Harry's Place

“so feared by swivel eyed Cif ranters”

“mad-eyed and paranoid”

You can always tell when someone has a logical and sensible point to make by the restraint and care of their arguments.

Well Bob how else would you refer to nutters who go on about “ZaNuLabour destroying 1000’s of years of liberty” and the like ?

They’re descendents of the types who feared a professional police force in the 18th century.

“so feared by swivel eyed Cif ranters”

For some reason this immediately made me think of Tony Benn.

They’re descendents of the types who feared a professional police force in the 18th century.

Not only are they the descendents of these people. They are for the most part still living in the 18th century and applying 18th century concepts of governality to an advanced Liberal society where it is easist to make increasing use of specialisms by agencies such as the police look like an attempt to build a panopticonic state.

So let’s have everyone on this database then.

It seems to me there are two logical positions:

limiting the database to those convicted under the law

OR

putting everybody on there.

What troubles me is the current tripartite classification : the guilty, the innocent and the ‘not quite either’

an advanced Liberal society

Ha! More please! Any more where that came from Graham?

“Ha! More please! Any more where that came from Graham?”

Plenty more in the debates between sociologists and historians and others concerned to get a picture of the world we live in old boy!

(Your local library should be able to help you out!)

I cannot agree. Under the Ripa Act – designed to share info on terrorists and dangerous criminals, one’s personal data can be shared with up to 793 different agencies:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584808/Council-spy-cases-hit-1000-a-month.html

None of these are elected, and even bloody ambulance services can carry out surveillance.

This piece is so wrong. It is like the many hundreds of CCTV cameras introduced in London and yet they only helped to solve one actual crime for every 1,000 cameras installed:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6081549/One-crime-solved-for-every-1000-CCTV-cameras-senior-officer-claims.html

What Bob said.

The only swivel-eyed lunatics here are MMN and his mates. They have never heard of totalitarian states misusing data, and they have never heard of incompetent twerps mislaying CDs and even laptops in the back of a taxi.

Or maybe they don’t have enough DNA in their cranium to understand any of this.

“They have never heard of totalitarian states misusing data,”

Are you saying the UK is a totalitarian state, or likely to become one under Labour ? If not what are you on about ?

“even bloody ambulance services can carry out surveillance.”

And we can’t trust them at all can we, I mean who was the last person to survive a trip in an ambulance ?

They have never heard of totalitarian states misusing data

Britain in 2009 is a totalitarian state? You should join the SWP!

The only swivel-eyed lunatics here are MMN and his mates. They have never heard of totalitarian states misusing data, and they have never heard of incompetent twerps mislaying CDs and even laptops in the back of a taxi.

I quite see what you mean about civil-liberties paranoics MMN.

Let’s try posting the last bit again (as some people really do only read a sentence before spouting off.)

We should, of course, be wary of the authoritarian tendency to extend draconian powers of surveillance or asset seizure from the police to local councils, quangos and other ill-equipped bodies. But to tell detectives investigating murder, rape, kidnap and other crimes of violence that they cannot harness the full power of DNA, CCTV or phone-tracing is senseless.

Are you saying the UK is a totalitarian state, or likely to become one under Labour ? If not what are you on about ?

Are you saying that Labour will stay in power forever? If not, wtf are you on about?

Graham,
Your debating skills were never high, but this nonsense is stupid even by your standards.

Let’s try posting the last bit again (as some people really do only read a sentence before spouting off.)

I don’t think you can manage a whole sentence at a time, child.
The more loony elements in the police, the government and some local councils want everybody’s DNA on file. That is the only way that the “full” power of DNA can be used to solve every crime (or at least where some traces of DNA have been left).
The only way that the “full” power of CCTV can be used to solve every crime is if every inch of the country os covered by CCTV.
We are not at that point yet, and already some councils are abusing their statutory powers for purposes they were never officially intended for (or so we are told by interested parties).
Read the papers once in a while.
And if you don’t understand that bureaucrats tend to be empire-builders, for both innocuous and non-innocuous reasons, you need to get out more into the real world.

Eh. Compared to yours my debating skills are veritably Olympian!

I mean totalitarian states! Hahaha (way to miss the point!)

Gordon. Take your tablets (or have you stopped picking them up in case the NHS database is left in the back of a taxi?)

O’Neill has dealt with all your “points”. If you do not understand mine about increasing use of specialisms being characterised by some as sinister then just ask and I will try to explain it in language that a five year old can understand.

(Better still do some reading!)

Are you saying that Labour will stay in power forever? If not, wtf are you on about?

So you are saying that David Cameron is going to turn the UK into a totalitarian state? If no what are YOU on about?

I have no objection to the police being able to access certain private information such as phone and email records, even bank account information, if they have reasonable suspicion and they can persuade a judge to issue a warrant. I have a big objection to such information being held centrally, and with any lesser authority being required to access it, and to it being made available to other bodies for any other reason.
As for DNA, well again if I’m suspected of a crime and they have sufficient authority, or I want to co-operate willingly, I’ll hand it over. But I’m very uncomfortable with the notion of handing it over in advance to be held on a central database “just in case”.
There are other things we could do to make it easier to for criminals to be convicted, such as removing many of the safeguards within the criminal justice system – hell, even allow the police to beat confessions out of people if the “know” the’re guilty. But we don’t because we believe it right to uphold certain principles, so the making it easier for the police argument, although valid, only goes so far.

You don’t have to believe that Britain is in any danger of becoming a totalitarian country to worry about the intrusion of the state into previously private affars and the curtailment of our civil liberties.

However, people who sneer at ’swivel-eyed’ civil liberties obsessives should consider that a state in which everything is subordinated to the requirements of the police is purely and simply a police state.

Are you saying that totalitarians would get in power and think, “Fuck me Labour didn’t set up a DNA database, so there goes that idea.”?

Are you saying that totalitarians would get in power and think, “Fuck me Labour didn’t set up a DNA database, so there goes that idea.”?

Quite.

As for DNA, well again if I’m suspected of a crime and they have sufficient authority, or I want to co-operate willingly, I’ll hand it over. But I’m very uncomfortable with the notion of handing it over in advance to be held on a central database “just in case”.

Out of interest: why?

It seems to me the crime-solving benefits of having everyone included on a national DNA database would be truly immense but I can’t quite get my head around what the actual costs to individual liberty would be.

Andrew Adams – “There are other things we could do to make it easier to for criminals to be convicted, such as removing many of the safeguards within the criminal justice system – hell, even allow the police to beat confessions out of people if the “know” the’re guilty. But we don’t because we believe it right to uphold certain principles, so the making it easier for the police argument, although valid, only goes so far.”

Yes but there are real implications of allowing police to beat people up. There are next to none with a DNA database. DNA says nothing much about you. Who your parents are, and little more. Britain does have a civil liberties problem, but this is not it. I think that the real problem is that DNA is new, scientific and hence scary. In reality we will lose nothing if every single one of us appears on a DNA database. Can anyone think of a plausible loss of civil liberties, or even anything more than a mild risk of someone else misusing it, if one existed? Perhaps cheating wives might be worried.

Removing the right to silence, on the other hand, has consequences. Allowing 90 day detention is a problem. But DNA can only serve to catch criminals and little else. We ought to wind back all the new “improvements” in policing since Thatcher but keep the DNA database.

Perhaps the people who like the dna database could comment on recent reports that 75% of black males between the ages of 18 and 35 are on the database?

Well, obviously it is because they is black.

Perhaps the people who like the dna database could comment on recent reports that 75% of black males between the ages of 18 and 35 are on the database?

I wouldn’t trust anything I read in the newspapers. They are just an arm of the state really.

Interesting, dmra.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=8644741474&topic=19003&post=262991#/topic.php?uid=8644741474&topic=19003

Commentator,
thanks for the link. I’m not surprised that the BNP have picked up the story but they don’t seem to be the originators of it. A quick google check will show you that it has been reported world wide as coming from a Governmental advisory body’s report.
In case there’s any doubt I wasn’t trying to suggest that the overrepresentation was because most young black men are criminals. All I was trying to do was show that the police who we are supposed to trust not to misuse the DNA database seem to have done just that – either intentionally or not.
Or maybe I’m just being paranoid!

Why is this debate always framed in such simple terms, the civil libertarians if you will on one side and those who can’t see anything but solving crimes on the other.

The point that is never really addressed except with throwaway comments is that once your DNA is on a database it has been given away for ever. You can’t ever take it back and have no control over how that data will be used in the future. You are trusting every future government not to use the database in ways that aren’t planned today.

Forget silly ideas about a police state. There are lots of potentially useful things that could be discovered from a national DNA database. Think about it as a medical resource to say profile people for susceptability to specific diseases or genetic disorders. There are all sorts of ethical questions that would arise if you could tell who would be likely to develop a condition. Do you tell them or not? What if there was an inexpensive medical intervention available that would reduce the chance of developing a condition that is very expensive to treat? Should people be forced to accept the intervention?

Think about a national DNA database as a geneological resource for tracing family history and understanding more about the population of the UK.

DNA Analysis is still an emerging technology. Unlike say fingerprints we don’t know the limits ofv the technology and therefore we don’t know what DNA will be able to tell us in the future.

A national DNA database would be an incredibly rich resource for so many other things than solving crimes. So of those things would be good and some less so. Once it’s there we are relying on the goodwill of 318 or so people to ensure that it isn’t used in ways thay we can’t anticipate today.

The reason this is a thorny issue, is that this database is not safeguarded. Access to it is far too easy. Therefore so is abuse.

