Lord Justice Sedley is said to be a judicial activist progressive and a rare judge in that he favours civil liberties. Nonetheless, in what can only be described as an unfortunate temporary simultaneous failure of critical thinking and common sense he has proposed that everyone in the UK be put on a DNA database.
Lifelong member of Liberty since the age of three, Victorian Maiden has chosen to roast dear little Shami for waxing polemical. A response of umbrage articulate sober & measured sophistry. Geeklawyer doesn’t feel able to be quite so mature or inexact.
When a system of universal surveillance is put in place which inevitably has the potential to devastate the interest of citizens & which reverses the assumption of innocence it is not even nearly good enough to say we cannot be certain anything bad will happen & that we must have proof of such damage before not doing it. Sadly the history of police and government databases provides ample evidence of the danger to the public of recording details only of the guilty; adding innocent children and adults is unlikely to improve matters.
Nor is it enough to say “it may be useful - we don’t know”. It is for the government to show that not only is it useful but that the dangers are outweighed by the benefits. That’s a big debate to which the government has contributed merely polemic apocryphal yarns and fear mongering.
Sedley LJ has said, in essence,that blacks are over-represented in DNA samples. Perhaps so, perhaps not. Perhaps they commit more crime than other groups? Or just more crime of the sort the police take an interest in? If it is racism then perhaps the answer is to weed out police racism; or broaden the types of crime they bother themselves with?
Being unfair to everyone is impressively egalitarian but if one group is shown to be more criminal perhaps it is right that they alone be targeted? Perhaps making everyone subject to state surveillance might ferment a sense of injustice and distrust in government/police by the public? is it not better to lead by conviction than to drag by the bollocks?
Attacking attacks on Sedley LJ doesn’t alter that.
But let us get to the core of it: Geeklawyer accepts that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of unsolved cases are solved by DNA. Well that’s nice: it’s great to clear up 35 year old shoplifting cases and a couple of historic murders. But do we really want to live in a society that develops an all-seeing eye in order to do so? One where everyone is watched everywhere at all times just because they may one day be a suspect? That was certainly the dream of the East Germans and Neo-Labour may well accomplish its perfected vision.
Geeklawyer would much rather live in a society with crime, even serious crime, than one where The Dear Leader watches everything he does or says 24/7.
You may have a different view: you are wrong.
It would appear that Judge Sedley does not have a clue about the potential misuse of a DNA database. Likewise the funny chap Victor Ian Maiden.
Why is this a system of “universal surveillance”? Why does it reverse the presumption of innocence? Why is it not simply another tool to assist the detection of crime, speedily and with as much certainty as can be obtained?
What is the evidence of misuse of government databases? Both you and James C (what a peculiar surname but one must not judge) whitter on about it but provide no details. Why not?
It is certainly possible to devise a system to limit the use of information on any such database. I can post about that if your own imagination is lacking. But that is a different topic. Your entire post proceeds upon the basis that a database will mean the government can, and will, watch everyone, all the time. I am aware that for lots of conspiracy theorists this is a quite entrancing fantasy. But where is the beef?
VM, I think perhaps your joy at the reappearance of Ruthie is clouding your thinking. That it may and is a useful tool in crime detection is obvious to the point of banality. You assume that because it is one thing it cannot be another: that because it is useful in crime fighting it cannot also be used for a less benign purpose. This is naive in the extreme, and it is of course the government’s argument in promoting such surveillance teechnologies.
It reverses an assumption of innocence because instead of saying “if you are convicted of a crime we will assume you are a criminal and that you may have committed other unsolved crimes; we will take your DNA and attempt to find that out”, they say “You may not have been convicted of a crime but that may be because you have been too clever we shall assume you may have and take your DNA to prove your innocence”. Its fairly easy to understand & I hope I dont need to repeat it a third time.
If you a a criminal QC are unaware of the misuse of government and police databases, for example the Police National Computer, then I despair; perhaps you should do a paper round instead? I can if you insist dig out any number of news stories of government databases being misued by criminals and corrupt policemen; I can dig out any number of stories of governments leaking information from government database to damage and discredit critics (Pam Warren springs to mind).
Even were such actual examples of misuse absent the potential for abuse means that there needs to be a compelling reason to set such databases up. That they are usefukl is not enough: there needs to be guarantees they will not create greater damage than they alleviate. Limiting the use of such databases as you suggest assumes pefect, or near perfect, security. This has been demonstrated not to exist in even the most secure government systems as various security audits have shown. Indeed to create such havens of vital data is to make them a more tempting target for thieves as the value is larger.
Putting such systems shows a degree of trust in future governments as has not, I say, been shown to be warranted.
Not a conspiract thoery at all - I don’t imagine anyone to be plotting. I do imagine incompetent corrupt and worthless politicians doing the easy thing.
Aided by trusting lazy thinking outsiders.
No, you do not need to repeat it a second time (without being too pedantic, the first time is not a repetition). However, you do need to read what Sedley LJ said a little more carefully. Your horror scenario in the second paragraph of your response is what happens now. If you come into the hands of the police they take a sample. It is moot whether they do so because they assume guilt. It is more likely that they simply want to build the database.
