mike[space] dot net

All UK 'must be on DNA database'

The comments by Lord Justice Sedley are a classic example of why it's important to fight for the principles of civil liberties and freedoms earlier rather than later. IIRC there were debates about the ethics of keeping innocent or acquited peoples' DNA on file. Now scope of the argument has shifted beyond this to be that we should be keeping everybody on file. Allow this to happen, and another 5 years down the line people will be arguing that you should provide a DNA sample to enter public buildings. 10 years further down the line and we'll be profiling our children, and only allowing people into parks if they have been recorded as paying their council tax and voting for the right party. Eventually you'll only be allowed to have a job if you're dna matches a profile captured from your grandparents, and you don't have some kind of genetic deficiency that makes you more vulnerable to heart disease.

We've seen it happen with the congestion charge cameras and we've seen it happen with anti-terror laws preventing legitimate protest. Successive governments have done nothing to protect our society from increasingly invasive laws developed in a panic and vulnerable to exploitation. Maybe at some point we'll all wake up and stop this kind of thing happening, but when unprecedented levels of protest still fail to prevent us from going to war - what possible route does the ordinary person have?