[thinkcontext]

This would require a warrant, which requires a specific target, not a fishing expedition. The BTK serial killer was caught in similar fashion, police were able to get a warrant for his daughters Pap smear which was stored at a medical facility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader

[gojomo]

Is that your considered opinion as a legal expert on these matters?

Since proposition 69 (2004), and recently upheld by the Calfornia Supreme Court, California is taking and holding indefinitely DNA for everyone arrested for a felony, even if they're never charged or convicted:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-dna-supreme-cour...

So they get already get 'free look' (no warrant required) at the DNA of anyone alive, via an arrest, even if the charges are ultimately unsupportable. Do you expect a stronger protection would apply against stored records?

Further, the newborn blood spots are already in government custody. There's no essential requirement for any private 3rd party to produce them, against the holder's wishes. Why wouldn't a detective/prosecutor, perhaps emboldened by public opinion or some new Prop-69-like policy, to consider these blood spots 'abandoned' DNA, just like that acquired from this 'Golden State Killer' suspect after surveillance but without a specific warrant?

Is it unlikely that law enforcement would ever get a 'warrant to modern-sequence-all-the-spots', to solve some particularly heinous crime, then retain the data indefinitely, as they already do for other incidental collections? Sure, that sounds to me like a 'general warrant' that should be prohibited by the 4th amendment. But government keeps seeking – and often winning in court! – ever-broader database warrants. (See for example https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/1...)

Even the ~80 yes/no genetic disorders automatically tested for, and thus possibly kept in a digital database afterwards, might be enough 'bits' to narrowly pick a few suspects, or uniquely identify a single suspect, in some cases. Would the CA DOJ need a warrant to have a friend at the CA DPH run a SQL query on a database that may already be online?

Can you find any statement from the California Department of Publish Health that they would only release blood spot data to law enforcement with a warrant?

[thinkcontext]

IANAL but why would HIPPA not apply to these medical records?

[gojomo]

IANAL but from a quick review of some online authorities, maybe it'd apply. It might depend on exactly how the relevant agencies are classified – are they a health clinic themselves? The restrictions might be waiveable administratively for a popular cause, or violations might have no consequences when happening between chummy government agencies. (Who'll prosecute, and what effective penalties/remedies could be applied, if a governor/president commands coordination between two agencies under their control?) And given the trends in broad warrants, I'm not sure a future court wouldn't offer a warrant to sequence-all-the-spots and search for hits with some heinous criminals' samples.

[thinkcontext]

HIPPA expires 50 years after a person dies, perhaps in the future these cards will be sequenced and crimes with DNA can be narrowed down to descendants.

[gojomo]

Good point! This mass, automatic screening began in the late 1960s, so for any states that have retained most/all spots since then, millions of samples would become available for sequencing, despite any possible HIPPA limitations… right about now.