But I do not understand your position at all. On the basis of what you have just said you should be campaigning against the Police National Computer. Or indeed any other government database. Really, a few instances of misuse do not an argument make. Indeed, PNC information can compromise people. DNA cannot be faked: if I were to have your DNA leaked to me, what could I do with it?
Moreover, since when did a new development have to demonstrate its usefulness on a risk-benefit basis to be adopted? If it is useful then let us have it unless its opponents can actually show that it would cause harm. Why assume harm? Is that not rather a depressing way to live?
My objection in the second paragraph is that this scenario will occur not merely if you come into the hands of the police but in future when you go to collect your new passport/driving licence/go to the GP.
I too can be pedantic: there is nothing to stop you providing a response to which I do have to make third repetition to which I’d object
I would indeed object to any use of the PNC if it was or becomes a repository of data on the innocent. In fact I am opposed to the proposal for ID Cards (please no, VM) on the grounds that it too will comprise Orwellian databases on the innocent. The PNC is not now used in that fashion.
You must also look at the information stored. There is a huge difference between your name address criminal convictions on the one hand and you your DNA on the other. Yes your DNA is ‘information’ but not ‘just’ information: it is the stuff of who you are with it I can guess your disease vulnerabilities possibly sexuality and all the other things that you might regard as intimate. In the near or far future it may be possible to discover all manner of other intimate things about me. My DNA is an intimate thing and whilst I may throw it about all day long I’d rather the state didn’t gather it.
You may not be able to do anything with my DNA but then you don’t have a genetics lab at your disposal (I had yours perhaps I would leave it at a serious crime scene when you had no alibi?)
You infer, I think, that I am paranoid. Perhaps to a degree I am but I do accept the need for the state to have limited information about me to be used in reasonable ways. I also say that when extraordinary data is wanted to an extent that is highly intrusive the default position is not as you would seem to want it “do it unless it can be shown to be bad” but the reverse: you pervert a justification for scientific advance into one for state information gathering. Science should indeed discover whatever it can and create whatever it can unless there is obvious danger and even then it should proceed cautiously.
However, the advance of the surveillance society is not the same as the advance of science. It has not been demonstrated as almost always beneficial or at worst merely benign. Surveillance didn’t discover penicillin.
You may be one of those sweet trusting souls who is prepared to let the government do as it pleases. I regard the government as a necessary evil to be kept in check: an entity that will advance its own growth where it can; which is increasingly intruding into the fabric of the everyday life and behaviour of its citizens to the minutest level (recycling bins for fuck sake); which is using whatever justifications it can based on whatever data it can acquire. Rather than risk turning the government into a spoilt child by indulging his every whim I’d like to say ‘no’ you don’t need it. Your own children may be terribly sweet and I’m sure they all behave impeccably but you’d raise a terribly warped government.
I say that an Englishman’s Genome is his castle.
DNA data is not DNA> If you had my data you could not leave my DNA at the scene of your crimes, although your admission is a brave one. If Sedley’s proposal were accepted then you could, theoretically, be tracked wherever you went. Rather like you can be already via CCTV. Yet, you are not.
Where, I think, you and I differ is that I do not believe either of us is interesting enough for anyone to bother. If we were interesting enough, then it may be in the public interest for it to happen. I am afraid that I do not see the government as a load of interfering busybodies continually attempting to reduce my liberty. Rather, they are a bunch of self-serving incompetents dealing with real problems whilst remaining primarily focussed on their own image.
Whilst protecting your own liberty and privacy, you are, potentially, imperilling that of others. The safety of all may demand a compromise. I suugest that the analogy with the is better applied to the NIMBY.
Oh bugger. The last sentence should read: “I suggest that the analogy with the spoiled child is better applied to the NIMBY.
What is the point of crafting beautiful sentences if the computer cannot publish them properly? It was probably the government, electronically preventing democratic discussion.
VM does not have the slightest inklng of what can be done with DNA data or the sample itself. This is because he has no scientific education to speak of. You might as well discuss patent law with a chimpanzee.
If I acquired minute samples of your DNA I could most certainly use PCR to multiply it and leave it at a crime scene: for a laugh - or I could render it into some digital form for computer storage. The latter would not be much use for framing you of course but the former is, I believe, stored and not destroyed after being digitised.
Nimbism: “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.” (Benjamin Franklin)
I’m sure you really do believe yourself to be uninteresting and that you are not at all prone to the slightest false modesty. I lack such a conceit
As far as I understand things the “DNA” stored in computer systems is a signature of the real DNA. In computing terms its a hash, which probably isn’t that illuminating to anybody else. What can’t be done with it is to recreate the actual DNA sequence, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the actual sequence is stored rather than the signature. (Of course anybody who understands hashing also knows about hash collisions, but that’s another matter.)
