LIKE Damian Green MP, I’m having my own battle over the DNA database.
Hundreds of thousands of people not charged or convicted of any crime have nevertheless had their DNA taken by the police and stored, despite a European court ruling that “innocent” people’s DNA shouldn’t be held.
So here’s my problem: how do I persuade the police to store my DNA? Why should I, an “innocent” person, be denied the right to have my fingerprint and other personal data included in the national database with everyone else’s, “innocent” and guilty alike?
I feel like my civil liberties are being compromised the longer this outrage continues.
Very droll, but I'll tell him why he should be concerned. Ronald Reagan (not for the first time) put it best when he said that the most dangerous words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I am here to help". We should always question any expansion of the power of the state. Just because the forces of government say something is necessary, we shouldn't do what Tom invariably does and say, OK, you've taken away another one of my hard won freedoms, would you like this one over here too?". We should fight for our privacy, protect our civil liberties and resist any attempt to store further information on unwanted and hugely expensive government databases.
One of the reasons I always wanted to go into politics was to try to protect people from big government. It looks like that fight is far from won. Labour used to revel in its reputation as the party of civil liberties. That reputation has been shot to bits. And Tom Harris delights in pulling the trigger.
70 comments:
As between the state holding a copy of my DNA and Cameron piling tax on cheap, refreshing beer I go against the Chameleon myself . . .
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2009/08/four-cans-of-lager-tax/
What is it with Tories being so devoid of a sense of humour? Do only non-Tories know when someone is pulling their leg?!
Crikey!
Magic Bath, no you don't get it. He really believes it. He really thinks we should all have our DNA on a database? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear etc.
The reason for all of this is the pressure on police to perform in terms of nunmbers of crimes solved. So DNA has become the latest fix. Its easy, relatively cheap to sample and takes little or no effort in investigation.
The problem is of course that this lazy approach actually undermines its usefulness. In most cases (perhaps rape excluded) all DNA does is establish a link between suspect and scene or victim. What that link was and when it was needs to be explored and evidenced.
Some senior officers now see it as a panacea. If they could sample everyone at birth they would and then sit back and watch the detections flood in (while the right to privacy flows out). And its not just the rights of suspects we are talking about now. Ever volunteered your DNA for elimination purposes in an investigation that is still live? Its probably still in the database years later.
On the other hand DNA may be critically important in tracing rapists, connecting serial rapists and murderes and solving some very serious crime. So we need a balance. Some DNA samples should be kept but other shouldnt. The problem is that the statist NuLabour culture and the revolving door of the Home Office has meant that no intellectual effort has been applied to this.
Yes, its another NuLAbour mess.
I think Tom Harris should go down to his nearest nick and get his DNA sampled.
While he's at it he should also get an anal probe too, I suggest they use a traffic cone.
Iain, I'd have thought that you of all people would know when Tom is trying to wind people up by saying something he doesn't mean. It's called a joke, and you fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Do you really, truly believe Tom meant every word he said?
Magic Bath, he has written about this in the past and really does believe that it is right to store innocent people's DNA.
Difference between your blogs & Tom Harris's is, Tom has an wicked sense of humour.
Pity you don't get the joke.
BTW. I'm a Tory, am innocent of any crime but plods have my DNA.
Iain, maybe he does believe that, but are you telling me that you cannot, after Tom's many many light-hearted pull-your-leg blogposts, see that he's trying to wind his opponents up?
The title of Tom's blogpost blatantly gives it away!
Magic, Indeed so, and it's amusingly written - he's excellent at that - but it can't mask his latent authoritarianism.
Nice deflection, Iain! :-)
Actually he CAN get the police to store his DNA if he gives a sample voluntarily - Blair did in 1999. Blair is one of about 50,000 people who have done so.
I'd say Watson'spost hits the leftie blogging trifecta, being ignorant, unfunny and ultimately offensive.
Very droll
No, it really wasn't. It was puerile, sophomoric and condescending and proved, if proof were needed, that Tom Harris, like most other members of his party, is completely out of touch not only with the British public but with common decency and the foundation of presumed innocence upon which the British legal system is founded.
but I'll tell him why he should be concerned.