I would support other commenters who have proposed a national comprehensive database, only if access to the database is strictly controlled, and limited to the Police, and only with a search warrant issued through the court system. And the database should not be online.

Monty – “The reason this is a thorny issue, is that this database is not safeguarded. Access to it is far too easy. Therefore so is abuse.”

I agree too many people have too much access to too much data on the rest of us. But so what if they can access the DNA database? What abuse might arise out of it? We can all see if Cheryl Cole’s children, if and when she has any, are not hers?

“I would support other commenters who have proposed a national comprehensive database, only if access to the database is strictly controlled, and limited to the Police, and only with a search warrant issued through the court system. And the database should not be online.”

I think that is sensible. But far worse violations of our privacy are being made every day. Suppose the Government required everyone’s DNA be posted on their front door. Who would care? But then suppose they required everyone’s medical histories to be publicly posted. I think a lot of us would care. Which database is worse?

And of course a lovely bunch of lads like, say, West Midlands Police would *never* fiddle the records to produce the perfect unassailable conviction for the ‘right’ person. And that’s leaving aside the possibility of simple incompetence – they can’t even get 100% of CRB checks right FFS!

The likes of the BNP must be rubbing their hands with glee – who needs the jackboot of the State to introduce totalitarianism when we’ve already got Nu-Labour and their faithful little drones? Hate speech up to and including calling a fecking horse gay, thought crime, CCTV to catch you dozens of times a day, ID Cards, DNA gathering of schoolchildren – maybe I *should* stop being a nasty wingnut and join the SWP because it sounds pretty bloody fascistic to me.

“Perhaps the people who like the dna database could comment on recent reports that 75% of black males between the ages of 18 and 35 are on the database?”

Read the full article, O’Neill has an interesting point on that :

“The Human Genetics Commission also states as fact that more than 75 per cent of black men aged 18 to 35 are on the database. But that is a highly questionable claim, which it admits it has not researched and which seems to have its origins in statistical extrapolations by journalists in 2006. “

DSD – “And of course a lovely bunch of lads like, say, West Midlands Police would *never* fiddle the records to produce the perfect unassailable conviction for the ‘right’ person. And that’s leaving aside the possibility of simple incompetence – they can’t even get 100% of CRB checks right FFS!”

What do you think is in the database? Actual physical supplies of blood? Can the police get some blood and saliva now if they want? Can they plant a cup someone had drunk out of as it is? How is having a series of 0s and 1s on a database change a thing except it saves them some time pretending to be surprised when their favoured suspect tests positive?

Yes they will screw things up. That is why we have trials. The database may even make that less likely.

Come on MMN, why not just say it: ideally the entire population should be sampled for DNA and fingerprinted in case they commit crimes in the future.

Why don’t you say something like “if you don’t intend to commit crime, you have nothing to fear”, the usual defence of the aspiring totalitarian.

You seem relaxed like only a NuLab truebeliever could be about the monitoring and surveillance culture (and no doubt the fiddling with the justice system) in the UK under Labour. Perhaps you support CCTV in the home as well to prevent domestic crimes…

I read last week that 75% of young black men are already on the DNA register and that the police are deliberately arresting people to get their DNA for the future. But I guess you are relaxed about that too, means justifying ends and all that.

B

“…so feared by swivel eyed Cif ranters and the likes of Sunny Hundal..”

When a policy manages to persuade even the likes of me to conclude that Sunny Hundal is right, and everyone else wrong, it gives you food for thought, doesn’t it?

Especially if by ‘harnessing the full power of DNA’ you mean keeping innocent people on the DNA database.

“I read last week that 75% of young black men are already on the DNA register and that the police are deliberately arresting people to get their DNA for the future. But I guess you are relaxed about that too, means justifying ends and all that.”

Again – read the thread, as I said above, O’Neill has an interesting point on that :

“The Human Genetics Commission also states as fact that more than 75 per cent of black men aged 18 to 35 are on the database. But that is a highly questionable claim, which it admits it has not researched and which seems to have its origins in statistical extrapolations by journalists in 2006. “

“When a policy manages to persuade even the likes of me to conclude that Sunny Hundal is right, and everyone else wrong, it gives you food for thought, doesn’t it?”

No it doesn’t, I think lots of people have very stupid deluded opinions on this, including you by the sound of it.

“Especially if by ‘harnessing the full power of DNA’ you mean keeping innocent people on the DNA database.”

Why are you scared of all DNA being on the DNA database ? Do you think the police are going to fit you up purely via some trick with DNA ?

Barad – “ideally the entire population should be sampled for DNA and fingerprinted in case they commit crimes in the future.”

Well I will say it. Ideally the entire population would be sampled for DNA. There simply is no downside to this in terms of civil liberties.

But …..

“You seem relaxed like only a NuLab truebeliever could be about the monitoring and surveillance culture (and no doubt the fiddling with the justice system) in the UK under Labour. Perhaps you support CCTV in the home as well to prevent domestic crimes…”

The monitoring and surveillance culture of New Labour ought to be undone. The justice system ought to be restored to how it was. And most CCTV cameras ought to be junked.

We have suffered real losses to our liberties but the DNA database is not one of them.

“No it doesn’t, I think lots of people have very stupid deluded opinions on this, including you by the sound of it.”

‘I’m right, all you other fools are wrong’. Is that you, Alan Johnson?

Check out the comments. This isn’t a popular policy.

“Why are you scared of all DNA being on the DNA database ? Do you think the police are going to fit you up purely via some trick with DNA ?”

No. It’s because it changes the relationship of the citizen to the state in a fundamental way.

Which is probably why you are so keen on it….

“No. It’s because it changes the relationship of the citizen to the state in a fundamental way. ”

What are you talking about ?

I wrote a piece in response to this, here:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/11/tools-we-can-do-without-a-response-to-the-authoritarian-argument-from-the-times.html

Well Bob how else would you refer to nutters who go on about “ZaNuLabour destroying 1000’s of years of liberty” and the like?

I’d say that they are about as mad and as dishonest as someone who tries to present them as typical of arguments against the government’s DNA retention policies.

“…arguments against the government’s DNA retention policies.”

Alright then, come up with a good one then cos the ones we’ve had on here are IMO not very convincing eg “because it changes the relationship of the citizen to the state in a fundamental way.”

Typically for many who write from his perspective, O’Neil is unable to distinguish between the policy of retention and the use of DNA testing as an evidential tool. There may be a good case for the routine testing of arrested persons against the database of DNA profiles recovered from crime scenes. And just about every case adduced in support of the DNA database cites cold cases that have been solved in precisely that way. But that is not a justification for the retention of the profile on the database if not match is made. I don’t know what the figures are for cases resolved because an innocent person’s DNA was retained on the database. Pretty damned small I should think, as the apologists for a universal database always cite examples of the first kind, where the existence of a database of arrested persons is irrelevant. Policemen I have discussed this with say that pretty much everyone who should be on the database, that is to say habitual criminals and serious violent and sexual offenders, is on the database. There is no compelling reason to extend it to everyone and the effects on crime detection on remove the innocent would be negligible.

Alright then, come up with a good one then cos the ones we’ve had on here are IMO not very convincing eg “because it changes the relationship of the citizen to the state in a fundamental way.”

Well forcing everyone to be registered on a criminal database does change that relationship; though it is not the best argument against it. The best argument is that it is simply unnecessary and the grief it would cause to any government that attempted to implement a universal DNA database would be such that only a government with a death wish or a Prime Minister with no political skills whatosever would attempt it. Which is why I am genuinely surprised that this fuckwit government has not attempted it. I guess even Brown isn’t that stupid.

“The best argument is that it is simply unnecessary and the grief it would cause to any government that attempted to implement a universal DNA database would be such that only a government with a death wish or a Prime Minister with no political skills whatosever would attempt it.”

That makes more sense, but of course if a party got elected with a universal DNA database as a policy it would have more legitimacy.

Anyway we’re getting away from the argument re retention of DNA from people arrested but not charged. Your argument seems to be we shouldn’t do it because the number of cases where its useful later is negligable, but even a few cases to me would be worth it IMO given the small downside in terms of civil liberties.

Suppose the Government required everyone’s DNA be posted on their front door. Who would care?

You have it arse about tit. The justification for law needs to be a damned sight stronger than that. “What harm would it cause?” is not plausible justification for a new legal obligation. Yes I know you are facetious about posting it your front door. My point is intended to apply to those who justify new laws on the basis of ‘why should anyone object?’. Whether people object or not, is not really the point; though of course many millions *do* object, regardless of whether yoiu count their objections ‘legitimate’. The point is whether there is a strong positive case for the law. This is where the case for compulsory ID Cards and for a universal DNA database completely collapses.

““No. It’s because it changes the relationship of the citizen to the state in a fundamental way. ”

What are you talking about ?”

You know full well what I’m talking about.

Anyway we’re getting away from the argument re retention of DNA from people arrested but not charged. Your argument seems to be we shouldn’t do it because the number of cases where its useful later is negligable, but even a few cases to me would be worth it IMO given the small downside in terms of civil liberties

Well I disagree that it is ‘worth it’ and what’s more it would appear that a majority would disagree, making it highly unlikely that a government would get that mandate. But if it is worth it, then there would be an ample number of cases which were solved specifically because an innocent person’s DNA was retained. The government has failed to show that its retention policy was necessary for the detection of crime which is why it lost at the ECHR. So so whether it is worth it has already been answered – the absence of a case for it shows that it is not.