What can be done is turn a real DNA sequence stored in a computer into physical DNA — this is one of the nightmare scenarios for the anti-terrorism mob because, given the appropriate lab equipment it is possible to create a deadly virus with no more than the right computer code. This is the perfect tool for framing someone as you won’t need access to the person, you only need break into a computer for the right code.
It is perfectly possible to take a person’s DNA, modify it to produce cancer cells and reinject it back into the person. They will die seemingly of natural causes.
I’m less concerned by fanciful notions of hacked DNA-reinjected or my, facetious admittedly, example of DNA frame-ups. I am more concerned by a government taking samples of my DNA from storage or, at some future date, computer and coming to know my deepest secrets: sexual orientation, IQ, susceptibility to illness (OK for my GP though), likely longevity etc etc. I think these are my secrets for me to dispose of however useful a government can and would find them.
I have mixed views on this issue.
I _hate_ the idea of compulsory ID cards - but, on the other hand, I’d love to have a single card to replace my Oyster card, work ID card, library card, bank cards, etc.
I hate ANPR (automatic numberplate readers) because, in effect, they check EVERYONE, to find a few criminals. But I accept that they are a much more effective method of policing than (e.g.) bobbies on the beat. And that criminals really _are_ so stupid that they will transport thousands of pounds worth of drugs in an untaxed car.
I certainly plan, when I come to renew my passport, to give the new one 5 seconds in the microwave oven, for the benefit of the inbuilt microchip and the edification of immigration prodnoses worldwide.
I’m not even keen on universal CCTV - yet I have a CCTV camera trained ont he door to my own garage.
What a mess of contradictions I am!
However, I don’t have any problem with having my DNA on file (providing I don’t need to be arrested to achieve this - and providing Gordon Brown does, too).
I think the key thing here is that DNA evidence requires active collecting, so it’s not used in minor cases (and never in speeding cases!). If _everyone’s_ DNA were on file, the ability to ascertain who had committed (e.g.) sexual assaults and burglaries would be greatly enhanced.
I guess the issue for me is that I have to carry a passport to travel and I have to have a numberplate on my vehicle, so intrusion in that area is a real and ongoing intrusion. I don’t have to leave my DNA around crime scenes, and I plan not to do so, so a DNA register is non-intrusive.
My real reservation with a DNA database is that there _are_ ways to beat DNA. For example, pick up a load of cigarette butts outside any building (wearing gloves to do so!). When you burglarise a house, scatter these butts around. The forensic task will be thousands of times harder, there’s a good chance that one or more of the cigarette smokers will have their DNA on file … and, if your DNA is found on scene, you have established ‘reasonable doubt’ (you claim to have smoked a fag outide that building). Luckily [see above] criminals are stupid, so this won’t impact the value of the database too much, though it should change the way courts view DNA evidence (it is evidence; it is not proof).
Overall - I think DNA ‘yes’ and ID cards ‘no’.
Maybe I am wrong, but at least I thought about it.
Hoddy
Time for a pet rant, sorry chaps.
As I understand such things, DNA profiling is distinctly different from DNA sequencing. In a DNA sequence a lab spends 100’s of thousands of pounds determining the exact sequence of amino acids in my DNA and stores it. This information may be useful in determining whether I may have an increased risk of cancer when I’m in my 40’s or hair loss in my 20’s. I would argue that, when it becomes cheaper, a responsible government that offers socialised healthcare should sequence the DNA of babies at birth. That argument, however, is for another day.
DNA profiling, on the other hand, involves taking a sample of DNA and analysing it for random mutations in non-coding bases (bits of DNA that don’t do anything). When you think about it, two healthy humans will share the DNA that successfully produces, say, eyes and teeth so analysing that DNA at a crime scene would have very little use. This information, about non-coding pairs, is then stored on a database.
IMPORTANT – No information that could be used to predict your cancer chances or baldness is stored.
Most of GL’s concerns could therefore be addressed by a law barring state agents from sequencing your DNA or, more simply, by requiring that the original sample is destroyed after the DNA fingerprint has been taken.
The ‘facetious’, your word not mine, example of frame-ups also misses a more interesting point. As technology improves it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid leaving a DNA trail wherever you go. Your framer would leave his DNA at the scene of the framing, the various bike thieves (who treat me like their personal goose who lays the golden egg) might as well leave a signed note thanking me for my generosity. In conclusion National DNA Database + improving technology + a half-decent regulatory framework has the potential aid in solving almost all crimes that a criminal commits in person. If you seek to stop that with “oh deary deary my government is out to oppress me” arguments, it might be worth checking whether what you’re afraid of is science fact or science fantasy.
Vox populi vox dei.
Some people like surveilance? Gosh, Fac me cocleario vomere
I don’t deny many people like the security blankets that tech toys provide - how genuinely effective they are is a matter of debate and of cost in a wide sense.
Fac me cocleario vomere
gag me with a spoon!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur, but talking sense
impresses the more discerning reader.
I got the translations from this rather useful website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A218882.
I did not need to look up vox populi vox dei,
because my Latin extends to the commoner latin phrases.