No, you'll try to tell him but he won't get it. If he were capable of understanding the points you're making, he wouldn't be in the Labour Party in the first place. To be a socialist is ipso facto to put faith in the state before the public, to put loyalty to the state before loyalty to anyone or anything else; it is to distrust the public as fundamentally imbecilic and in need of salvation.
You must have read Marx, Dale. You must have read Bevan and all the other High Saints of Labour. You certainly must have read Brown's inane literary offerings. You're also old enough to remember Labour under Michael Foot, Labour in the 1970s, Labour when it wrecked this country last time. You must, therefore, be familiar with exactly the mindset I'm talking about - the mindset of Tom Harris.
We should always question any expansion of the power of the state.
Not if you believe, with all the conviction of a religious fundamentalist, that the power of the state is always a good thing and that constant expansion of state power is absolutely necessary to achieve your ideological and political goals. "We" do not question the expansion of state power; those who are not on the left question the expansion of state power while those on the left fight tooth and nail for the expansion of state power.
Expecting Tom Harris to reject authoritarianism is as laughable a concept as giving PETA brochures and lectures on vegetarianism to a Great White Shark.
Just because the forces of government say something is necessary, we shouldn't do what Tom invariably does and say, OK, you've taken away another one of my hard won freedoms, would you like this one over here too?".
Actually, if you're in the Labour Party, or any other left-wing party, that is exactly what you do and you do it with a song in your heart because you know that the Socialist vision can only be realised when the state has enough power to make it happen in spite of the resistance of the majority.
We should fight for our privacy, protect our civil liberties and resist any attempt to store further information on unwanted and hugely expensive government databases.
That very much depends. There are people out there who read 1984 and get a warm fuzzy feeling from it, either because they fantasise about being Big Brother or because they think that slavery is a small price to pay for a cradle-to-grave system of benefit. Most of these people are in the Labour Party, though lately a fair number of them have appeared in the Greens.
Interesting to compare what's going on with the Republicans in the States with here...
"The GOP is becoming a Nationalist / nativist / reactionary party that would institute an Authoritarian hegemony in the name of defending freedom and individual liberty. Sound familiar?
But that's how Nationalist movements insidiously evolve into autocracy.
There has to be an "Other." Check. ... Read more
Need to undermine the legitimacy of existing orderly institutions like the Federal Gov't and the Constitution. Check.
Claim that the perversions by the "Other" have permanently undermined the legitimacy of the "Republic" and its structure (Federal Gov't). Check.
Need a persistent external "threat" that requires a measure of control and secrecy among the Power Elite (that would the "War on Terror" and "Tribunals" and "CIA Prisons" and "Rendition" and "Gitmo" and "Warrantless Wiretapping" and "Blackwater"). Check.
Need to splinter the populace so that neighbour turns against neighbour by insistently demonizing them. Check."
The GOP are imploding a bit like Labour are imploding.
However, I worry about the Tories... DC gets it but the rest of his party are dubious...
My civil liberties are fine, even when MI whomever took my name and address on a CND march in 1961/2 I was quite happy, apart from the waste of time and resources.
My Thatcherite MP in the '80s was of a like mind, though no doubt he wished other malcontents who favoured the miners' strike followed closely, as many were.
The principal cost of the DNA database is actually obtaining and recording the details of a DNA sample.
If some weird conspiracy wished to implicate Sir Iain Dale in some crime using his DNA they would likely nick his sand wedge and go from there.
Saying "Civil Liberties" is NOT a sound reason for ceasing such recording, or storing of such records.
I await details of any misuse of CCTV cameras run by local authorities or HMG, let alone of DNA samples.
This challenge was met by a lady of somewhat BNP sympathies by a court case re some people who were being prosecuted for illegally making a "charitable" collection in Newcastle, all on CCTV it seems.
The disgrace had nothing to do with collecting the evidence surely?
One of the reasons I always wanted to go into politics was to try to protect people from big government. It looks like that fight is far from won.
Far from won?!? Under Labour, battlers against big government are sliding backwards in the mud faster than Usain Bolt can run forwards.
Mandy says there was no deal.Confirmation if ever it were needed.
Did he ever get his hands on the Strathclyde Passenger Transport database???
Oh, you might tell Anon that the Great British public, who live here in the UK, favour CCTV cameras, and ID cards, and would probably be happy to let their DNA samples be retained if these had been taken in the process of clearing them of being implicated in a a crime.