“No. It’s because it changes the relationship of the citizen to the state in a fundamental way. ”

See this is what I mean about being stuck in the 18th century. The same arguments were made then about having police forces at all.

But the state itself over the last 100 years has changed. It has had to become more responsive to the idea of active citizens. Yet where the state does attempt to change the relationship between itself and civil society (such as the destruction of working-class social life through things such as the smoking ban in pubs) the defenders of “civil liberties” are dead quiet as it mostly goes along with their own agendas. Instead they queue up to condemn new advances in catching criminals which are frankly little more than improvements by specialist professionals in already existing technologies. DNA V fingerprinting for example. Then all this is characterised as some great moral battle on a par with the Barons against King John.

It really is all rather curious.

Yet where the state does attempt to change the relationship between itself and civil society (such as the destruction of working-class social life through things such as the smoking ban in pubs) the defenders of “civil liberties” are dead quiet as it mostly goes along with their own agendas

Well if smoking had been banned in private residences or in unenclosed public spaces then that would have been a curtailment of civil rights. As it is, the ’smoking ban’ is no more a curtailment of rights than laws that prevent me from taking a crap or piss in the saloon bar of the Dog and Whippet. Also it is more than just ‘working class’ people who smoke. Though I am amused that you would see the smoking ban as a class conspiracy. Perhaps you are channelling that old Stalinist thug, John Reid?

MMN – One very practical objection to the situation as it stands is that the police appear to be arresting people purely so that they can get their hands on their DNA. In these instances there is clear damage to individuals’ civil liberties.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/24/dna-database-inquiry

“It really is all rather curious.”

Its probably somewhat due to the fact most of our media from the Mail and Telgraph to the Guardian and Indy go on and on about these non issues as if we’re daily going to the Gulags in a handcart. No wonder some people get confused.

Whats annoying is its the same people on the Left who are prepared to advocate eg smoking and hunting bans because of the cost/benefit analysis but refuse to use such arguments similarly with policing issues or ID cards.

Instead they queue up to condemn new advances in catching criminals which are frankly little more than improvements by specialist professionals in already existing technologies. DNA V fingerprinting for example

This is the usual inability to distinguish between DNA techniques and the retention of DNA profiles. A useful dishonesty for your side of the argument as you can attempt to portray your opponents as luddites or loonies. The dispute is political not technological. No serious commentator objects to the use of DNA as an evidential tool, or there being a DNA database of profiles recovered from crime scenes or that the profiles of habitual or serious criminals being retained on a database. The debate is over the utility and appropriateness of retaining indefinitely the profiles of those convicted of minor offences or not convicted at all. In fact there appears to be little evidence that the retention of the profiles of the innocent is useful. And I am afraid that the ‘if it saves the life of one child argument’ is not remotely credible as an argument for where to draw the line. Most of those who should be on the database are already on the database and the idea that a universal database would herald a revolution in crime detection is a flat out lie. The arguments from those who wish to see an expanded database are every bit as ideological as those of the extreme libertarians.

As it is, the ’smoking ban’ is no more a curtailment of rights than laws that prevent me from taking a crap or piss in the saloon bar of the Dog and Whippet.

Well that may have made sense if my argument had been that it was a curtailment of rights rather than an attempt to change individuals relationship with the state by impinging on working-class social life .

The hunting ban is apposite. After all what is the morality that Julia M and others wish to impose on us rather than the one which gives rapists and murderers a “sporting chance” of escaping the consequences of their actions? We really should not be swayed from the benefits to all of society by sentimental class-based arguments such as that.

Whats annoying is its the same people on the Left who are prepared to advocate eg smoking and hunting bans because of the cost/benefit analysis but refuse to use such arguments similarly with policing issues or ID cards

What is the cost based analysis to support the hunting ban? As a lefty I never saw the point of the hunting ban. Foxes are vermin are need to be controlled. The only legitimate argument was one of cruelty and there is evidence that fox hunting wasn’t any crueller than shooting. But I disgress. The point about ID Cards is that there isn’t a credible cost analysis for it. The Home Office published statistics on ‘identity theft’ which have been completely discredited as they contained figures for unattended credit card fraud. In fact aggregating critical identity information in a data citadel is an extremely risky and costly proposition. Identity management is a complex area and is a constantly moving target. If the government had had any sense, it would have left private industry develop identity management and would have laid down a legislative framework to ensure standards of access, integrity, transparency, rights to correction and so on. But of course, the strategy was invented by a profoundly stupid authoritarian, whose first and last instincts where compulsion and control and the utility of a sensible – particularly online – identity management strategy was incomprehensible to him. As for cost/benefit for a universal DNA database, isn’t that what you explicitly reject, by saying that retaining the profiles of the innocent is ‘worth it’ even if few if any cases are resolved because of it?

Its probably somewhat due to the fact most of our media from the Mail and Telgraph to the Guardian and Indy go on and on about these non issues as if we’re daily going to the Gulags in a handcart.

Agreed. It is the “quality paper” equivalent of the Sun uncovering paedophiles everywhere.

“What is the cost based analysis to support the hunting ban?”

Surely that should have read:

What is the cost/benefit based analysis to support the hunting ban?

The hunting ban is apposite. After all what is the morality that Julia M and others wish to impose on us rather than the one which gives rapists and murderers a “sporting chance” of escaping the consequences of their actions? We really should not be swayed from the benefits to all of society by sentimental class-based arguments such as that

In what way is removing the profiles of the innocent or resisting a universal database, giving rapists and murderers a sporting chance? This kind of over-statement is just as lunatic and absurd as those who go on about ZuNuLabour and the Stazi and so on.

In what way is removing the profiles of the innocent or resisting a universal database, giving rapists and murderers a sporting chance?

I’m sorry I thought we were discussing Sean O’Neill’s article about Abdul Azad. Please direct me to whatever it is you think we are arguing about.

I’m sorry I thought we were discussing Sean O’Neill’s article about Abdul Azad. Please direct me to whatever it is you think we are arguing about

One case does not make an argument for retaining the DNA profiles of the innocent on the DNA database. Now if you are going to extrapolate from that, that those those who oppose the present retention policy are advocating complete freedom from detection for murderers, then you are as crazy as those who would claim that the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes implies a conpiracy to murder any Brazilians on British soil.

Now if you are going to extrapolate from that, that those those who oppose the present retention policy are advocating complete freedom from detection for murderers, then you are as crazy as those who would claim that the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes implies a conpiracy to murder any Brazilians on British soil.

Oh do try and keep up. MMN posted the bit about being aware of authoritarian tendencies. What is being discussed here is those who are madly and illogically against such innovations (by the way “a sporting chance” – I am told – is not the same as advocating that the fox always gets away!)

What is being discussed here is those who are madly and illogically against such innovations

What a pointless thing to discuss, as by definition all sensible and reasonable commentators will be opposed to such idiocy, and the idiots are easy to demolish. So what’s the point? The substantive question still remains, which is whether there is a good case for the government’s retention policies. I have put a detailed case against and the arguments for, do not rise above ‘if it saves the life of one child’. No wonder the government lost at the ECHR.

What a pointless thing to discuss

Well of course it would be were not large sections of the press and the liberal elite engaged in such idiocy. So what MMN chooses to discuss on a blog thread is really up to him.

We should, of course, be wary of the authoritarian tendency to extend draconian powers of surveillance or asset seizure from the police to local councils, quangos and other ill-equipped bodies. But to tell detectives investigating murder, rape, kidnap and other crimes of violence that they cannot harness the full power of DNA, CCTV or phone-tracing is senseless

O’Neil is being particularly dishonest in this paragraph, as no one is telling the police that they may not use DNA technology, least of all the HGC. He is confusing for his own tendentious purposes, a political question (DNA retention policy) and the technological (the availability to the police of new ways to gather evidence).

If the civil libertarians, the conspiracy theorists and the Conservatives had their way, Abdul Azad would probably never have been caught.

This is a flat-out lie. He has now way of knowing whether this rapist would have been caught. Of course, if we are looking for hard cases, look at the way that the Omagh bombing case collapsed thanks in part to the DNA evidence fingering a 14 year lad being the bomber. Now would not be so dishonest as to use that case to discredit the use of DNA as an evidential tool. A pity that O’Neil does not have similar scruples. An utterly mendacious article.

Well of course it would be were not large sections of the press and the liberal elite engaged in such idiocy. So what MMN chooses to discuss on a blog thread is really up to him

As I have already pointed out, that it a lie that the substantive part of the opposition is ‘enagaged in such idiocy’. I have already made the common arguments against the government’s retention policies.

So what MMN chooses to discuss on a blog thread is really up to him

Of course. If he wants to ignore the mainstream arguments against the government’s retention policies that is entirely his right. As indeed it is my right to call him on the dishonesty of that approach.

XOfTheX : There’s an issue on what price you put to costs and benefits in these arguments. Are eg 5 cases solved in a year worth the price of the civil liberties lost ? The price of the civil liberties lost is not universally agreed, ie I see very little cost to me of having my DNA on a database or an ID card. Who decides ? It’s a matter of opinion and you’re going to be very unlikely to make me change my mind unless eg you bring up a number of wrongful convictions due solely to DNA mistakes/fit ups. Can you do that ? How would such cases happen given DNA can not solely determine guilt ?

“Whats annoying is its the same people on the Left who are prepared to advocate eg smoking and hunting bans because of the cost/benefit analysis but refuse to use such arguments similarly with policing issues or ID cards.”

People object only when their ox is gored, and you are surprised at that? How old are you?

“People object only when their ox is gored, and you are surprised at that? How old are you?”

How old are you, coming out with garbage like that ?

