw, or offer them a cigarette, before retrieving the discarded item for DNA.
Plaintiff Shakira Leslie claims detectives obtained her genetic material from a cup after holding her for approximately seven hours and repeatedly encouraging her to drink.
The American Civil Liberties Union, New York Civil Liberties Union and Cato Institute argue that extracting and storing this DNA without a warrant amounts to an unreasonable search and that the city had no authority under New York law to create the separate index.
Their warning reaches beyond New York because every American constantly leaves DNA containing intensely private information on drinking glasses, tissues, cigarette butts and virtually everything they touch.
Civil liberties groups have issued an urgent warning over a tactic allegedly used by officers to collect DNA without obtaining a warrant or asking permission
The NYC Law Department and Office of Chief Medical Examiner declined to provide comment. The Daily Mail has also reached out to the New York Police Department (NYPD).
A spokesman for the NYPD, Sgt Edward Riley, said in a previous statement about the lawsuit that DNA collection is among the best practices of law enforcement.
The three organizations filed a supporting brief of Leslie with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on July 30, asking it to reverse a March 2026 ruling from the Southern District of New York.
The federal district court ruled against Leslie after accepting the city’s argument that she had abandoned any privacy interest in the DNA left on the cup.
The judge also relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Maryland v King, which permitted police to collect DNA through a cheek swab as part of the routine booking process for someone arrested on a serious charge.
However, Leslie’s supporters argue that the two cases are fundamentally different because her DNA was allegedly obtained through a secret ruse rather than a disclosed, legally regulated booking procedure.
They are asking the Second Circuit to reverse the ruling and find that collecting, analyzing and repeatedly searching her genetic profile required a warrant.
The case, Leslie v City of New York, was brought by The Legal Aid Society as a proposed class action challenging the city’s DNA collection program.
At its center are two questions: whether secretly extracting DNA amounts to an unreasonable search and whether New York City could establish a database outside the state’s regulated system.
According to court filings, officers allegedly bring people into specially prepared interview rooms and encourage them to drink from a cup, bottle or straw, or offer them a cigarette, before retrieving the discarded item for DNA
The groups argue that retrieving a discarded cup is legally different from extracting its DNA and placing the resulting profile in an index where it can be compared with evidence from past and future crimes.
In July 2019, Leslie, then 23, was riding in the back of a friend’s car when NYPD officers stopped it for an alleged traffic violation.
Police discovered a gun in a fanny pack belonging to the front-seat passenger but arrested everyone inside and charged Leslie with possessing the weapon, according to the lawsuit.
No contraband was allegedly found on Leslie. She was never indicted, and all charges were eventually dismissed.
After spending hours without food or water at the precinct, Leslie was taken into an interrogation room allegedly cleaned and prepared to capture her genetic material.
She initially refused a drink but relented after a detective allegedly told her ‘it would be some time before she had another opportunity to drink,’ according to the lawsuit.
After Leslie took a sip from a government-provided cup, the officer allegedly instructed her to keep drinking.
The lawsuit claims that she was then escorted away in handcuffs, preventing her from taking the cup. Police allegedly returned to retrieve it and extract the DNA deposited in her saliva.
The city has argued that Leslie abandoned any privacy interest in her DNA when she left the disposable cup behind.
A district court agreed that Leslie, like everyone who inevitably sheds DNA during everyday activities, had not asserted a privacy interest in the genetic material.
The federal district court ruled against Leslie after accepting the city’s argument that she had abandoned any privacy interest in the DNA left on the cup
But civil liberties attorneys argue Leslie did not voluntarily abandon the cup because police allegedly supplied it as a ruse and then led her away in restraints.
They contend that collecting the cup, extracting its DNA and repeatedly searching the resulting profile were separate Fourth Amendment events requiring legal justification.
‘The government cannot treat our DNA like it treats our garbage, and seize, search, and store it without a warrant,’ said Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
‘Usually we rely on hypotheticals to highlight the dystopian possibilities of this kind of privacy invasion, but no hypothetical could be more troubling than New York City’s actual practice: amassing thousands of people’s DNA without their knowledge, their consent, or any court-ordered or legislative guardrails.
‘If the Second Circuit does not intervene, all I can say is: New Yorkers, hold on to your trash.’
DNA is deposited automatically through saliva, sweat, skin cells and hair, making it virtually impossible to move through daily life without leaving a genetic trail.
Although forensic profiles are commonly used to identify people or compare suspects with crime-scene evidence, the original biological samples can contain far more information.
DNA can reveal ancestry, biological relationships and potential predispositions to certain diseases. Genetic analysis could also expose unknown adoptions or misattributed paternity, the brief warned.
The lawsuit separately argues that the Suspect Index violates state law.
New York’s official DNA databank restricts who can be included, how genetic information may be used and when records must be removed. The state system generally requires conviction for a qualifying crime before a profile can be added.
The challengers claim no law authorizes New York City to maintain a separate index containing people who were merely questioned, never convicted or eliminated as suspects.
The city’s database, maintained by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, contains 34,872 searchable profiles, according to figures cited in the brief.
The lawsuit alleges samples have also been taken from minors and people brought in merely for questioning.
In one case cited by the groups, detectives allegedly gave a 12-year-old boy a soda and later used DNA from the discarded container to place his profile in the database.
The brief also claims the collection methods have disproportionately targeted Black and Hispanic New Yorkers.
‘For more than a decade, the NYPD has been operating a rogue DNA database not authorized by law,’ said Beth Haroules, director of disability justice litigation at the NYCLU.
‘No New Yorker should have their DNA taken illegally and stored in a secret database. This destructive practice disproportionately targets Black and brown New Yorkers and violates our Fourth Amendment rights. No court should allow this intrusion on our privacy.’
The city relies in part on prior rulings permitting DNA collection from certain arrested or convicted individuals.
However, the groups argue those cases involved legally regulated programs with safeguards governing whose DNA could be taken, how it could be used and when it must be destroyed.
They contend the Suspect Index lacks comparable restrictions and could continue expanding if the lower court’s ruling stands.
The Second Circuit has not yet decided whether the collection, analysis and storage of Leslie’s DNA violated the Constitution.
The accusations remain contested claims rather than a judicial finding that the NYPD acted unlawfully.