When it is clear that people who call themselves "libertarians" have been trying to stoke the odds in favour of criminals, illegal immigrants and heaven knows whom else we shall find more support for the REAL Civil Liberties of those of us who oppose the law breakers.
How embarrassing it was for the same Left to find Kelvin MacKenzie opposing the scunner Dave Davies in his suicidal by-election, what a shame he dropped out and didn't stand, he would have won.
Will Dave give a commitment to force the association of chief police officers (another unelected interfering body) to destroy all the DNA files of innocent members of the public?
Iain, can you please explain how the police keeping a record of your DNA makes you less free? In a practical manner, i.e. without reference to abstract principles. I would be interested to hear.
heh ..then the government is short of cash , I know sez Gordon "lets sell Toms, and everyone one elses DNA profile to a third party ,no harm done... eh!" ...easy money, Pay for my next relaunch pro labour junk mail drop .Just to prove that I saved the world....again..!"
Third party takes bids to sell the database ..1 year later...to avoid bankruptcy , It sells to the highest bidder.
Tom then finds he mysteriously can no longer get cheap health insurance .... because he is genetically susceptible to Neurofibromatosis (He didn't know )
and its specifically excluded in the more expensive one that he does get , also no late stage dementia cover either .
This is a worry as his Father gets nailed for higher costs on renewal too , and he is starting to dribble. DNA not needed.
Any future female progeny will also be excluded from breast cancer cover too ... DNA not needed .
His brother gets done for a burglary committed 10 years ago .
Tom sez "stuff this , even though I cannot get travel health insurance outside the Euro zone, I'm going on holiday"
Lying in bed in a posh hotel in Delhi , he gets gassed in his sleep . Mercenary surgeons have matched his DNA profile to a Texan diabetic billionaire who will pay top dollar for a kidney match.
Tom wakes up in his blood soaked bed two days later with yellow skin and a badly stitched wound in his back , He is one kidney short (already arrived in texas, iced, by fed-ex and installed , Texan goes back on the piss in anticipation for the next one )
Calls the police and an ambulance , Delhi police don't want to know..Happens all the time to British citizens . "Claim off your health insurance for missing personal property" , and give him a crime number .
Tom then finds out that he is not covered for organ theft as he was negligent in sleeping in a non EU hotel without his door being triple deadlocked .
Has to pay for the medical cover home and hospital charges plus wasting police time .
On arrival he finds that he has been de selected by his party as members with one kidney are too susceptible to taking to much time off work and he would not be able to properly meet the needs of his constituents.(Nu labour new rule red book subsection 94 para 3)
Goes on to befits to make ends meet . Half of the health related ones are not applicable .Now really short of cash , and Gordons 30p in the £ (devalued )tax from the last budget is really screwing him .
Sells one of his legs to the MOD for £10K (the going rate ) for a matched ex snatch driver returning from Afghanistan .To pay for the last winters gas bill otherwise he will be kicked out on the street under the "" SAY NO" to benefit scroungers Nu labour social reponsibility act" ! (instigated by the IMF 2010 )
In his final memoirs posted on the internet . (downloaded by 3 bots, google, and two people ,total revenue €0.8 minus 37%VAT) before he committed suicide on the NHS assisted guillotine scheme.
(50% discount for the unemployed
Quick ,instant, and guaranteed MRSA free.You know it makes sense !)
He stated that he wishes that he hadn't voted for the DNA bill ....as he now realises that he didn't have a leg to stand on .
I'm quite tempted to give Tom a sample of my DNA through his letterbox
Do you have a crush on Tom Harris? You always talk about him!
Dear -apple
Greater Manchester police have just arrested 450 people in dawn raids - all related to drink induced violence.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Greater-Manchester-Police-Carry-Out-Dawn-Raids-Over-Drink-Related-Crimes-More-Than-300-Arrests-Made/Article/200908315365925?f=rss
"All too frequently, alcohol is a major cause of aggression and results in innocent people being subjected to violent and unprovoked assaults."
In 2000, Tony Blair announced that the DNA Expansion Programme would include "virtually the entire active criminal population"—an estimated 3 million people—by 2004.
