Addressing ‘Business Interests’ and the Funding Myth

Written by Mike Cariola, President & CEO, Bode Technology, and Co-Founder of FCJA

This is the 2nd article in response to the recent CFSO Position Paper opposing private laboratory access to CODIS. While the paper raises several concerns, many are without merit, and in some instances, misrepresent the proposed legislation (H.R. 7916).

The bill itself can be found here.

This paper addresses two specific claims: the supposed risk of private business interests and the claim that this bill would redistribute federal funds away from public labs.

I. Business Interests

The paper suggests that because private labs are businesses, they are inherently less trustworthy than government entities.

Specifically, they argue that:

1.      The operation and governance of CODIS are appropriately treated as core governmental functions. Public laboratories are not motivated by profit margins or financial investors and exist solely to protect the safety of the public and the integrity and security of the data.

2.      Public laboratories are not influenced by the pressures of competition within the industry that can lead to shortcuts in process and quality assurance and control.

To suggest that government employment is a shield against misconduct is historically inaccurate. Consider names like Robert Hanssen, Aldrich Ames, Edward Snowden, and Julius Rosenberg. These individuals, ranging from federal employees to contractors, were entrusted with some of the nation’s most sensitive security information. All compromised national security for various personal or financial motives.

Businesses and governmental organizations are neither inherently good nor bad. Ethics and integrity are built by individuals. Organizations, both government and corporate, are reflective of their people.

Regarding the concern that competition leads to shortcuts, it ignores the current utilization of the private sector by public labs and a key provision of the bill:

1.      Public laboratories already place a tremendous amount of confidence in private labs. Outsourcing of criminal casework by public labs has been common practice for over 25 years. If private labs were routinely taking shortcuts, public agencies would have ceased the practice long ago. You cannot simultaneously argue that a private lab is trustworthy and qualified to test the evidence and testify to it in court but is unqualified to enter the DNA profile into the CODIS database.

2.      Second, in the unlikely event that granting CODIS access to private labs results in an erosion of quality, the bill includes a safeguard, specifically that private labs must have been accredited for 5 consecutive years. This provision, which is not a requirement for public labs, is a powerful measure to ensure quality. Once gained, if a private lab were to lose CODIS access for more than 5 years, it would likely be a death blow.

II. The Threat to Federal Funding is a Mischaracterization of the Bill

The opening of the CFSO paper reads as follows:

The Consortium of Forensic Science Organizations (CFSO) opposes H.R.7916 or any legislation granting private laboratories direct access to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) or to redistribute federal government grants currently designated for public laboratory DNA purposes(emphasis added).

Let’s be clear: The bill seeks NO funding.

Existing grant programs such as CEBR and SAKI explicitly prohibit private laboratories from applying. We have been transparent from the start that we are not seeking any funding or redistribution of existing grant programs designated for public labs. We are seeking the ability to do our jobs more efficiently.

If anything, the bill protects public resources. By allowing private labs to upload directly, redundant work would be eliminated, allowing public labs to complete more casework (and perhaps even reducing the amount of casework that is outsourced).

Why has CFSO elected to mischaracterize the bill? We can only surmise that by framing it as a threat to funding, they hope to rally opposition. I encourage my colleagues and lab directors to read the actual text of the bill to form your own opinion.

Looking Ahead

In the meantime, I encourage lab directors to share their challenges with the CFSO, the FBI or directly with me. Regardless of the outcome of this bill, I am optimistic that this initiative has started a vital conversation about how we can improve forensic services in support of public safety.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn on April 9, 2026.