“…the arguments for, do not rise above ‘if it saves the life of one child’. No wonder the government lost at the ECHR.”

Yes, indeed. Graham and MMN decry the MSM’s ‘paedos under every bed!’ attitude, yet adopt pretty much the same approach when it comes to murderers and rapists.

Pardon me, ‘potential’ murderers and rapists. Which we all apparently are, otherwise why the need to store DNA from the innocent for the future..?

“How old are you, coming out with garbage like that ?”

Old enough to remember when ‘innocent until proven guilty’ meant something.

Old enough too to remember that ‘Let justice be done, though the heavens fall!’ was a bit of a manta on the left.

Curious, where the desire to ‘improve things’ takes some people, isn’t it?

Can any of the anti-DNA database sorts here give us an example of a case where someone has been convicted solely on DNA evidence that has later been overturned in the UK ?

A quick google on such cases only finds suggestions on a coppers blog about how a criminal could fit up a copper at a crime scene by leaving some of their hair there !

Which is an interesting point because its criminals well known to the police who would be most likely to be fitted up in this way and guess what – we already have their DNA and no ones arguing we shouldn’t.

As a wholly innocent person, I would be more than happy to have my DNA on a national database. The answer to what is the value of having non-criminals on the database, must be that it eliminates them and saves the Police time. Incidentally, I saw that a murderer or rapist (can’t remember which) was caught somewhere up North because the coppers had his cousin’s DNA on the databank and were able to home in on him. Surely, in an increasingly mobile world, the Police and society need some way of identifying people. I’m with Graham on this one.

If it isn’t too big an invasion of their privacy can Graham and Mmn let the rest of us know exactly when they went to their local police station and voluntarily gave a DNA sample. Or are they waiting until they’re arrested before making the rest of us safer and more secure?

BTW (sorry its OTT) but there’s more news on the Ramallah stadium issue in case anyone’s interested :

http://www.moremedianonsense.blogspot.com/

“A West Bank settlement has filed a petition to the High Court of Justice demanding the demolition of a nearly-complete stadium in the Palestinian city of El Bireh, near Ramallah.”

Tell you what anon, I’ll think about it if you first go to the police station and ask them if they take DNA samples from people in off the street.

Well if they don’t shouldn’t you be arguing that they should? After all, according to you, the more of us there are on the data base the safer the rest of us will be. Seems to be that following your logic it should be your civic duty to get yourself sampled asap.

“Well if they don’t shouldn’t you be arguing that they should? ”

I’ll answer that when you get back from the nick with some facts.

Well if they don’t shouldn’t you be arguing that they should?

Possibly. But as the whole of this article and the one which it is based on are suggesting that it is the illogical claims about big brother states which are actually winning the arguments in the press it would be a waste of time wouldn’t it?

But you’re the one saying what a great thing the DNA data base is not me. If it’s that good shouldn’t you be trying your best to volunteer to be on it?

Actually Graham I reckon we should start an HP campaign to have all Daily Mail, Indy and Guardian subscribers DNA sampled due to the high likelihood of them being paranoiacs sent mad by a constant diet of scaremongering rubbish.

What do you reckon ?

But you’re the one saying what a great thing the DNA data base is not me.

Where exactly? I am merely commenting on the fact that illogical arguments in the press seem to be winning the argument and going on to suggest that it seems to me that many of the proponents of such arguments are dealing with outdated concepts of govermentality and society. As said before; O’Neill (and MMN as far as I know) are not unaware or adverse to looking out for people with authoritarian tendencies taking advantage of new technologies.

As for Mail Indy and Guardian subscribers you might be better just having them sectioned! (Although i do read the Guardian still.)

Whoops “averse” of course…

There’s an issue on what price you put to costs and benefits in these arguments. Are eg 5 cases solved in a year worth the price of the civil liberties lost ?

I would say not.

The price of the civil liberties lost is not universally agreed, ie I see very little cost to me of having my DNA on a database or an ID card. Who decides ?

That’s looking down the telescope the wrong way. I see no compelling reason for me to have an ID Card or to have my DNA entered onto the database. Vague promises that it will make us ’safer’ do not cut it. Moveover in the case of ID Cards, they are an utterly cretinous response to the challenges of digitial identity management; the project deserves to be canned even if there were no civil liberties implications.

It’s a matter of opinion and you’re going to be very unlikely to make me change my mind unless eg you bring up a number of wrongful convictions due solely to DNA mistakes/fit ups

As indeed you shall never change my mind by woolly unrigorous arguments about how these things will make me safer. The fundamental point is that the innocent should not be on a criminal database. Any argument to overturn that principle needs to be overwhelming and compelling. I can concede the tradeoff of a one off check at the point of arrest. I don’t like it but there is a pragmatic case for it. There is no such compelling case for them being on the database in perpetuity. All arguments I have seen that support their retention have at their heart an paranoia about crime.

Can you do that ? How would such cases happen given DNA can not solely determine guilt ?

The evidential effectiveness of DNA an entirely different debate from the one about retention.

Actually Graham I reckon we should start an HP campaign to have all Daily Mail, Indy and Guardian subscribers DNA sampled due to the high likelihood of them being paranoiacs sent mad by a constant diet of scaremongering rubbish.

What do you reckon ?

That you should grow up.

The fundamental point is that the innocent should not be on a criminal database. Any argument to overturn that principle needs to be overwhelming and compelling.

In what way will it be a “criminal” database any more than having the police have the ability to check the voter record means it is a “criminal” voter record? It seems to me that if you remove the word that you yourself have put in then your own wolly argument unravels completely.

Where exactly? I am merely commenting on the fact that illogical arguments in the press seem to be winning the argument and going on to suggest that it seems to me that many of the proponents of such arguments are dealing with outdated concepts of govermentality and society

This isn’t truth or certainly is not the whole truth. I read most of the online civil liberties debates in those newspapers and although some comment is along the lines of ‘zanuliebore’, there is also a large amount of completely on the money comment, which exposes the piss poor arguments for implementing this stuff. “Well why not?” doesn’t cut it I am afraid.

As said before; O’Neill (and MMN as far as I know) are not unaware or adverse to looking out for people with authoritarian tendencies taking advantage of new technologies.

O’Neil’s article is particularly medacious in confusing the question of retention and the the use of the technology as a tool. He is certainly not one to comment adversely on the probity of others.

In what way will it be a “criminal” database any more than having the police have the ability to check the voter record means it is a “criminal” voter record?

Ah, yes, that canard. The DNA database has no other purpose but the detection of crime. Unlike the registry of voters, the membership list of your local video hire shop, etc, etc. I think any remotely honest person would term it a criminal database.

I have serious concerns about the police being able to retain actual tissue samples. That shouldn’t happen, it is too easy to “plant” some of that at a crime scene, and try to use it to get someone fitted up. I don’t see that as a frequent problem, but any instance of it will be devastating for the victimised individual. The police have such a track record of losing evidence bags that I think we should have no confidence in their systems of control.

Another aspect is that if that database is at all accessible online, some crook will put it to criminal use. There will be some lowlife making money, by working out how to tamper with the stored DNA profiles of his customers so the database search never finds them. There will be others looking to blackmail people by matching them up with illegitimate children. So it should never ever go online. And it shouldn’t be available to every jobsworth in the bloody council either. It’s use should be restricted to serious crime investigations, covered by a database search warrant.

The DNA database has no other purpose but the detection of crime.

This was also true of the police or “thieftakers” as they were first known. It did not mean that later their purpose did not evolve into helping old ladies across the streets or giving directions or a million and one other things. The same may be true of a database for all we know. The fact that it has been termed a “criminal database” by its opponents is not a good reason for dismissing it.

I have serious concerns about the police being able to retain actual tissue samples. That shouldn’t happen, it is too easy to “plant” some of that at a crime scene, and try to use it to get someone fitted up. I don’t see that as a frequent problem, but any instance of it will be devastating for the victimised individual

The police don’t keep the samples. They and the database are managed by the Forensice Science Service. I don’t think the risk of fit up is likely to come from the police, if only because they have easier ways to do it. It is more likely that criminals might salt a crime scene with arbitrary DNA in the hope of generating false leads. Whilst the NDNAD stayed true to its original statutory function, which was a database of profiles of serious offenders, there would be little point in doing that. With a universal database, you could keep the police busy for weeks tracing down false leads.

I have serious concerns about the police being able to retain actual tissue samples.

I beleive that Alan Johnson has stated clearly that: “…under current proposals, the sample itself will not be retained, only its unique 20-number code”

Planting that at a crime scene will not do you much good.

“The fundamental point is that the innocent should not be on a criminal database. ”

A universal DNA database could also be used for medical purposes in which case it would not just be a criminal database.

Here’s an article which mentions how the health care industry is calling for a universal DNA database in the US :

http://ezinearticles.com/?Will-Universal-DNA-Database-Stop-Crime?&id=134365

“…there are some benefits to hospitals and first responders too, as this information in the future will be vital to proper treatments and medicines.”

I’d say that Johnson is also right in saying that:

This is a classic home secretary dilemma. It is not a clear-cut choice between liberty and security – between siding with the civil liberties lobby or the forces of law and order. The far less headline-friendly reality is the need to balance all these factors – protecting the public, but in a way that’s proportionate to the threat. I believe that the government’s proposals do precisely that but I also welcome the debate as a necessary part of implementing such sensitive measures.