Shock horror we still have crimes being committed.
"Keeping DNA profiles from unconvicted people on the Database has not helped to solve more crimes: the proportion of recorded crimes detected using DNA has not increased in the last 5 years, despite 2 million more people’s records being kept."
"Most people whose names are sent from the Database to the police in ‘match reports’ are not subsequently convicted of any crime: for example, they may have been at the crime scene earlier in the day, or the match may be a false one."
"All Police National Computer records are now kept permanently, linked to the National DNA Database.
Information contained in these records may be used to refuse someone a visa or a job, even if they have never been convicted of a crime. The retention of permanent records of arrest is unprecedented in British history."
"The National DNA Database Annual Report 2005/06 states that between May 2001 and April 2006, 50,434 matches with crime scene profiles, or 27.6% of the total number of match reports, involved a list of potential suspects, not a single suspect, being given to the police, because matches with multiple records on the Database were made."
see
http://reclaimyourdna.org/further-information/ten-myths-about-the-national-dna-database/
Labour are a bunch of authoritarian bastards. They don't make me laugh any more than the numtpy moaners on this thread do.
Magic Bath, read this:
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2008/02/lib-dem-mp-sarah-teather-and-the-dna-database/
"The Steve Wright verdict this week demonstrates that with the right safeguards, a DNA database will make this country a safer place to live." Tom Watson - February 29th, 2008
DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show
New York Times article
If the state wanted to it could implicate anyone in a crime. This is fiction or conspiracy it is real and readily achievable. All it takes is a government as corrupt as New Labour's to collect DNA.
@quietzapple
"The principal cost of the DNA database is actually obtaining and recording the details of a DNA sample."
Bollocks.
The principal cost of the dna database is/would be using it for SOC searches. And THIS is why the ratio of Scene of Crime searches to crimes is so abysmally low.
Try asking the investigating officer (if you can actually locate him) of your burglary for dna samples to be taken. Remember, burglary is one of those crimes with a significant probability of being down to a serial offender.
All the effort&money is going into constructing a comprehensive database. The rules mean the innocent are deliberately included. Usage for "prevention and detection of crime" is secondary
Wonder why.
As calais agreed;
"All the effort&money is going into constructing a comprehensive database."
Objecting to the cost of catching people for serious crimes seems slightly perverse.
Catching them may well be a little authoritarian. Tough, I suppose.
Well really - what is the downside?
Evil state has my DNA and it infringes my freedom by? Knowing about some very complicated DNA info? And in my day to day life this affects me how?
Upside? we easily identify lots of criminals and put them in prison? (Or at least it gives us a massive head start in investigations)
If you really want to be upset by big Government there must be better things to be angry about? It always feels like people complaining about this have read too many science fiction films.
NYTimes - DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html
Still so confident in DNA evidence and the usefullness of a database in catching the "culprit"?
See, you're right, and he's wrong. But his piece is witty and yours is vague, cliched and pompous.
Sorry Iainn but I think Tom Harris agrees with you and Damian Greene you may need to re read it.
I have to admit I was a little surprised when the government extended the DNA and fingerprint databases to include all persons arrested for an offence, given how stringent the rules were in "the old days". But I consider myself pretty Libertarian generally and I really can't see why there is such an objection to the database. Fingerprints and DNA profiles are just another form of information. Are we saying that a person arrested and not convicted should have the fact of their arrest deleted from the record book? What about Ian Huntley? Did his "innocence" mean that the allegations of sexual abuse against him should have been deleted? (yes I know the police ballsed them up anyway). Removing 850,000 profiles from the database would have very little effect on anyone or anything other than a few dozen cases a year being unsolved when they were previously solved. The problem is, if one of those cases was the rape and murder of YOUR child, how would that make you feel?
Seb Smith, out of curiosity, is your DNA on the data base? If not why not? Your such a fan of it, go and volunteer it.
@ Quietzapple
"Objecting to the cost of catching people for serious crimes seems slightly perverse."
Yes. That why the 2nd half of the para you quoted has me saying "Usage for "prevention and detection of crime" is secondary".
You appear to be thick as well as a Nazi-licker.
