Re: Last night's Panorama - totally one-sided

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 09:59:44 +0100, MM wrote:

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:00:10 -0700, Mel Rowing
<mel.rowing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

...yada yada yada snip snip snip...

...... need I go on?

No, because most of that information is held in disparate databases
that separately serve only ONE purpose.

I.e. access is limited to those who'd use the information for a specific
purpose. Except increasingly the government is breaking down both the
legal, institutional and technical barriers preventing sharing of data...,
the national identity scheme being a big part of that.

But surely you can conceive of a universal DNA database that's e.g. only
used for investigating crime (even if you're sceptical of it remaining
that way)? What would your objection to such a thing be?

The MOT, for example. A DNA
sample is much more personal as it relates directly to YOU, not your
vehicle, not your house.

Same can be said of a photograph of you.

You cannot possibly appreciate the sacrifice
made by millions of British and other nationalities over the past
century to preserve out freedom if you're so eager to relinquish it to
faceless bureaucrats, irresponsible politicians, and a vindictive and
malicious police force.

What freedom do you believe we sacrifice if a universal DNA database is
created? I.e. what precisely do you fear from such a thing?

I can assure you that your forefathers would
be screaming for your arrest as an enemy of the state were they still
around today.

Much of this information has, of course been collected for very sound
reasons. More has been collected with my full knowledge and consent
out of consideration of my personal convenience. Whatever the case,
anomnity which I believe is what you are calling privacy is impossible
in today's society. We have already both acquiesced and connived in
this process so why the fuss over this issue?

DNA offers tremendous opportunities with respect to crime detection.
It offers other facilities also. An ambiguous identity is one that is
easily assumed by another party.

"It offers other facilities also." Huh, even Tony Lake for ACPO on
yesterday's Radio 4 phone-in assured listeners that the DNA database
would NOT be used for "other facilities",

The public were once assured, and the law was even passed, that DNA
collected from those who volunteered, or were not charged or were
acquitted would be destroyed. The police kept those records, in breach of
the law at the time, and then the practice was made legal. Tony Lake won't
be the one deciding how the DNA database is used - our glorious government
will.

like insurance risk. So,
once again, you're only helping to spread more FUD.

I think you can justify removing a criminal's privacy in order to collect
DNA, but not that of an innocent person. It's simply a question of whether
you believe the state is somehow greater than the individual, or whether the
state is just a collectivity of autonomous individuals and must keep its
distance.

It doesn't boil down to that question at all.

My best defence with respect to the anxieties you suggest is that
nobody gives a damn about me.

Well, of course, because you're a good little citizen whose nose is
always clean and will never offer any dissent, even as the boot grinds
into your face, but others are not like you. Others view the elected
dictatorship we live under and will say anything (doing comes later)
in protest. My comment was read out on Radio 4 at the tail end of You
and Yours in which I said, Tony Lake can have my DNA over my dead
body, and not before. The programme editor witheld my surname, not
because I had requested that, but because of the atmosphere of fear
that is pervasive across Britain. Who knows, maybe the thought went,
just how vindictively the police might react to criticism? After all,
why are whistleblowers persecuted or driven to "suicide"?

Of course the bank manager might from
time to time want to know if my credit rating is good. The DSS might
want to know whether I qualify for the pension I am enjoying but
beyond their particular niche in society none of them could give a
toss really. It would be the same with this, unless my profile was
flagged up as worthy of closer examination by an automatic system,
then my record would never be accessed.

There is also a back stop decision. I have mentioned it before, we
live in a democracy.

No, we don't. That's just a myth. Germany is a democracy. Several
other countries are. But Britain with its antiquated system of
government is not far different from the Raj.

What do you say Germany has, that Britain lacks, the makes Germany a
democracy and Britain not?

James

.

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