The same may be true of a database for all we know. The fact that it has been termed a “criminal database” by its opponents is not a good reason for dismissing it

It is termed a criminal database for that it what it is. And if it is expanded to include everyone in the UK, it will still be a criminal database. It will never be of use as a medical database as the information it contains is not medically significant. And of course, were to be usable as such, that would be an even more serious threat to liberty. It will never be used as an identification database as it cannot uniquely identify someone. Your cute analogy with the police doesn’t work.

Damn! Well when we are dealing with people who can predict what will happen in future there isn’t much point in a debate at all!

“It is more likely that criminals might salt a crime scene with arbitrary DNA in the hope of generating false leads. ”

Or with the DNA of one of their criminal enemies (which they could do at the moment and would be far more likely to get them off rather than wasting time). Care to give us any real life cases where such capers have been tried ?

A universal DNA database could also be used for medical purposes in which case it would not just be a criminal database

No it can not. And it would a fucking serious threat to liberty if it could. My private medical information is between me and my clinician and those whom I explicitly authorise to have access to it.

Here’s an article which mentions how the health care industry is calling for a universal DNA database in the US

I bet it is. What an easy way to cherry pick the least risk subscribers.

Or with the DNA of one of their criminal enemies (which they could do at the moment and would be far more likely to get them off rather than wasting time). Care to give us any real life cases where such capers have been tried ?

I was responding to Monty that it was more likely. I have no idea whether it happens in practice. Again, you are looking down the wrong end of the telescope. We need positive reasons for policies, not vague paranoia fuelled fears about crime.

The far less headline-friendly reality is the need to balance all these factors – protecting the public, but in a way that’s proportionate to the threat

The whole point of course is that what Johnson has proposed is not proportionate to the threat. If the Home Office lawyers had been able to make that case convincingly then they would not have lost at the ECHR.

What a silly Times article. There is so much wrong with it I can only give a summary of what I am thinking if I don’t want to be at the keyboard all day.

I don’t know anyone who is denying that DNA etc are a useful ‘toolkit’. It’s about proportionality and the presumption of innocence. By referring to one specific extreme scenario to justify the retention of all innocent peoples DNA it brushes aside what would have happened if he didn’t later go on to commit a criminal offence.

For Mr O’Neill and many others it seems acceptable to take such information (by force if necessary) on the basis of ‘great good and no harm’. He states that “Abdul Azad would probably never have been caught” That is precisely the point, you don’t know. It is also the case that there is no convincing evidence that being on a database is a deterrent to people thinking of engaging in crime. In this case the most proportionate, fair (and legal!) response is to keep the database for those convicted of serious crimes. This does not ’stop police doing their job’ it makes sure the right people are on the database and protects the innocent. Having information taken from you is a violation of your liberty (privacy) whether you value it or not.

It is ironic that Mr O’Neill talks of those concerned about the deterioration of civil liberties and claims those people “stoke up fear”. On the contrary, it has been the supporters of the disproportionate and unjust use of mass surveillance systems that have been stocking up fear. He falls into the same trap in claiming civil liberties are a threat to the police doing their jobs. There has never been any convincing evidence to put forward to justify CCTV as being a ‘crime reduction strategy’ as claimed by the government. There has been wide scale mission creep and abuse every time one of their ill conceived schemes is implemented. They were only deterred from indefinite retention of DNA by court action, only deterred from putting all our electronic communications into their databases by a moment of sanity, only deterred from compulsory ID card carrying by the lack of a clear means to force it upon people so on and so forth.

The surveillance state is short-hand for those who believe in the fallacy of ‘nothing to hide nothing to fear’ and encourage the arbitrary use of state authority. They often set up a liberty as being ‘in the way’ or as ‘preventing the police doing their jobs’ and then smear those who disagree with them as ‘not being serious about crime’ or even being criminal themselves. There is a ground swell of people who can see this situation for what it really is. If those encouraging the development of the surveillance/control/big brother state do not see sense there will be no cooperation with any authority in the future.

If those encouraging the development of the surveillance/control/big brother state do not see sense there will be no cooperation with any authority in the future.

Come the revolution comrade!

only deterred from compulsory ID card carrying by the lack of a clear means to force it upon people so on and so forth

The compulsory ID Card is still Labour’s strategy. They have been forced by public oppostion to reposition the policy but all the legal powers to enforce effective compulsion are still present in the 2006 act. It is still compulsory to be registered on the National Identity Register when one renews one’s passport after 2012. There is still the power by statutory instrument to ‘derogate’ further official documents so that registration for the ID Card becomes a compulsory element in acquiring them. It is widely expected that if Labour were to win the election, the photo driving licence would become a derogated document under the terms of the 2006 act.

“It will never be of use as a medical database as the information it contains is not medically significant.”

Why did Iceland set up one for just that purpose then ? See here for how its been used :

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/06/20/scientists.use.icelands.genealogical.database.pinpoint.heritage.a.deadly.disease

“Scientists use Iceland’s genealogical database to pinpoint the heritage of a deadly disease”

Come the revolution comrade!

Not necessarily. These things ebb and flow. The last ID Card was abolished in 1952 partly because it was demonstrably the case that it continuance was alienating otherwise law-abiding people from the police. People can be uncooperative and difficult without there being a ‘revolution’.

By the by, as the ’surveillance state’ grows, so the agents of that state appear to get less and less tolerant of being photographed and videoed by members of the public. I am a keen photographer and if in town you’ll almost always get some species of jobsworth coming up to you to ask what you are doing. ‘Taking photographs’ is my answer. If they ask for ID I tell them I don’t have any but they are welcome to ask me my name politely and I’ll tell them. Not that I’ve had occasion to photograp the police or PCSOs but members of the public who have snapped them doing something wrong, have received offensive and sometimes violent responses in return. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Not at the moment having either a passport or driving licence I’m tempted to welcome with open arms the idea of an ID card – even if it will lead to national Socialists parading down Whitehall within a week.

Why did Iceland set up one for just that purpose then ? See here for how its been used

I should have expressed myself more precisely. The NDNAD will never be any use as a medical database. Of course, by including medically significant elements of the DNA sequence then a DNA database that was medically useful could be constructed.

Big Brother is Watching YOU!

So remember to Simile!

Simile? Is that a metaphorical comment?

Not at the moment having either a passport or driving licence I’m tempted to welcome with open arms the idea of an ID card

Then go to Tottenham Court Road. There are plenty of places that will issue you with photo ID at a cheaper price than HMG!

I would not personally object to a non-statutory photo ID card which people like Graham could obtain from a Post Office on production of a birth certificate and other proof of name and address, to be used where the rest of us would otherwise use a DL or passport to prove their identity. That is very different to the government’s plan though.

“As said before; O’Neill (and MMN as far as I know) are not unaware or adverse to looking out for people with authoritarian tendencies taking advantage of new technologies.”

Whew! You’ve convinced me, then. Why didn’t you say so before?

If I’d known that two people who see nothing wrong with everyone in the country being tagged like livestock in case they commit future crimes were looking out for out welfare, I’d have agreed long ago. What could go wrong?

OK, where do I go? And what do you want? Blood or saliva?

You can’t have urine, sorry. Frankly, you’ve extracted far too much of that already…

“Care to give us any real life cases where such capers have been tried ?”

Not at present. But it is early days. As the database grows, it will have an effect on the life cycle of a criminal investigation. Instead of using DNA matching as a confirmation, they will shift to using it as a first resort. And the criminals will shift their attention into subverting that first resort. Especially the organised criminals and terrorists. False trails can be laid by leaving behind a trail of tissues harvested from dead people in mortuaries, people abroad, animal blood, clippings from the hairdresser’s floor, there are plenty of sources.

Whatever the latest technology is, criminals adapt to it very quickly. Only a sloppy amateur would leave his fingerprints, shoe-prints, at a crime scene now. And they even tamper with the barrels of handguns to interfere with ballistic matching techniques. They will go all out to beat this technology too.

In the meantime, the police will ask for more and more DNA, from more and more people. If they find they have a racial imbalance in the proportion of people profiled, it will bring them out in hives. So they will be out looking to “balance” that. And ultimately they will want it to cover all of us. So perhaps this is the time, before this really takes off, for us all to think about what this entails and how we want to protect the vast majority of the innocent and law abiding, and set the ground rules for keeping this thing clean and controlled.

Whew! You’ve convinced me, then. Why didn’t you say so before?

Well to be honest I thought you might be able to read it for yourself. Looks like I was wrong about that – if nothing else!

I would not personally object to a non-statutory photo ID card which people like Graham could obtain from a Post Office on production of a birth certificate and other proof of name and address, to be used where the rest of us would otherwise use a DL or passport to prove their identity. That is very different to the government’s plan though.

But if we all need one form of identity or another quite what is the problem with statutory ID which could be combined with a driving licence etc for those who already have to carry them?

The ‘nothing to hide’ fallacy can apply to anything a government wishes to push onto its citizens. ID cards are another good example.

The problem is that this specific ID scheme is not a genuine attempt to tackle any problem. It has never convincingly been explained how it will ‘help stop terrorism/illegal immigration/fraud’ as the government have repeatedly claimed. It is not for those opposing this specific ID scheme to make the case for them, especially as there is a truly voluntary citizen card available for £10 right now. So come on all of you who want a new ID because they have ‘nothing to hide’ Sign up here:

http://www.citizencard.com/

The fact that Labour are still pushing this agenda indicates to me is that this is about more than ‘making like easier for us’.