Let me spell it out for you:
The dna database is not used for the "prevention and detection of crime" in a meaningful sense because there is insufficient money to do so. The allocated money is spent on making the database bigger*. The money allocation and priority is a central government decison by the Home office under the political direction of znl.
* This apart, from being blatantly racist, actually makes it LESS effective as a police tool ( cf Jeffreys - inventer of dna profiling and its limits).
poor, p poor calais, his tongue swishing about, urgently seeking some orifice or another . . .
People have already been caught by virtue of it being found that the original "criminal" was innocent and further investigation being successful.
Sad you are so bitter: Let 'em go, let 'em go, let 'em go?
is this what upset you?
http://britishnaziparty.blogspot.com/
DNA assists a quick ID in case of an accident , disaster, or mislaid body pieces. I would have no problem if I were toothless!
We have our irises scanned at airports, what is the difference?
"One of the reasons I always wanted to go into politics was to try to protect people from big government."
The people of North Norfolk rejected you at the last election in 2005 because you were a poor candidate who did not seem to understand politics at all - locally and nationally.
I think Norman Lamb was able to protect people from big government and the electorate decided he was better person to do that than yourself.
I thought you were a very poor candidate to defend individuals against as you put it "big government."
Quietzapple the racist.
your repeated support for a system that criminalises 1 in 2 black men and 1 in 10 white men is noted.
Hundreds of thousands of these people were never even charged never mind tried and found innocent.
All of them now fail a CRB check and suffer job discrimination.
ZNL is the racist party.
Quietzapple is a racist.
Those who think that the Labour Party has much in common with the Zanu Party are a bit touched . .
. . .But very affected . .
Some are rather well covered here:
http://britishnaziparty.blogspot.com/
Still true that the National DNA database will help catch and help free many people in time, and the civil liberties of many will be enhanced by the application of such science.
I wonder if we shall catch any race criminals - Islamo-fascists and their equally weird enemies?
Pitt the younger springs to mind:
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
Jako said: Iain, can you please explain how the police keeping a record of your DNA makes you less free? In a practical manner, i.e. without reference to abstract principles. I would be interested to hear.
How's this for size: lets say the entire nation is now on the DNA database. A burglary is done in Bristol, a town about 40 mins drive from me. A piece of hair is found at the scene, tested and matches my DNA. It also happens that I visited Bristol that day to watch the cricket. My car is caught on cameras coming into the city and leaving later that day.
I am therefore placed at the scene of the crime, and I am comfirmed as to being in the area by the cameras. Looks pretty much an open and shut case.
But whats this? As I was early for the cricket I wandered down to the nearest barbers and got my hair cut. The next customer grabbed a bit of my greying locks off the floor and purposely left it at the scene of the burglary he committed that afternoon.
What are the odds I can convince the local plod I'm not a travelling burglar? I am going to have to spend much time and money proving I'm innocent rather than the plods proving I did it. Just having the DNA will be enough to put you in the frame, and if you happen to be in the locality you suddenly become number one suspect. The police will have little time for any other enquiries, as far as they are concerned you are bang to rights.
Given the amount of DNA we shed all over the place, how do you fancy your chances of convincing the police you didn't do something, if your DNA somehow turns up at the scene? Odds are in any large city that at some point you will leave DNA in a location where a crime is then committed, or criminals will start using decoy DNA samples to muddy the waters. Still think its only the guilty who will end up in jail this way?
Related to the role of the state in people's lives is an old quote from Ronald Reagan :
"Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it Keeps moving regulate it . And if it stops moving subsidize it."
This may be of interest.
Sobers, thanks for replying to my question. I appreciate that DNA-led policing could lead to mistakes being made in investigations.
However, I'm far from convinced that this should automatically rule out a national DNA database (or indeed that the debate over the issue should be framed in terms of being 'pro' or 'anti' civil liberties).
The police could misinterpret all kinds of evidence (and sometimes do) without DNA. The scenario of you presented of crooks 'setting you up' would still be possible with more old-fashioned techniques.
The police would not suddenly forget all the rules of investigating crimes (looking for suspects with means, motivations, past criminal history, etc) just because a DNA database makes it easier to pinpoint who may have been present at the scene of a crime.
It seems there is a lot of paranoid scaremongering and needless civil liberties-posturing over police usage of DNA. I'm not convinced that the benefits that could be brought to policing through a national DNA database on which everyone is present are outweighed by dangers of miscarriages of justice or 'Big Brother'.