My earlier comments on ID were referring to physical card carrying only. Labour saw that they wouldn’t be able to force this upon people unless they achieved a ‘critical mass’ (I believe their jargon went at the time) Instead they have committed to getting people onto the databases that will form a part of this scheme. It is a pragmatic and sneaky move. It is the same trickery as with the Lisbon Constitution vote, oops now a Treaty so no need to keep the promise. They were referring only to physical card carrying being compulsory. Now they are going to require people to register to have a passport. Voluntary ID cards? I think not when it is conditional on your freedom of movement.

So what will the ID cards scheme do? What if we read the small print as it were? Well, by reading the ID cards Act and accompanying statutory instruments (passed during the MP expenses saga) then you will see that it is about:

- Creating state owned biometric profiles on all citizens. I find it an abhorrent concept that the government can create this kind of profile on me. I and many others control our own identities and decide when and where to reveal private information.

- Creating one form of identity to phase out all the rest. You may not think it but having this ‘gold standard’ also means that the state has an enormous influence over your life. Think about all the places that ID may be required (e.g loans, bank accounts, public services, purchases) and think what would happen if your profile became non-operational in some way.

- Lifelong reporting obligations to the state. Every time any piece of information they collect from you ‘voluntarily’ changes you have to promptly report that change on pain of up to £1,000 fines.

- Lifelong surveillance. Every time any piece of information about you is used it is being indexed as an audit trail. Kind of a who, where when spider’s web that allows useful patterns to be generated.

- A large number of public bodies being able to access your profile without your consent under very wide grounds.

In short it is about prolific data sharing, surveillance and more control by the state over the individual.

XofTheX – “The justification for law needs to be a damned sight stronger than that. “What harm would it cause?” is not plausible justification for a new legal obligation.”

I agree. That is not my justification for the law. It is me pointing out that the law would not be a civil rights disaster. The fact it would help catch more criminals quicker is justification enough I think. It not only has limited or no down side, it has an upside and so is worth doing

“The point is whether there is a strong positive case for the law. This is where the case for compulsory ID Cards and for a universal DNA database completely collapses.”

Well with ID cards you may be on to something. Although there the complete breakdown of British immigration controls means there is a positive case. Not that I support them. But there is a strong positive case for a universal DNA database. It would cut down on fraud for instance. If people were required to give a sample before applying for a National Insurance Number it would reduce benefit fraud and even illegal immigration. It would help catch rapists and murderers. And it would have next to no civil liberties implications at all.

XofTheX – “And it would a fucking serious threat to liberty if it could. My private medical information is between me and my clinician and those whom I explicitly authorise to have access to it.”

Not any more it isn’t. That is my point about the DNA database. The Government is trying to create a database of all the country’s medical information so that hospitals and doctors can pull up your files from anywhere in the country you’re being treated. Luckily so far it is not working. Now that is a serious threat to our civil liberties (and hence my comment about putting your medical records on your front door). The DNA database is not. We care about one, but not the other. Why? I don’t see the logic.

We ought to scrap their other efforts and keep the DNA database.

Monty – “Whatever the latest technology is, criminals adapt to it very quickly. Only a sloppy amateur would leave his fingerprints, shoe-prints, at a crime scene now. And they even tamper with the barrels of handguns to interfere with ballistic matching techniques. They will go all out to beat this technology too.”

And maybe they will succeed. Maybe in some cases DNA will not be the solution everyone wants it to be. No one really thinks it will be a magic bullet that can end all crime. But it will get most criminals. It will get the stupid and the sloppy. That is not a bad thing.

But if we all need one form of identity or another quite what is the problem with statutory ID which could be combined with a driving licence etc for those who already have to carry them?

Where have you been? That fact that it would be compulsory is the issue. That you personally cannot see the issue is neither here nor there. Ultimately the government has failed to make a good case for the necessity of a compulsory universal ID Card. And such arguments that it has made have been refuted comprehensively.

Not any more it isn’t. That is my point about the DNA database. The Government is trying to create a database of all the country’s medical information so that hospitals and doctors can pull up your files from anywhere in the country you’re being treated

Yes, I know. NHS Spine. I have explicitly instructed my doctor not to upload my medical details to the central database until the security issues are sorted out. What security issues? Let’s just say that I have some very particular inside knowledge of that programme.

The DNA database is not. We care about one, but not the other

On the contrary, we care about both.

I agree. That is not my justification for the law. It is me pointing out that the law would not be a civil rights disaster. The fact it would help catch more criminals quicker is justification enough I think. It not only has limited or no down side, it has an upside and so is worth doing

Sorry but the small benefit does not justify the keeping of the innocent on a criminal database. We are already in the land of diminishing returns. Nearly everyone who should be on the databae is already on the database. There is simply no good reason for retaining the profiles of the innocent to solve a small number of cases that might well be solved anyway by more conventional means. It is not proportionate. Not matter how you cut it, your argument was presented to the ECHR as an exemption to article 8 and it failed.

Well with ID cards you may be on to something. Although there the complete breakdown of British immigration controls means there is a positive case

Yes well I have noticed that support for ID Cards is strongly correlated with an obsessive interest in immigration. But even if we concede that the paranoid nutbangers of Migration Watch have a point, ID Cards are not the solution. To make ID Cards a tool of immigration control would require people to carry them at all times and present them to the police or immigration jobsworth on demand. Even those who support the principle of ID Cards are mostly opposed to compulsory carry and the 2006 act explicitly excludes it, as it was and is an incandescent hot potato. Those who think not are probably not old enough to remember the race riots provoked by the ’sus’ law.

But there is a strong positive case for a universal DNA database

No there isn’t. And if there was the government would not have lost at the ECHR Note that it lost under article 8, which makes a universal database a legal non-starter for as long as UK remains a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights.

It would cut down on fraud for instance. If people were required to give a sample before applying for a National Insurance Number it would reduce benefit fraud and even illegal immigration

This is utter fantasy. The NDNAD is not designed to uniquely determine an individual; and as the database size increases so does the number of false positives. This is not an issue for law-enforcement, for it wants a shortlist of suspects to work with, but it is a show-stopping problem for an identity database.

It would help catch rapists and murderers. And it would have next to no civil liberties implications at all

After hearing the best of the arguments of the Home Office lawyers, the judges of the ECHR disagreed with you. Evidence is what counts, not assertion.

The problem is that this specific ID scheme is not a genuine attempt to tackle any problem. It has never convincingly been explained how it will ‘help stop terrorism/illegal immigration/fraud’ as the government have repeatedly claimed. It is not for those opposing this specific ID scheme to make the case for them, especially as there is a truly voluntary citizen card available for £10 right now

Absolutely. The thinking behind the ID Card scheme is incoherent. If the government had introduced a voluntary, simple, cheap ID Card that the likes of Graham could purchase as an alternative to getting a passport, there would have been little if any opposition. The thing is, the card was never the point. The Home Office has been fixated on compiling a national identity register for decades. It and the government found common cause after 9/11 in presenting the compilation of such a database as a necessary response to the threat of terrorism. No doubt this seemed like a cute idea at the time but its cynical dishonesty has undermined the whole case for the card and the database. For years the government has been floundering, coming up with one unconvincing reason after another. All that has kept it alive is a constant stream of public money and a dogged belief that this monstrosity was popular. The government claims it is popular but a large amount of the support of ID Cards is support for a simple voluntary card. There is very little support for the peculiar scheme that the government has devised. One day I may write a book on the sorry story, after the Cameron government has sent the 2006 act to room 101.

Creating one form of identity to phase out all the rest. You may not think it but having this ‘gold standard’ also means that the state has an enormous influence over your life. Think about all the places that ID may be required (e.g loans, bank accounts, public services, purchases) and think what would happen if your profile became non-operational in some way

It is also a single point of failure and a vulnerability in the country’s critical infrastructure. Labour’s idea was that presenting ID should become a routine activity. Some policy wonk even declared that credit cards and ID Cards should become merged. So when a DoS attack brings down the NIR, I can’t use my credit card. O joy!

Part of the problem in all of this is a wilful misunderstanding of the difference between authentication and proof of identity. Most of my daily activities – using my credit or switch card, taking money from a cash machine, logging on and retrieving email – are acts of authentication. I am not proving my identity. Indeed in most cases, the other party has no interest whatsoever in who I am. It just wants reassurance that I am authorised to make the payment or access the service. The obsession with identity proving comes from the state. One now has to provide ludicrous levels of documentation to open a bank account. The bank doesn’t care as long as I am good for my debts. Apparently this is all to do with ‘money laundering’; yet is there any evidence that organised crime or terrorists have been remotely inconvenienced by all this red tape?

In fact, the number of occasions when I need legitimately need to prove my identity are very few. When I get a passport or prove that I was my mother’s son to administer her estate and so on. Even if we acknowledge that money laundering rules have some point, and aren’t just an expensive waste of time, I don’t open bank account all that often.

ID Cards – as the government is implementing them – are a solution in search of a problem.

Where have you been? That fact that it would be compulsory is the issue. That you personally cannot see the issue is neither here nor there

Except that we are arguing on a blog where personal views are welcomed (and rather transparent attempts to stop conversation such as your own) are frowned upon of course.

To go back to my point. Driving licences are compulsory. Passports are compulsory. Having some form of identity is pretty much necessary at all times. Under those circumstances your objection to “compulsion” looks pretty weak and once we take away both the particular aspects of the government’s scheme that you don’t like the rather obvious “frightener” construction of totalitarian governments lurking around the corner its all a bit emperors new clothes for your argument isn’t it?

Except that we are arguing on a blog where personal views are welcomed (and rather transparent attempts to stop conversation such as your own) are frowned upon of course

Don’t be so pathetically thin-skinned. I am not stopping anything, as is proved by your reply to me.

To go back to my point. Driving licences are compulsory

No they are not. They like any other licence they are required if you want to be authorised to do the thing they permit. To show the fatuity of this line of argument, one could argue that a Firearms Certificate is also compulsory, because one needs one to possess firearms and ammunition. Claiming the FAC as compulsory document would come as a shock to the vast majority who don’t have one!

Having some form of identity is pretty much necessary at all times

No it isn’t. I don’t routinely carry photo proof of identity of any kind and rarely need to prove my identity. Using a credit card, by the way, is an act of authentication not identity proving. Misunderstanding the difference between them is a pretty clear sign that someone knows little of the crucial concepts of identity management. But if you are still unclear I have explained it all above.

And since you say you have no government issued photo ID, it can’t be all that important to you or you would have acquired a passport.

Under those circumstances your objection to “compulsion” looks pretty weak and once we take away both the particular aspects of the government’s scheme that you don’t like the rather obvious “frightener” construction of totalitarian governments lurking around the corner its all a bit emperors new clothes for your argument isn’t it?

The ‘circumstances’ you adumbrate are vastly exaggerated. There is little need at present to routinely carry photo ID on one’s person. And I haven’t mentioned ‘totalitarian’ once in anything I have written. My attack has been on the inability of those in support of the scheme to come up with a remotely plausible case for them. There is no need to posit a hypothetical totalitarian government to show that the government’s conception of ID Cards are a bad idea. All one needs are the particulars of the scheme and the half-baked arguments that its supporters adduce in its defence.

once we take away both the particular aspects of the government’s scheme that you don’t like the rather obvious “frightener” construction of totalitarian governments lurking around the corner its all a bit emperors new clothes for your argument isn’t it?

Once “we take away the particular aspects of the government’s scheme” there is nothing to fucking well argue about, is there? There will be no identity scheme and no compulsory ID Card. If you want a card you can get a Citizencard. By the way, what exactly is stopping you from doing that now? I don’t give a damn if you want to carry your Tufty Club membership card with you at all times Graham. Good luck to you. I shall continue not to, for I have no reason to do so.

Don’t be so pathetically thin-skinned. I am not stopping anything, as is proved by your reply to me.

All right calm down! Seems to me that if you want to prove to the rather apathetic public that they have nothing to worry about acting like a tin pot Blog-Napoleon is a funny way to go about it! Of course driving licences are de facto compulsory and if you had ever faced an official refusing to accept anything other than a driving licence or passport as a form of identity you would realise that we live nowadays in a situation where they function as an ID card.

Once “we take away the particular aspects of the government’s scheme” there is nothing to fucking well argue about, is there?

Well apart from the subject of the post – the emotive civil liberties paranoics who always turn up on threads like this!

By the way, what exactly is stopping you from doing that now?

Well I generally don’t need “proof of age” you know! But I could do with something that was accepted as proof of identity every now and again. It is all very well someone proclaiming from their ivory tower that :” Using a credit card, by the way, is an act of authentication not identity proving” but these stupid little nit-picking distinctions are lost on ordinary folks. That you can’t see this rather puts you in the category that MMN is talking about IMHO.

The ‘circumstances’ you adumbrate are vastly exaggerated. There is little need at present to routinely carry photo ID on one’s person.

What were you saying about your personal opinion being “neither here nor there?” isn’t this a clear case of you needing to get out more? If lots of people DID tell you that they needed such a form of identity then you would either ignore them, argue around them or proclaim that you knew best with an appeal to some sacred “authority” from the past. Again, this is just the kind of thing that marks you as a paranoic (albeit one with nasty authoritarian tendencies.)

All right calm down! Seems to me that if you want to prove to the rather apathetic public that they have nothing to worry about acting like a tin pot Blog-Napoleon is a funny way to go about it!

I am not talking to the general public here. I am conversing with politically engaged individuals who oppose the stance I take on ID Cards. I don’t expect to change your mind one iota. My intention to is rebut the case for ID Cards.

Of course driving licences are de facto compulsory and if you had ever faced an official refusing to accept anything other than a driving licence or passport as a form of identity you would realise that we live nowadays in a situation where they function as an ID card

And your solution to that kind of jobsworthery is to demand even more bureaucracy? In fact, there are many other acceptable forms of photographic ID. Don’t you think your efforts migth be better employed aguing against such ‘de facto’ compulsion? As it happens, even with the most obdurate jobsworth, I have succeeded get getting him to take other forms of documentation. Once I got one to take my FAC asd phot ID, for the sheer hell of it.

Well apart from the subject of the post – the emotive civil liberties paranoics who always turn up on threads like this!</i.

Well I generally don’t need “proof of age” you know! But I could do with something that was accepted as proof of identity every now and again

Which the citizencard is.

It is all very well someone proclaiming from their ivory tower that :” Using a credit card, by the way, is an act of authentication not identity proving” but these stupid little nit-picking distinctions are lost on ordinary folks

Maybe so, but it not lost on those requiring the authentication, who understand very well what it means. If showing photo ID was likely to cut credit card crime, don’t you think that banks would already have implemented photo card credit cards? Theory aside, the point is that proof of photo ID not needed on a routine basis; and any future requirements for it are likely to come from goverment. No doubt in an attempt to manufacture a ‘need’ for the ID Card.

That you can’t see this rather puts you in the category that MMN is talking about IMHO

You said that “Having some form of identity is pretty much necessary at all times” and I have shown that that is patently untrue. That does not make me a ‘paranoiac’.

What were you saying about your personal opinion being “neither here nor there?” isn’t this a clear case of you needing to get out more?

It is not personal opinion. It happens to be a fact. The only chance that someone is likely to face a demand for photo ID on a routine basis is if you look under 21 and are trying to buy alcohol.

If lots of people DID tell you that they needed such a form of identity then you would either ignore them, argue around them or proclaim that you knew best with an appeal to some sacred “authority” from the past

Well Graham, how do you function in the world, with no photo ID? And who are these people who are being asked to show photo ID constantly? What are they doing? And if they are functioning successfully in a country without a universal national identity card, that rather demonstrates that the current scheme is not necessary.

Again, this is just the kind of thing that marks you as a paranoic (albeit one with nasty authoritarian tendencies.)

I can’t be bothered to respond to such fatuous abuse in kind. But I will say that I have no objection to anyone carrying an ID card if that is what he wants to do. I have no problem whatsoever with geneuinely voluntary arrangements. If that makes me a ‘nasty authoritarian’, what would you say of the architects of the National Identity Scheme, who wish to fine anyone who doesn’t register for one of their ID Cards £2,500?

In supports of Adrian’s positon, one could note a few items about similar issues in the USA.

1. The FBI has already issued internal memos advising personnel on how to mis-use the solely anti-terrorism Patriot Act to further police powers in matters of “ordinary” crimes.

2. The UK technique of “requesting” all males in a jurisdiction to supply DNA, is summarily rejected in in the USA as violating basic rights.

3. Agencies which were supposed to expunge material from databases, have been found massively remiss, wit thousands of nwarranted records – including horrendous errors (of identity, etc).

4. The US national “new hire database” ostensibly only to be used for child support enforcement, is abused for other uses.

One additional comment: There is indeed an inherent tension between civil liberties and the needs of law enforcement. Both are needed to maintain a modern civilised society. I’d think it obvious that clever compromises need to be found in order not to badly violate either principle.

Civil libertarians often err in the one extreme. O’Neill seems to err in the opposite extreme.

Obviously terrorism is a different case from ordinary crime. After all, failing to convict a common criminal may allow him to commit a few murders while free. failing to convict a terrorist may allow him to commit thousands of murders while free.

Yet the US Supreme Court erred in the direction of civil liberties by effectively requiring terrorists to receive full, public evidentiary civilian trials. It made this error in response to the Bush administration’s error in the opposite direction, insisting US citizens arrested within the country could be arbitrarily sent to military tribunals by Presidential fiat.

Thus no good will come of positions at either extreme.

OK Graham, if I am wrong about the de facto necessity of having to carry photo ID in the UK today, please could you give me some examples. The only obvious one I can think of is youngsters having to prove age to get booze or fags.

XofTheX

I have no driving license and so use my passport as my only form of ID. Carrying your passport with you is not ideal, as it is expensive to replace if it should get lost or be stolen.

Things I Need ID for:
Starting a new job (to prove my right to work here)
Buying alcohol, cigarettes, fireworks, kitchen knives, glue and 18 rated games and DVDs. I am 24 but look younger and need ID for all of these. Of course this will not be the case for everyone!
Buying items on credit in stores such as Curry’s
Moving from one GP to another
Setting up new bank accounts, or moving your account
Airlines ask for ID of some sort, although not a passport. As I have no other form of ID I had to apply for a passport to travel from Edinburgh to East Midlands!
When applying for benefits

I am reasonably neutral on ID cards but we need to recognise that the average persons purse or wallet already contains a myriad of information about us.

Ana has rather pre-empted my answer (for which I give thanks) so I will just add that the most usual need I have for identity is for picking up both the junk I buy off ebay and (fairly often) unmarked exam scripts from the local sorting office.

I would add that in another era when I was a teenager in Brixton having an ID card would quite often have saved me from the not very nice situation (it actually happened 4 times in one evening once) of being stopped by the police and it being hinted that if I could not prove I was that I would need to accompany them to the station. But as I say that is historical and as a middle-aged man I am not sure how often it is the case that that happens now – I certainly didn’t hear many teenagers complaining about it when I was teaching them – and anyway it may well send you off into another rant about civil liberties!