I'm still waiting to hear more convincing arguments...
@Quietzapple the racist.
You continue your support for a system that criminalises 1 in 2 black men and 1 in 10 white men.
You support job descrimination based on skin colour for hundreds of thousands of innocent British citizens..
But let's explore a little further:
How do you feel about Jewish people? Should they be dna'ed disproportionately? Perhaps they make you 'uneasy' too.
Come on Quitz, you little labourite, let it out. You know you'll feel better..
Iain, the only way you would convince someone like Tom Harris of the folly of his authoritarian is to point out the truth, but I fear it would be as unpalatable to you as it would be to him.
Fact is, Labour Governments aggregate these powers to state but fail to use them effectively, for fear of being labelled anti-civil liberties. The Tory Party invariably rails against it, but manages to come into office and use those powers properly.
I sincerely hope some situation arises under the next Tory Government where Harris acts the martyr in a cold police station waiting room, where he is prodded and photographed and swabbed, just to show him the idiocy of his faith in the merciful bounty of the agents of the state.
Police Chief Constables are disobeying the ruling in part because ACPO has advised them to do so.
ACPO? Oh yes, that PRIVATE COMPANY that is BEYOND the remit of FOI requests which is formed, run by and for the very Chief Constables it is now "advising".
So our Chief Constables are hiding behind a fig leaf of their own weaving.
Can someone please remind them why they are there, who pays their wages and the concept of "overstepping ones bounds"?
@Sobers,
Trust me, you need to spend more time sitting in English courtrooms. We do not secure convictions on such flimsy evidence. The jury would have the case put to them by your barrister in exactly the terms you describe and you would be acquitted (in fact, it wouldn't have got to court in the first place). Also, what you are forgetting is that if EVERYONE's DNA was on the database there is a very good chance that the real culprit's DNA would turn up as well as yours, and as he would probably be some local druggie there is very little chance you would be the main suspect. Trust me on this. I know.
@ Jako
First, I don't want my DNA on a national database - I haven't committed any crime.
Second, this government have a predilection for selling on information; I do not want my DNA info sold on to insurance companies etc.
@ Neil A
"Trust me on this, I know" - what the F????
What do you know?
Qualify please.
Poor, p poor calais . . .
http://britishnaziparty.blogspot.com/
Is your obsession because you are a racist? See above, come to a better personal understanding . . .
As http://www.lordtobyharris.org.uk/damian-green-claims-a-dna-victory-but-the-tories-should-be-careful-what-they-wish-for/#comments puts it:
' It would be a delicious irony, although it is no doubt a very remote prospect, that in a few years time Damian Green will be a Home Office Minister (that is the remote bit) and will have to stand up in the House of Commons to defend the failures of the police to catch someone at long last convicted of a series of revolting and violent crimes, who would have been caught much earlier had the DNA taken, when he was arrested (but not charged) some years before for an unrelated issue, been retained. No doubt, he will reiterate that the destruction of that individual’s DNA data was also ”a significant victory for freedom”. '
"Jako said: Iain, can you please explain how the police keeping a record of your DNA makes you less free?"
Because we don't want to give it and want the choice over whether or not we're on a database?
@Mike Law,
By "I know" I simply meant that I have taken many, many cases to court and I have a good understanding of what level of evidence is required and how difficult a frameup actually is.
Could I legally refuse to submit to a dna test. Obviously, in the case of a serious crime I could see where iy is necessary to prove my innocence (not that I'm contemplating committing any crime) but what if in Labour's last few months in power they introduce a plan to stunt Cameron's popularity and ban being awesome in public. Then I'm strutting down the street, I see some girls who've just been to collect their A-level results.
'Hey Uncle Bob...', they say.
'...You're so awesome it's made us feel all faint...and a little moist!'
'You're damn right girls...', I reply.
'...why don't you all swing by my place later and we can all have a party to celebrate you all getting 80 A*'s at A-levels.
'Uncle Bob, you're the best!'
'I know girls, you're not so shabby yourselves.'
At that point a policeman will walk out of a doorway and say :-
'I hate to do this to such a cool guy, but I'm afraid I'm going to take you down to the station, you see, you're just too damned awesome!'