“who I was” of course…

I would add that in another era when I was a teenager in Brixton having an ID card would quite often have saved me from the not very nice situation (it actually happened 4 times in one evening once) of being stopped by the police and it being hinted that if I could not prove I was that I would need to accompany them to the station.

Are you sure that the real problem here is your lack of an ID card?

Are you sure that the real problem here is your lack of an ID card?

Haha. The real problem there was of course a “local” police force who were not local and who were basically running their own feudal state. Friends of a darker skin tone than my own would be stopped even more often.

It was however a given that if you had identity you were much less likely to be used by a copper as an excuse for a bit of overtime.

Starting a new job (to prove my right to work here)
Buying alcohol, cigarettes, fireworks, kitchen knives, glue and 18 rated games and DVDs. I am 24 but look younger and need ID for all of these. Of course this will not be the case for everyone!
Buying items on credit in stores such as Curry’s
Moving from one GP to another
Setting up new bank accounts, or moving your account
Airlines ask for ID of some sort, although not a passport. As I have no other form of ID I had to apply for a passport to travel from Edinburgh to East Midlands!
When applying for benefits

None of which adds up to a requirement to carry ID as a matter of course, which is what Graham was alleging. The fact that you look a young 24 means that you are caught up in the hysteria about underage people buying naughty video games, buying knives, alcohol and fags, etc. Many of these requirements to show ID are of course as result of this government’s legislation, the very same government that is attempting to sell the idea that ID cards are ‘convenient’. In fact it is the same government that has introduced the inconvenience in the first place.

I would add that in another era when I was a teenager in Brixton having an ID card would quite often have saved me from the not very nice situation (it actually happened 4 times in one evening once) of being stopped by the police and it being hinted that if I could not prove I was that I would need to accompany them to the station

I think it would exacerbate the situation. For if there were a compulsory ID Card, it would become usual procedure for the police to demand its production. Let’s learn from history here. It was precisely the police’s habit of demanding ID that made the war time ID Card so resented after the war had ended, and lead to Lord Goddard’s blistering attack on the police in 1951 when Willcock v. Muckle came before him. Within six months ID Cards were gone.

None of which adds up to a requirement to carry ID as a matter of course, which is what Graham was alleging.

Er nope. Graham was alleging (and I quote): “I could do with something that was accepted as proof of identity every now and again.” Without such, a passport or driving licence becomes de facto ID.

I am not talking to the general public here. I am conversing with politically engaged individuals who oppose the stance I take on ID Cards.

Er no again. Persoannly I see myself more as part of the general public engaged in a conversation about people who seem illogically opposed to new practices. I can be convinced either way about these practices but only by people who appear to be having an honest debate.

Well I generally don’t need “proof of age” you know! But I could do with something that was accepted as proof of identity every now and again

Which the citizencard is.

Perhaps (although as virtually nobody knows this and it is sold on the website as “The UK’s Leading Proof-of-Age Scheme”) I wouldn’t fancy my chances of even the Post Office accepting it.

Oh I just came across this – apply it to government or particular commenter as you will :-)

Administrative man recognizes that the world he perceives is a drastically simplified model of the buzzing, blooming confusion that constitutes the real world. He is content with the gross simplification because he believes that the real world is mostly empty-that most of the facts of the real world have nogreat relevance to any particular situation he is facing and that most significant chains of causes and consequences are short and simple.
- Herbert Simon

Er nope. Graham was alleging (and I quote): “I could do with something that was accepted as proof of identity every now and again.”

You have a conveniently short memory. You wrote: “Having some form of identity is pretty much necessary at all times”. Clearly it isn’t. I don’t carry it and neither do you. So it plainly can’t be necessary at all times.

Er no again. Persoannly I see myself more as part of the general public engaged in a conversation about people who seem illogically opposed to new practices

Well I see myself as just as much a member of the general public trying to get some sense from a supporter of a government that is obsessively pushing ID Cards but is unable to give any straight answer as to why the National Identity Register or compulsion is necessary.

I can be convinced either way about these practices but only by people who appear to be having an honest debate

Whatever. I have posted more than enough on why I think the government’s ID Card proposals make no sense. You don’t appear to be interested in having an ‘honest debate’ about those points.

Perhaps (although as virtually nobody knows this and it is sold on the website as “The UK’s Leading Proof-of-Age Scheme”) I wouldn’t fancy my chances of even the Post Office accepting it

Then I suggest you take it up with the government. The irony is that if the government had concentrated on a low-tech simple voluntary ID Card that you could have got for £20 or so, you’d now have what you want. Instead it chose to waste years on setting up the National Identity Register and burning public money at the rate of a quarter of a million a day to achieve it. I think you’ve been had, sunshine.

None of which adds up to a requirement to carry ID as a matter of course, which is what Graham was alleging.

Well if you say I don’t carry it how can I be alleging it? In fact what I was clearly saying was that driving licences and passports function for most people as id and therefore it would be no problem to carry an id card. (Rather a short memory than an amateur ability to twist words thanks.)

Well I see myself as just as much a member of the general public trying to get some sense from a supporter of a government that is obsessively pushing ID Cards but is unable to give any straight answer as to why the National Identity Register or compulsion is necessary.

Well in that case I suggest that you are barking up the wrong tree. perhaps you could find a thread somewhere where a supporter of the government (or better still a member of the government) is dispensing sense on the conversation that you want to have rather than the one we are having.

You don’t appear to be interested in having an ‘honest debate’ about those points.

See above…(yawn)

I think you’ve been had, sunshine.

Well in that case we have all been had “sunshine”!

Seriously Davies why does any discussion with you always degenerate into you having an argument with straw men of your own creation about something beyond the scope of what people have been discussing on the thread? Its completely fucking childish and you have been doing it for years – seek some help with your comprehension problems!

“Well in that case we have all been had “sunshine”!”

In the sense that we’re all paying for it, yes.

But most of us were bright enough to see through it, and not go around claiming it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and anyone who objected was some kind of weirdo individualist…

“Seriously Davies why does any discussion with you always degenerate into you having an argument with straw men of your own creation…”

*looks for strawmen*

*doesn’t find any*

Oh, Graham’s stamping his feet and crying on teh innernets again…

But most of us were bright enough to see through it, and not go around claiming it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and anyone who objected was some kind of weirdo individualist…

And exactly which strawmen are you suggesting did that? Its no wonder you can’t seeStrawmen as you are too busy creating them!

Oh look Julia is being a silly arse on the internet again. Happily you can always rely on some things!

Its always funny being attacked by a rather dopey and confused sloth that thinks it is an “ambush predator” :-)

I am not talking to the general public here. I am conversing with politically engaged individuals who oppose the stance I take on ID Cards. I don’t expect to change your mind one iota.

Firstly construct your enemy. Secondly “big up” your own position in opposition to the Straw man. Thirdly let it be known that you are not prepared to discuss anything in the comments because you merely wish to dictate. Fourthly sit back and watch as others take the piss.

Well if you say I don’t carry it how can I be alleging it? In fact what I was clearly saying was that driving licences and passports function for most people as id and therefore it would be no problem to carry an id card. (Rather a short memory than an amateur ability to twist words thanks.)

Which part of ““Having some form of identity is pretty much necessary at all times” did you not write?

Seriously Davies why does any discussion with you always degenerate into you having an argument with straw men of your own creation about something beyond the scope of what people have been discussing on the thread?

Guess what Graham, I expanded the scope to talk about serious objections to the National Identity Scheme. If you don’t like it, tough.

Firstly construct your enemy. Secondly “big up” your own position in opposition to the Straw man. Thirdly let it be known that you are not prepared to discuss anything in the comments because you merely wish to dictate. Fourthly sit back and watch as others take the piss

Oh dear, get over yourself. I have answered your points. I agree that there is ill-judged adverse comment on ID Cards and DNA databases. But once acknowledged, I am not going to talk about it anymore, for there are plenty of serious arguments aganist the government’s ID Card scheme and its DNA retention policies. As for the rest, I simply pointed out your own contradictions to yourself. If you can’t hold a consistent argument in your mind frorm one post to another, I can scarcely be held responsible for that. If you don’t want to discuss the other points I raise, fine, then don’t. But don’t go on about ‘honest debates’ if you don’t want to discuss the serious objections to ID Cards and DNA retention policy.

“Happily you can always rely on some things!”

You can certainly always rely on Graham to be the arch-contrarian at ‘Harry’s Place’. If someone suggested kittens were ideal soft and cuddly pets, Graham would be rooting for giant tube worms instead, just to get a bit of comment attention…

Which part of ““Having some form of identity is pretty much necessary at all times” did you not write?

The bit which was subsequently characterisedby you as:

None of which adds up to a requirement to carry ID as a matter of course, which is what Graham was alleging.

As it happens I do have a student-photo card which I am now required to carry at all times (if I want to use bus services anyway.)

Guess what Graham, I expanded the scope to talk about serious objections to the National Identity Scheme. If you don’t like it, tough.

Oh I just love it when you get back on topic and come over all “civil liberties paranoic” why wouldn’t I!

As for the rest, I simply pointed out your own contradictions to yourself.

Haha. No you didn’t. You twisted words, accused people of holding positions that they didn’t hold and invented a whole bunch of people who were against you. Again, why argue against “civil liberties paranoics” when they are showing themselves for what they are in the comments boxes!

If someone suggested kittens were ideal soft and cuddly pets,

If they did you would write a post insisting that they be called by their proper names of juvenile Felis cattus and alleging a conspiracy by nu-labour against puppies!

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