'Not a problem officer, you've got me bang to rights, it's a fair cop guv!'
Now in the station the PC asks me to stick a cotton swab in my mouth. I refuse as I don't want my awesomeness to be diluted by being on a list full of ordinairy people. The question is, do I have any legal recourse to refuse?
Ponder that for a moment
@Neil A: So you are saying that I would be the prime suspect, with the possibility of it going to court, and the possibility that I could be convicted?
Great. Thanks to the DNA database I'm going to be put through the wringer for something I didn't do.
Basically the DNA database will reverse the burden of proof. We will all have to prove that we didn't do a crime (if our DNA turns up at the scene) rather than the State prove we did. If you fancy being hauled hundreds of miles from your home to deal with the local plod who think you did some crime, go ahead. Join the DNA database. Just don't force me to be part of it too.
And if you think the police are going to do 'thorough' investigations once they have the DNA database you need your head examining. Once they get a bit of DNA that will be it. Job done, move on to the next one. Nice and easy. Let the poor sod whose DNA it is try and prove it wasn't him.
Also once you have the DNA database and crime solving starts to use it more and more, surely any criminal worth his salt will just start using decoy DNA? If you can leave several people's DNA at a crime scene, who would have no connection to it, then chances are you'll get off scot free. Because you can't prove which one did the crime.
"Labour used to revel in its reputation as the party of civil liberties."
Don't go confusing the Labour Party with it's fascist successor.
"Labour used to revel in its reputation as the party of civil liberties."
Don't go confusing the Labour Party with it's fascist nulab successor.
@ Neil A,
Born and live in east London (very near to Iain hallowed Upton Park stadium).
I know scores of "duckers and divers" who admit that the they have broken the law from time-to-time and have been caught; for the most part they put their hands up and take it on the chin. Yet a good number of those have at least one story about how they were fitted up.
Now I'm not saying they are telling the truth in every instance, but there is a good probability that some of these stories are true.
Furthermore I would hate to think that the use of a DNA database might be (at some point in the future) afforded to local authorities and other bodies (as is the use of telecoms info now).
Here in Newham there was an attempt by the current Labour regime to set up its own mini police force (Newham Community Constabulary - much documented in Private Eye). I know a hell of a lot about the kind of nonsense they got up to and I shudder to think what might have happened if they had access to a DNA database.
@Quietzapple the labourite racist.
I see you have run out of arguement.
That was easy.
Could be that Mr. Harris is keen for the incoming administration to be able to fit him up for , say a rape. see "The Register", 18 August 2009
Since DNA can be cloned the possibilities for fraud - as well as people being "fitted up" are enormous.
The way the Labour party has gone (did you see the terrible way some women were treated by the state's agents on a C4 TV prog on single mothers recently?) I can see a new one needing to be formed. The Adam Smith approach to life (fondly embraced by New Labour) brought aboutthe first one.
tankus: all that is kept is a DNA profile taken from a few particular non-coding parts of the DNA - that is, bits that don't actually do anything. A physical sample used to be kept, too, but those are now being destroyed (and about time too, as they were entirely pointless). It is simply not possible to take the handful of markers on the DNA profile and turn them into any information about the person's health or anything else about them, except for familial connections.
You only need read one word of Tom Harris on this subject to condemn him - not even a word, in fact but the punctuation surrounding it: '"innocent"'. Those scare-quotes clearly indicate that he takes the Home Office line: if you are arrested at all, then you are guilty of being in the way of the authorities, and while they just haven't got enough to convict you of something this time because of the inconvenient obstruction put in their way by the rule of law, then it should be made clear to you that you will be on the list and it should be easier next time.
@Tom (August 24, 2009 11:10 AM)
"A physical sample used to be kept, too, but those are now being destroyed "
These are kept, at least partly, to (legally) prove the profile was a valid sample. There was also fanfare from acpo sources that this would in due course facilitate analysis of "criminal dna" : presumably on some theory of inheritable criminal characteristics.
Do you have a link confirming deletion is now national policy?
How do I go about getting my name off the fingerprint database? Someone could steal my thumb, go and commit a crime and then stitch my thumb back on, anmd I'd be sent to prison for eleventy eight years!!!!
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